Deb's Pony Is Ailing

My beautiful girlfriend Deb has a pony called Presto. He is ancient, in fact he's older than Deb - thirty three, which is about 70-something in human years. Which is very old for a horse.

In the last few months, he's been behaving oddly. Recently when Deb tried to ride him, he wouldn't turn left and had forgotten how to stop. More recently, he's been walking into fences, and getting stopped still by tiny twigs in his way. And has forgotten all his training.

Deb had a trainer out to work with him, but she struggled for an hour and a half to get him to do anything, and then he forgot it straight away.

All of which suggests that this old pony has had a stroke in the last few months, and is ailing much in the way a frail old grandmother might.

So Deb has to make some hard decisions soon. She's going to get the vet out to give him a proper look over. It's really hard because she's had this pony since she was thirteen.