Old school photo of my first rescue horse…. Bottle fed baby because she was a rejected by her mare who had Mastitis. And she grew into a health full sized Percheron!
Where it all started……
The picture of the horse above is of my second rescue horse Beauty, and where it all began with me.
Let me tell you the inspiring origin story of Beauty, a young Shire mare who overcame a devastating injury that would have led most to give up on her. As a foal Beauty had been kicked by another horse, which caused her shoulder to become dislocated. And because her shoulder was out of place, she was not able to land correctly on her hoof, but rather her leg would roll over the top of hoof and she’d land on the bottom of her cannon bone. She would land awkwardly, causing her pain and instability, and conventional thinking would have had most just euthanize, or slaughter her. But I wanted to try and help her, even I really didn’t know how.
Our primary goal was to get Beauty to a point where she was stable and pain-free. So we started with welding a flat metal bar to a standard horseshoe and using it as a brace for her ankle. We wrapped her leg in cotton padding, and vet wrap, and used indispensable duct tape to keep shoe on her hoof. At around the six week mark, she began to gain her strength.
One day I had taken off the makeshift brace and saw that Beauty was starting to bear all of her weight her healing leg. By rocking herself up onto her bad leg and then just letting her good leg that had been supporting all of her weight since the initial injury, relax and just swing to get some relief!
This was a breakthrough moment for me! Not only was it a testament to what we were doing was working, but it also drove home for me how true the saying of “No hoof, No Horse” was. This is what started me on my journey of helping horses using unconventional thinking as my starting point.
As time went on, Beauty's bad leg regained its strength, and she was able to run, buck, and play like a normal, healthy horse. She would only ever be pasture sound, but she was happy and had quality of life which was all I could hope for considering the extent of her injury.
Beauty's story is a testament to the resilience of horses and the power of innovative thinking in the face of adversity. She proved that even in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, there is always a way forward.
