Predator Attack on Horse

The cougar came off the rockface onto the withers and its second strike found the neck, the big vessels, the deep ones. Your horse goes down before your gun clears leather, and no vet, no reviver, no prayer follows where it has gone. The cat slides back into the dark with your shot singing after it.

• You are afoot in predator country with a saddle to carry
• Your shots may have marked the cat, a vengeance hunt is yours if you want it
• /me stands over the horse with the rifle still raised, breathing hard at the dark

Recovery There is none, there is a grave to dig and a cat to hunt.·No doctor needed

The wolves ran it as a pack runs elk, and one got its jaws where wolves aim, into the hamstring above the hock. The tendon is more cut than whole. The vet can suture flesh but not restring a leg; if it heals at all, your horse will drag that leg to the end of its days, a pasture pet, never a mount.

• The decision is yours: a put-down, or permanent retirement to pasture
• The horse cannot travel, arrange a wagon, or a slow lead home over days
• /me crouches by the trembling hind leg, hands hovering, not knowing where to start

Recovery The leg never comes back, whatever mercy or pasture you choose is forever.·Doctor, urgently

The cougar's first strike raked the neck from crest to throat-latch before your horse's plunge threw it off, deep claw channels a finger apart, missing the big vessels by the width of a rein. The vet sews by lantern light for two hours and installs a drain, and every horseman who visits goes quiet at the sight.

• Neck bandages changed daily for 5 days, the horse wears a collar of linen
• No bridle pressure on the neck, ride in a loose hackamore or lead, 4 days
• Four parallel scars down the neck forever, an unmistakable story trophy

Recovery 6 sutured days with drains and carbolic, or festering channels and fever by day 3 untreated.·Doctor, urgently

Two wolves got their teeth into the haunch as it wheeled, and where they gripped, the muscle opened to the bone when the horse tore free. It stood its ground after that, hooves flying, there is wolf blood in the grass too, but the wound is a cavern, and the vet packs and sutures it in layers.

• Puncture-and-tear wounds mean the highest fever watch, check twice daily for 5 days
• No rider's weight for 4 days, lead your horse
• The horse squeals and kicks at anything approaching from behind for 5 days

Recovery 7 days of drains, carbolic, and packing, untreated, deep bites like these near always fester.·Doctor, urgently

A single long rip down the flank where a wolf leapt and dragged, ugly, flapping, and mercifully shallower than it looks. Forty-odd stitches of silk pull it back together into a seam that will silver into one of the great scars of the territory.

• The girth cannot cross the wound, ride bareback with a surcingle set forward, or walk, 4 days
• Suture line checked and swabbed daily for 4 days
• A hand-span silver scar down the flank, permanent bragging material

Recovery 5 days sutured and swabbed, 7 with the flap crusting badly if not sewn.·Doctor required

Four tidy punctures in the haunch, hardly bleeding, and that is exactly the trouble. Bite wounds seal at the top and rot at the bottom, the vet says, so he opens each one wider, flushes them with carbolic until the horse dances, and forbids you to let them close early.

• Flush each puncture daily for 4 days, the horse will hold a grudge about it
• Trot-lame on the bitten side for 3 days
• /me irrigates the punctures with the syringe while the horse's ears pin flat

Recovery 5 days flushed and open, or an abscess the size of a fist by day 4 if they seal.·Doctor required

The cat overshot its killing hold and got only claws into the withers as it went over, deep rakes through hide and into the muscle ridge where the saddle sits. Nothing vital, everything inconvenient: no saddle can touch that ridge until it knits.

• No saddle whatsoever for 4 days, bareback hurts it too; walk or ride another horse
• Rake wounds swabbed with carbolic daily for 4 days
• Claw scars across the withers under the mane forever

Recovery 5 days for the rakes to close, 7 if the horse rolls and reopens them.·Doctor required

It stood and fought, and took its wounds in front, bites to the cheek and one ear shredded ragged where it swung its head as a club. The vet stitches what can be stitched, and your horse comes out of it with a fighter's face and, apparently, a taste for vengeance against anything canine.

• Head-shy on the bitten side for 4 days, bridle slowly and from the off side
• A ragged, permanently torn ear edge, the toughest-looking horse at any rail
• The horse pins its ears and strikes at dogs, manage it around camp mutts for 5 days

Recovery 4 days for the cheek to knit, 6 for the ear to stop weeping, it heals ragged regardless.·Doctor required

One wolf got one grip, and only just, a crescent of shallow punctures in the meat of the haunch, none deeper than a fingertip. Cleaned early and cleaned well, they are more nuisance than danger, though the horse disagrees loudly at bathing time.

• Swab the punctures with diluted carbolic daily for 3 days
• Mild stiffness behind for 2 days
• /me dabs at the bite marks while the horse stamps its opinion of the process

Recovery 3 days cleaned daily, 5 with a scare of swelling if neglected.·Doctor advised

A wolf went low, snapping at the legs as they ran, and got a mouthful of hind fetlock, punctures either side and a joint that filled overnight. It bears weight but resents it; the low bite means mud and dirt went in with the teeth.

