Brief (30 minutes) mystery ailment hits Dude

Last Thursday I decided to run by the barn post-work and pre-yoga class because I knew the horses had been in due to muddy fields and I wanted to walk Bestie. Normally Katie does the barn on Thursdays to allow me to go directly to yoga. She arrives later in the evening, so it was lucky that I went.

When I got there, I opened Dude's door to give him a treat and noticed that he was sweaty. Really sweaty. Sweat rings around his ears, sweat on the neck, sweat soaking his rib cage. I pulled him out of the stall and hollered for the barn manager. He wasn't upset, just sweaty. And his neck muscles were twitching, with his esophagus looking like it was rhythmically contracting. I ran my fingers down his neck but didn't feel anything. The whole thing was Very Odd, to say the least. We took off his turnout and threw on an Irish knit. Caitlin went out to the the indoor with me and walked him around. He seemed perky and pretty unconcerned; basically fine other than the muscle twitching and sweating. He had pooped quite a bit in his stall, so that was good. Caitlin took his temperature a couple times, and he didn't have a fever; also good.

When we brought him back in I put him on the cross ties to watch him and right about then Katie arrived. His neck muscles were still twitching a bit, but the sweat had dried. He hung out placidly on the cross ties, and over the next few minutes, the muscle twitching stopped. Katie walked him and groomed him. I had called the vet and they had said to hold off feed for the night, which we did. When the other horses got fed their evening hay, Dude put his angry face on, and we figured he was back to normal. Barn owner Larry's diagnosis was a mild choke, just enough of a choke to get Dude riled and sweaty, but not enough to have the whole disgusting-stuff-coming-out-the-nose phase. My frantic Googling of varied combinations of "equine muscle tremors sweating" turned up all kinds of scary but unlikely possibilities, so we're going with a mild choke as the best guess. We wet his hay the next day, and he's been _ _ _ _ since. (Not putting the actual word in print for fear of jinxing his return to normalcy.)