Update: 4-21-10 – Please continue enjoying this rescue story, Jason is still sick and everyone is exhausted from the move.
Charlie Boy’s Rescue Story
Charlie Boy came to us in October 1st, 2006. He was severely emaciated and scored a 1- on the body scoring index. His owners were out of the country for six months vacationing and boarded Charlie at a stable. When they came back to their horror they found him in the condition shown in the photo below. These photo’s were taken at our rescue the day Charlie Boy arrived.
Charlie Boy was an 8 year old TB gelding, off the race track. From everything that we could gather is that he was placed in a pen with other horses. He was timid so he was chased off of his food. Then he developed a wind sucking (cribbing) habit to pass the time, and then became addicted. Soon the addiction overcame the hunger for food and he just dropped weight. The boarding stable obviously did nothing to help poor Charlie Boy out. Certainly not all boarding stables are operated with high standards of quality.
His owners feared for his life and felt overwhelmed at his condition. They asked us if we could take him and try to save his life.
Our first priority was to get him checked out medically to make sure there was nothing going on inside other than pure starvation. He checked out fine, he had his teethe floated, and through it all he was a good boy. He was a little anemic, but otherwise there was no medical reason for him to be in the condition that he was.
He was so skinny you could literally see every rib on his sides.
It was just so sad that he was so skinny that every rib could be easily counted.
We immediately put Charlie on the UC Davis Emaciated Horse diet, and it started working its miracle. 15 days after Charlie Boy first came to us, you could really begin to see a difference.
We also got him a cribbing caller and kept him blanketed for the most part. Just in a few days from coming to the rescue you could really see a difference: his tummy was full!
Charlie Boy continued gaining weight. A mere 2-1/2 months later he looked like a different horse! It is hard to imagine that he can gain his weight so quickly, but he did. The UC Davis diet really worked wonders for him.
Spring came and once again Charlie had energy and spunk, and he enjoyed running and playing around.
Bucking and kicking for the sheer joy of it all. It’s hard to believe that just 7 months before this picture was taken he could barely stand.
What an amazing recovery! He was adopted in May 2007 to a very loving family.
Here is one of the adoptive families update they sent us along with a photo: “Just wanted to send you a pic of my baby!! Thanks for all you do to save horses like him!!!!THANK YOU for my boy!!!”
Way to go Charlie Boy, we are sure you will have many happy years to come, and you couldn’t have gotten a better home.