Rose and Brie
HAHS Saves Horses: A Relinquishment Story
Before
The caller was frantic. "My horse is down! You've got to bring your sling and help me get him up!" After arranging for a local veterinarian to meet them there, three HAHS staff members took the ambulance, sling, and scaffolding (a metal pipe structure to help raise and support a downed horse) to the owner's backyard farm in a nearby county to offer whatever help they could. What they saw when they arrived shocked them.
Four thin horses--one of them a baby-with potbellies, rough hair coats, and dull eyes were tied to a fence. After carefully picking their way through a pasture of sharp metal, the HAHS staff entered another pasture. This one contained one of the most dilapidated shelters they had ever seen, set on the side of a steep hill. This pasture also contained the down horse. Numerous attempts by the veterinarian, HAHS staff, and several onlookers to get this horse's legs under him and raise him up failed, and the owner finally agreed that euthanasia was the only option remaining to give this horse some peace. The owner also agreed that it was in the best interest of two of the remaining four horses to come back to the HAHS farm for care. "Rose," a fourteen-year-old pinto-Arabian mare and "Brie," a two-year-old (they were shocked to learn) red dun Quarter horse-type were loaded up the next day and brought to HAHS.
After
One of the things we noticed about "Rose" when we first saw her was that her feet were overgrown and misshapen and causing her a great deal of pain. Once she was at our place, we worked with our veterinarian and farrier to find out what was wrong with this mare's feet and try to improve them if we could. We were not prepared for the grim prognosis that came after the x-rays were developed. Rose had endured a "club foot" on the right front for so long that the blood supply to the bone in the hoof had been cut off and it was slowly disintegrating, or rotting. According to experts, it is only a matter of time before this process continues up her leg and she must be humanely destroyed. Until then, we are providing this sweet, loving mare with the best grooming, feed and horsey companions so that she enjoys her remaining days.
Little though she was, "Brie" had a mind of her own from the minute we unloaded her at our farm. Just ask our farrier, who was dragged from one end of the barn to the other when he asked for one of her hind feet the second week she was here. It was clear this filly had never had her feet trimmed. It was also clear that no one had ever looked in her mouth, because 12 baby teeth had to be extracted by the equine dentist, suddenly turning our two-year-old into a three-year-old. There were a lot of other things that were new to her, too, such as the freedom of not wearing a halter (and a too-small one at that) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Gradually Brie has come to respect us and what we were doing for her, and is now quite the little lady. In fact, she was very willing and attentive the evening that Richard Shrake started her under saddle for us using his Resistance Free method.