In 2000 I married my husband, and in the summer of 2001 I got back into horses after a 12 year absence due to college, moving, working, finances, etc.. I saw Sage as a very green two year old and knew/felt that she was perfect for me within the first 10 minutes of seeing her. She had a really nice temperament, but mostly something just "clicked" for me and I knew she was "the one". Did I recognize a "soul friend"? My anam cara? Today, after all we have been through together, I feel extremely bonded and like we were somehow cut from the same fabric, and we both knew it when we met.

After a month long wait and a clean vet check, she was delivered to the barn that I had picked out for boarding. She arrived with loose stools after her 45 minute long trailer ride; this was the beginning of a chronic diarrhea problem that would prove to be both exasperating and enlightening. I did all the worming and worm checks and blood tests and dumped lots of probiotics daily into her. After a few months I was able to change her from being stalled in a closed box stall (since I strongly suspected she did not like being closed in); the owner of the barn let me put her in a stall with an attached small pasture. Her diarrhea cleared up, but then she suffered impaction colic!

It was several days of touch and go, two veterinary emergency visits, and finally a recommendation by the vet for colic surgery. I was 9 months pregnant and would be leaving my job, so financially it was something we could not do. So I pulled out Dr. Mary Brennan's book, Complete Holistic Care and Healing for Horses: The Owner's Veterinary Guide to Alternative Methods and Remedies (purchased months before due to the interest sparked by Dr. Goldstein's book), raced out to buy the suggested homeopathic pills for $5 from a local naturopath and return back to the barn, did some acupressure on the recommended points, and was totally amazed at the response. Within 30 minutes of the pills and acupressure, Sage wanted to graze, then to drink, had a bowel movement, and then trotted around the round pen. I was stunned, and I just had to learn and know more about these little homeopathic pills as well as acupressure. Sage continued to have an occasional episodes of diarrhea. So I have learned how to look at her (and by default, the rest of my family of people and pets) with holistic eyes to try to figure out what was going on. In the summer of 2007 I was enlightened by a holistic health practitioner to the fact that Sage has ulcers and has probably had them since she was a foal (a possibility not even mentioned to me by any of the 5 different veterinarians that she has seen in 6 years).

After seven years of frequent moves and trying to find the right place for Sage to call home and without placing too much stress on her, I seem to have finally found a place that she can relax in and be as much a natural horse as possible. I had resisted yet another move from the last place we were at, but even though she was not in a stall she had chronic diarrhea for almost ten months; I do not know the exact reason for her obvious high level of stress except for the fact that her pasture mates changed frequently, she was next to a busy road, and huge power lines ran through the property. Moving is hard on her as well as myself, but I am so glad that I took a chance on this latest place. She is in 24/7 pasture with some grass growing that she can graze on (as soon as she was in it, her diarrhea cleared up within a day or two), and she is in with another mare in addition to being next to the turnouts that stalled horses are put into during the day. It is a peaceful and pretty setting which seems to have had a calming effect on her. The facility is a really nice set up for myself and two children as well, so we are all pretty happy (finally).