Cheyanne

Margaret Brosnahan

A dozen dead ponies hung from the ceiling, strung up by chains at each end, their ragged bodies in nose-to-tail formation like a ghoulish merry-go-round. In the recurring nightmare that plagued me throughout my remaining years of veterinary school, I was on that carousel of cadavers, spinning with no means of exit. The image of this basement anatomy lab remains vivid in my memory today, twenty-five years on. 

That morning, I’d taken the train to South Station, the same as I did every day. Dread obscured some of the sensations of my usual walk—the crisp air of a New England autumn, the crunch of leaves beneath my boots. It heightened others—the smell of leather as I passed the Italian cobbler’s shop, the sight of dead chickens hanging outside the Chinatown markets on Washington Street. I trudged towards school to meet up with my classmates and our professor.  

It was the late 1990s, and our school offered the most progressive veterinary education available when it came to teaching with live animals. Rather than using dogs bred solely to be killed for our dissection in anatomy lab, our teaching hospital developed the nation’s first canine cadaver donation program. We no longer learned surgical procedures on “disposable” animals who were killed right after surgery. Instead, our professors taught us necessary surgeries on animals who were expected to recover fully and live normal lives. The desire for a humane education was one of the reasons that I, and many of my classmates, turned down acceptances from older and more prestigious schools. Today, “no-kill” veterinary education is the norm, but back then it was revolutionary.     

It was therefore shocking when, shortly before the end of our first semester, our anatomy professor asked the class for volunteers to euthanize a group of ponies, in preparation for equine anatomy lab.  My initial reaction was revulsion. As someone who has been connected to horses since childhood, I couldn’t stomach the idea of a healthy animal being killed simply for the misfortune of being unwanted. My own horse, Sweetie, was the center of my universe, and letting him go to possibly meet such a fate was not something I could fathom. 

There was much discussion amongst the equine-oriented students in my class, many leaning towards helping, but I myself was paralyzed by contradictory feelings of betrayal. Would I betray the ponies if I took part, or would my help perhaps make their last moments on earth a bit calmer? Would playing an active role in their deaths betray my belief in the intrinsic meaning of all lives? Or was my reluctance to assist a betrayal of my commitment to my own veterinary education? 

Our professor emphasized that students with experience handling horses could greatly reduce stress for these animals. In the end, I decided to participate.

Downtown Boston made an odd backdrop for a stock trailer. Odder still was the clip-clop of hoofbeats on the concrete sidewalk, and then on linoleum, as a dozen scruffy ponies were led off the trailer and into the building that housed our anatomy lab. Two or three at a time we herded them into the elevator and down to the lab in the basement. 

A bony black mare stood quietly in the group, staring straight ahead, more likely from sheer terror than good behavior. Her coat was shaggy and dull, matted with dirt; her hooves badly in need of a trim. Gray hairs on her face suggested advanced age. On her head she wore a faded purple halter with a piece of silver duct tape wrapped around the cheekpiece. Scrawled on the tape in black Sharpie, in all capital letters, was: “My name is Cheyanne.” 

Making a lifetime commitment to an individual horse is a monumental undertaking, something many people won’t do despite their significant involvement in equestrian activities. Lifetime care for a horse requires a far more enduring commitment than for most pets. While dogs and cats live into their mid-teens, it is not uncommon for horses to live well into their twenties and thirties, and they require intensive and endlessly expensive husbandry. Household pets usually retire to the couch in their old age, but horses require costly housing of their own and large quantities of forage. 

Horses exist in a precarious space between companion animals and livestock. They can be a cherished family member, a lifestyle, a passing interest, an athletic pursuit or a business, and in many cases a perplexing combination thereof. They are foremost in someone’s life while winning ribbons or producing foals or while a new hobby retains interest, but even the most dedicated horse lovers  often get rid of horses once their usefulness has ended or interest is lost. The reasons cited range from the heartbreaking to the infuriating, and as an experienced veterinarian, I’ve seen them all. In some cases, the horse and rider are mismatched in temperament or ability and the human-animal bond never gels. Some owners have unavoidable changes in circumstances that make caring for a horse no longer affordable; others simply lose interest. Competition-level horses are frequently passed on when injuries or arthritis prevent them from performing at the desired level, despite a perfectly acceptable quality of life.