• Wrap the fetlock clean and dry, changed daily for 3 days
• A head-bobbing trot for 3 days
• No creek crossings or muddy trails for 3 days, keep the wound dry

Recovery 4 days wrapped and dry, 6 if it stays wet and angry.·Doctor advised

Claws caught the rump as your horse kicked free, three shallow furrows through hide and just into the meat, bleeding freely but honestly. The kick, witnesses will note, connected: the predator went home hurting too.

• Three parallel scab lines across the rump, the hair grows back white
• Tender to brush or saddle-blanket over the rump for 3 days
• Rights to the story of the kick that saved the day

Recovery 3 days salved, 5 crusted and itchy without.·Doctor advised

The predator never landed a tooth, the damage came from the escape, a blind panicked bolt through timber that left your horse cut at the shoulders, ripped at the stifle by a snag, and standing at the end of it blowing like a bellows. If you were aboard when it broke, you took your own tumble somewhere back there.

• An assortment of shallow cuts to clean and salve for 3 days
• The horse spooks violently at wolf-howl and rustling brush for 5 days
• If you were riding, roll your own fall on a rider table

Recovery 3 days for the cuts, the nerves take the full 5.·Doctor advised

The wolf lunged for the hamstring and got tail, a mouthful of dock, bitten hard enough to bleed and to cost the horse a third of its tail hair in the tearing-free. Painful, undignified, and endlessly commented upon at every hitching rail.

• The dock is bitten and sore, no tail-pulling grooming for 3 days
• A visibly ragged, shortened tail for months of story
• /me tries to comb what's left of the tail into respectability

Recovery 3 days for the dock to heal, the tail's looks are a longer sentence.·Doctor advised

A single nip on the haunch, a bruise with two shallow tooth-scores, before your gunfire or the horse's hooves persuaded the animal that easier dinners existed. By morning the horse cares more about breakfast than the mark.

• A coin-sized bruise with tooth marks for a few days
• The horse is watchful at dusk for 2 days, ears working the treeline

Recovery 2 days at most, one whiskey-wash tonight.·No doctor needed

Your horse wheeled and fought, and won, taking nothing worse than a scratch on the chest and a swollen spot where a wolf glanced off its knee. The pack decided the arithmetic was bad and dissolved into the dark.

• One shallow chest scratch to salve for 2 days
• A faint swelling on the knee, gone in 2 days

Recovery 2 days of nothing much, pride heals instantly.·No doctor needed

Claws snagged the saddle skirt and a tooth clipped hide over the hip in one glancing scrape, the whole attack lasted three heartbeats before your horse's burst of speed settled the matter. The scrape barely beads blood.

• A shallow scrape over the hip, scabbed by tomorrow
• Torn stitching on the saddle skirt to repair
• The horse gives rocky overhangs a wide, theatrical berth for 3 days

Recovery A day or two, the saddle takes longer than the horse.·No doctor needed

One snap of jaws caught the hock a glancing scrape as your horse kicked out, a raw graze the size of a playing card, no puncture, no depth. The kick, judging by the yelp, landed considerably harder than the bite.

• A raw graze on the hock to keep clean for 2 days
• Faint stiffness in the kicking leg for 1 day

Recovery 2 days with a daily wash.·No doctor needed

The wolf timed its lunge and got a mouthful of tail hair, nothing but hair, which it kept as your horse's heels invited it to try again. Somewhere out there is a wolf with a black-and-silver souvenir and a headache.

• A thin patch in the tail, the only evidence anything happened
• Your horse is smug and deserves to be

Recovery The tail grows back on its own schedule, nothing else needs to.·No doctor needed

The cougar's leap met both hind hooves square in the chest mid-air, a crack of impact, a yowl, and a cat-shaped absence departing at speed. Your horse has a scratch where one claw kissed the hip and an insufferable air of triumph.

• One hair-thin scratch on the hip
• Every hand at camp hears the story with the kick acted out
• /me re-enacts the double-barreled kick with both fists

Recovery Nothing to speak of, the cat, presumably, is another matter.·No doctor needed

The wolf came out of the grass and got its teeth into the saddle blanket's trailing edge, and the blanket came free, wrapping the animal like a fisherman's net. Your horse spun clear untouched while the pack's finest thrashed inside a woolen sack, and the last you saw was the blanket loping off wearing a wolf. Not a mark on your horse; you may have to buy a new blanket and several rounds at the saloon when you tell it.

• Your horse is completely unmarked, the blanket died a hero
• The story is legal tender in any bunkhouse for a month
• /me spreads the tale wide, arms out, wolf-in-a-blanket and all

Recovery None, save a period of mourning for the blanket.·No doctor needed