Not sure how to label this post, so I won't...  Most our family and friends know already but we suffered a pretty tragic loss the day before Valentines Day.  A friend was on her way to my house, we were going to start WW that night, but when I went out to the barn to feed the horses, I noticed Oakley was flat out laying in his stall.  My horses dont use their stalls for laying down (EVER), they lay outside as I dont provide bedding in the stalls so I knew something was wrong immediately.  I ran to the house to put my muck boots on, called Derek to get him to hurry home and rushed back to Oakley.  He was covered in sweat and goat poop (from the stall floor), he'd been down for hours from what I could see.  The barn walls were all tweaked and bent out, the stall door chainlink wire was mangled and he was missing a couple shoes..  None of these were good signs.  I was able to get him up and he staggered out of the stall into the gravel area and I got him walking around.  He was exhausted..

I let him lay back down as he just didnt have the energy to keep moving and he didnt seem to be wanting to roll a lot, he just wanted to lay down.  I was quite concerned that he had spent hours rolling around when we were not home and that his intestines were twisted already and we were too late.

It took about 45 minutes or so to get ahold of a vet, apparently it was a busy night!  :(  She was about 45 minutes away, all we could do was wait.  We tried for quite some time to get him back up, 4 of us pushing and pulling on him and he just wasnt putting any effort in.  I knew he needed to be up for the vet exam and right before she got there, I heard Derek utter the word "Duck"..  DING DING DING..  My eyes filled with excitement and I told him "If anything will get this horse up, it will be the scent of a dead duck!"

The neighbors were over as well, I felt badly for Suzi to have to see this going on, but also realized that this is the reality of horse ownership and although I didnt feel we were on a very good path with Oakley at the moment, you cant hide from this happening forever. 

So Derek comes back with the dead duck and we put it down by Oakley's nose and that horse jumped up so fast, you'd have thought he was on fire!!  We all cheered and even laughed, I think the onlookers wouldnt have believed it if they hadnt seen it happen. 

Long story short, Oakley had a blockage in his small intestine and the outlook was very poor.  It was not likely he would recover from this on his own and surgery was not an option ($10k plus!) so we made the heart-wrenching decision to put him down immediately.  We gave the neighbor kids the time to come over and say goodbye to him and then everyone left except my friend Rachel.  So it was an intimate setting I guess you could say for Oakley's last moments..  We all shed tears, Derek, myself, Rachel and even the vet....  Oakley was the perfect horse for Derek and it will be hard to replace him.