Small ponies most often are passed along simply because children have a habit of growing and graduating to a full-sized horse. With luck, the pony goes to another small child. I’ve had the good fortune of providing veterinary care for a rare few ponies that, twenty years on, had found a way back to their original rider, now an adult with independent means to care for a retiree. These pairs have been some of my most treasured professional relationships, centered around a unique bond born of a child’s innocent love for a pony seasoned with an adult’s wisdom of what it means to care for another living creature for a lifetime. But all too frequently, the last stop for an aging pony is a public sale barn or auction. Sometimes it ends up in a kill-pen. 

This time, it was an anatomy lab.

Cheyanne’s heart resonated in my ears through my new stethoscope, a Master Cardiology with my initials engraved on the bell. With little muscle or fat padding on her ribs, the breath sounds were easily auscultated. I imagined this heart, these lungs, powering sturdy, compact legs across a meadow with a young child astride, effortlessly clearing stray logs and narrow streams. Distant memories of my six-year-old self resurfaced, out with my best friend on her pony, riding together, devoid of adult supervision.

What value in assessing her vital signs, I wondered, when her fate was sealed? But my stethoscope moved on, as I focused intently on each part of the physical exam that would soon become automatic for me. I paused the bell on the right side of her abdomen, waiting for the cecal flush we’d been taught to assess for proper intestinal functioning. But all was quiet. How long had it been since her last square meal? 

Despite Cheyanne’s obvious neglect and the fear I could see in her eyes, she was sweet and gentle with me. I cautiously placed my hand above her shoulder and tenderly scratched that sweet spot so many horses enjoy. Her soft nose nuzzled my other hand as she leaned into me for more. The thought that she was about to die filled me with unbearable sadness. I surveyed the room and wondered if I could somehow spirit Cheyanne away, to be mine and loved by me forever. More than anything, I wanted her to know that someone cared.

The day was meant to be educational—hands-on training in a year when most of our time was spent sitting in lectures. It was especially valuable for those of us planning to become equine veterinarians. We would practice physical exams and learn to place intravenous catheters. We would get experience administering anesthesia. 

We would also perform our first euthanasia. 

The word euthanasia means “good death,” but at the time, it was still an abstract concept to me. I was fourteen years away from putting down my beloved Sweetie, so I was naïve to the full impact that a horse’s life ending before my eyes would have on me. I rationalized that euthanasia by someone who cared deeply would be preferable to the typical fate of unwanted ponies: a long trailer ride to slaughter. But try as I might to convince myself of this, I couldn’t help feeling like her executioner.

Cheyanne’s jugular vein rose as I applied pressure over the jugular groove. My hand shook as I attempted to steady my catheter over a bleb of lidocaine. I tried to block out what was actually happening, narrowing my focus to the immediate task at hand. I pushed the tip of the catheter into the jugular until I felt a pop, and reminded myself that I was learning a procedure to use for the rest of my career. I slid the needle tip off the stylet and glued the catheter in place. Wasn’t the point of this education to save lives? I couldn’t let go of the fact that I was ending one. 

I injected the anesthesia and watched as Cheyanne buckled slowly to the floor, positioned strategically by the drain with her catheter side down. I tried to comfort myself with the fact that she no longer knew what was happening, that the anesthesia would protect her from any pain. We inserted a cannula in her other jugular—and then the blood, so very much blood, flowed from her small body. Her mucous membranes turned pale and then white as she was emptied of life. I watched, shell-shocked and speechless. Her pulse slowed and then stopped; a tap on her cornea confirmed death. The part of my heart that had somehow grown so attached in such a short time ached in a way I could barely comprehend. 

One by one, each pony met the same end. Exsanguination under general anesthesia is considered to be a humane procedure by the veterinary powers that be. It was chosen that day because embalming fluid can’t be injected until the blood vessels are completely empty. We did our best to prevent the ponies from watching each other die, but I’m sure they knew. Dead horses strewn across the floor looked like a battlefield of yore. 

The halters were removed from the dead ponies and tossed into a pile in the corner. I surreptitiously slipped Cheyanne’s purple halter into my backpack; someone had loved her enough to tell us her name and I couldn’t let it go to the trash. Chains, hooks, and pulleys then hoisted the ponies up to the ceiling, and there they waited in uncanny solidarity while we enjoyed our Christmas holiday before returning for our second semester of dissection. 

