In the last blog we told you about Mater’s need and your generous support is overwhelming! So far $680 has been donated out of the needed $800. Thank you all so much! We’re not there yet, but Mater is counting on you for the rest. We can do this! Click here to help.
We are a bit behind on the events happening at the shelter, it’s time to catch you up.
On Thursday the 13th, Spero found himself getting very sleepy. He was finally healthy enough to have his ‘brain surgery.’
Soon he was resting peacefully in the green grass with the sun shining gently down on him. Little did he know that when he woke up he would be a gelding! The vet got right to work on the operation.
Before Spero knew it he was waking up.
Before long he was up eating grass like nothing had happened. Now his future is bright and happy indeed.
Friday the rescue rig hooked up and went to carry something a little different to the shelter than normal. A local nursery was having a tremendous sale on big beautiful shade trees. The trees were normally $65 and were marked down to $15 for these great big trees.
We were able to get 10 trees and soon they were on the forklift heading to the trailer.
Then the nursery guys tipped them over and put them in. They were quite tickled pink that we had such a nice roomy trailer to put them in.
After they were all loaded Tawnee got in the trailer for a visual on how big these trees are. She is the little dot on the right of the picture.
When the trailer pulled into the shelter Mr T couldn’t believe his eyes. So much yummy food for him to eat up!
He watched Jason carefully unload the trees one by one. He was just dying to get out of his pen and eat them up. Sorry Mr T, these aren’t a treat for you.
Finally they were all unloaded and waiting for the big planting day that would come later.
Sunday Naughty Patti was surrendered. She is an 18 year old TB mare, off the track. We are told she is trained to ride. The interesting thing was, after she was surrendered, most people drive away with their horse trailer.
Instead they asked where they could park the trailer. Come to find out they wanted to donate their trailer! That was so great of them, we can always use another trailer. This is an extra wide 2 horse straight that is perfect for smaller critters.
Spero took the new week on with a different outlook. His stallion days are behind him now, now he is a handsome gelding.
Monday a volunteer brought his tractor down with a backhoe to dig the holes for the trees.
We have lots of fertilizer around the shelter for some reason, so it was mixed into the dirt while the trees were being planted. We are all hoping that they do very well in their forever home.
Larry was kept busy with the shelters tractor cleaning pens and cleaning up the big messes. We cannot tell you all how huge of a blessing this tractor is. It makes cleaning out the pens an easy chore instead of a huge back breaking chore.
Soon the pens were so nice and clean.
The trees look so great in the ground.
Everyone at the shelter has been suspicious about Lady. She is doing great but something was going on with her.
Lady came to us back in June a poor skinny mare that had been seized by Animal Control and then turned over to us.
She was taken to the vet to see what was going on inside.
The vet examined her and gave her an ultrasound which confirmed everyone’s suspicions: Lady is pregnant. The vet says that she is 5-6 months along and the baby foal is about the size of a large cat. It was so neat seeing him/her jump around on the ultrasound. We are looking for an adoptive home for her or a sponsor to keep her at the shelter until her and her baby are ready for their forever home. She is about 8 years old, an off the track TB.
Likegramma was also taken to the vet. We had gotten her weight back, but there was a lot of health issues going on with her.
She came to us the same time Lady did, and shortly after developed severe abscesses in both her front hooves. We were able to pull her out of that, but then she would relapse.
X-rays were being taken to find out exactly what was going on inside her hooves. The x-rays showed that there was a lot going on. She had a rotated coffin bone, and had probably been the victim of coffin injections. Joint injections can cause breakdown of the cartilage over the long term, which happened to poor Likegramma. All this was making Likegramma suseptable to hoof abscess’ and other hoof problems. The vet told us that most likely she was experiencing lameness problems on the track and they started injecting her to keep her running in the races. They didn’t care about the long term effects, but the reality is she would continually get worse and experience more and more pain as her joints and cartilage break down. We made the very sad and hard decision to give her peace forever, we could not let her keep going on in a life with horrible pain where there is no chance of recovery.
Monique, one of the 10 emaciated horses that were rescued recently, was ultrasounded and found to not be pregnant. What a huge relief to everyone! Her health is so poor putting a pregnancy on top of it would be terrible.
Today’s Ebay Giving Works item is a brand new foal piggie bank. What a great way to save your change! It’s only $9.99 right now and 20% of the sale price goes to help the horses at our shelter. To bid on this item, click here.
Many thanks to Nanette G., Julie S., Betsy W., Anni H., Emily J., Gayle L. and Sheri B. for their generous donations!