Piece by piece, we took Cheyanne apart. We’d returned from vacation, the impending academic rigor competing with private reflections of our recent experiences as veterinary students. Our first task was to remove Cheyanne’s skin. Our scalpels struggled through the matted hair, then sliced easily through the underlying fascia as we lifted off her protective layer of skin. Oddly enough, that helped ease the sting of my grief, as she looked less like herself, and more like the black-and-white line diagram in my textbook–all muscle, tendon, and fascia. As I held in my hand her silent heart, I remembered counting its beats, not long ago. I studied its chambers and valves and great vessels. At the end of each day, we covered her up to keep her from drying out, her body requiring care even in death.

We opened Cheyanne’s abdomen and spilled her bowels onto the floor, spreading them out to identify the segments of the equine gastrointestinal tract.  This was a significant part of our comparative anatomy curriculum, the prominent cecum so different from the rumens and spiral colons of other large-animal species. We examined liver, spleen, and kidneys, and the ulcerations in her stomach. We opened her lifeless eyes, tracing the optic nerve back to her brain, so noticeably small relative to the size of her body.

What I remember most, though, after all these years, were Cheyanne’s teeth. They told the truest and most sorrowful story of her neglect. Some teeth were missing, the opposing ones so sharp and overgrown they caused sores inside her mouth. Chewing would have been painful and likely ineffective. How much had she struggled to eat? That is, if she’d been fed at all. 

As we completed our anatomical dissection, each of Cheyanne’s body parts was relegated to a red biohazard bag. The bags were carted off for incineration. All traces of her life extinguished. 

Death is a certainty for all of us, no matter our species, be it by natural causes, by illness, by the hand of another, or—for that most peculiar species Homo sapiens—by the hand of oneself, as occurs with alarming frequency among veterinarians. Taking lives takes a toll on veterinarians, even when medically justifiable—far more so when not. Hospice care is slowly becoming a more acceptable option for some pets, but the vast majority of companion animals and horses die at the hands of veterinarians. The gestalt that I had of becoming a veterinarian was a mix of hard science and attunement with my patients. First, understanding horses on a molecular level, and then serving their health needs with knowledge and compassion. To a great extent this has been true, but we don’t work with our patients in a vacuum. Far too often we are confronted by a human-animal bond that isn’t what we think it should be, and the realities of a society that confers upon our patients the legal status of property.

I still struggle with my feelings about Cheyanne’s death, even after decades of practice and countless euthanasias. In the state she was in, and given where she was headed, the death she experienced was relatively kind. But basic wellness care and good husbandry, one might argue, would have been kinder, as her medical conditions were not terminal. Cheyanne’s faded purple halter travelled with me for years, as I continued my veterinary training through an internship and residency. I kept it to honor this pony, who had given her life for my education (or more accurately, had her life sacrificed for my education). I kept it for the child who’d probably believed with the purest of hearts that her pony would end up in a loving home with another little girl who would still call her Cheyanne. I kept it for every horse across time that had been used up and then cast aside like a pair of old jogging shoes when they could no longer fulfill a human’s self-centered expectations. I kept it to remind myself that all living creatures have intrinsic worth, and although life is not always fair in situation or outcome each unique being is worthy of remembrance. 

It is undeniable that veterinary medicine exists as a profession only because of the humans who seek care for their animals. I’ve learned through years of practice that the human–animal bond has as many variations as there are humans and animals. Working within that bond while staying true to one’s own beliefs has proven to be the biggest challenge. Facing death is inevitable in this context, and a decision for euthanasia always involves a weighing of suffering and circumstance. Well-timed euthanasia is truly a gift.  But the fact remains that our patients’ only enduring value is that which is bestowed upon them by their people. Cheyanne had someone that cared enough about her to make sure her name was known, but once she was sent on her way, that protection was gone.

I often reflect upon how my memories of that day in the basement were affected by the fact that I knew Cheyanne’s name. I remember her all these years later, and so perhaps the small gesture of writing her name on the halter was in fact a way of ensuring that her life had meaning that endured. She is a part of not just my foundational veterinary knowledge, but who I became as a veterinarian. One small, black, aged mare is a part of every life I have saved, and every life I have ended.