A Horse Rescue Organization
Digger gained 200 pounds over the holidays, and it’s a good thing! He has a good appetite and cleans up pounds of alfalfa cubes and several scoops of senior feed a day. He’s much more interested in his surroundings and the other horses than he was when he arrived at Sky Ranch emaciated on November 13, 2015. Such a hopeful way for all of us to start the New Year! (And we’re finally getting some rain!)
Digger: Thinking about Christmas or maybe the next helping of Senior feed? He loves it! (the Senior feed, not sure how he feels about holidays.)
Here’s a quick look at Digger when he arrived at Sky Ranch and a couple weeks later! What a difference a little care and nutrition can make! Digger is doing amazing and we’re sure he will only improve even more!
At Sky Ranch Sanctuary we love Christmas: the chaos, the over-spending, the overeating, sugar indulgence…all of it. And we love sharing our Christmas enthusiasm with our horses. Our horses get carrots every day, but on Christmas we add in some Mrs. Pasture’s Cookies and apple slices. (OK, our horses are not strangers to those extra treats on other occasions, but at Christmas it’s a special mix of all the favorites.)
And we are grateful that these wonderful creatures get to enjoy our human celebrations with a full stomach, shelter, recreation time, and TLC. It’s chilly here on the California Central Coast today, and it really does feel like Christmas.The horses have their winter coats, and they are feeling especially frisky on these cool days.
We at Sky Ranch want to wish everyone, two legged and four legged, the Happiest of Holidays.
Some days I can’t believe how lucky I am to be part of Sky Ranch Sanctuary. Four years ago I could barely dream of taking on such a project. My two beloved Thoroughbreds had died of age related conditions, Snitch, my Arabian, had an injury that would limit him to pasture time only and with my limited riding skills I couldn’t imagine starting a new relationship with a younger horse. My experience with Ditto and Poco seemed to be taking me to the next logical step in my life with horses: caring for horses who were desperate for care. When I proposed this to my husband Scott, I expected “the look.” My love of my horses had drained our coffers for years. But instead I got not only his verbal support, but his financial generosity, and actual hands on help when horse care is physically challenging.
For example, when Snitch developed a nasty canker in his foot, my farrier and vet developed a treatment which involved screwing a metal plate onto Snitch’s foot to keep the foot clean and allow the medicine, packed into the hoof, to remain there.
Snitch is a horse that never stands still. He has danced through his life and that includes when he’s in the cross ties for grooming, a hoof trim or any other reason. He dances. Getting the medicine stuffed in his hoof changed daily and removing and then re-screwing the metal plate was an incredible challenge. I did it once or twice by myself, and when I was done wondered how I actually had done it! But Scott rose to the challenge, asked me nicely to just go elsewhere (I can get a little “instructive” [bossy?] when it comes to my kids and my animals) and said he would take care of it …and he did. And he did it numerous times without losing patience with the “moving target” and without complaint. And that’s just one example of his helpfulness.
There was the time Scott’s brand new shoes became covered with blood while he helped out with Poco (no one, horse or human, was seriously hurt) but I’ll save that tale for later.
Though in our earlier years together I didn’t think of Scott as an “animal person,” he has always been kind and attentive to every creature I have brought into our life, and there have been many. And now with my dream of Sky Ranch, he not only has encouraged me and supported me with words, but has generously helped get us off the ground and set up to provide the best possible care for these horses.
We have the horses’ backs and Scott has ours.
Everyone who has cared for and loved an animal knows how heart wrenching it is to “make the decision” when the animal is suffering too much and there seems to be little hope of recovery. I’ve been in that position several times and, it never gets any easier. Even when the attending veterinarian concurs or even suggests that it’s time for euthanasia, there are nagging doubts.
A few months ago our horse Sheldon suffered a terrible painful colic. It was in the evening (colics like childbirth seem to prefer the dark!) when the horse started to thrash and throw himself against the walls of his stall. His anguish was apparent and great. A call to the vet brought him from a party to our barn. He examined Sheldon and gave him some calming pain meds. After doing a rectal exam, the vet stated that there was no fecal matter in the colon area and that indicated the problem was in the stomach, which is very serious and not easily treatable.
Sheldon continued to thrash and throw himself around with no sign of improvement. It seemed so dire. My horse caregiver helper Madeline answered my panicked phone call and came as fast as she could to the barn. It seemed hopeless but when the vet gave Sheldon a sedative cocktail, the horse seemed to calm, and he lay down in his stall. The vet said I should wait till the sedative wore off and then to call him if the pain returned. I was left alone to stand vigil for this dear horse. I stood at his stall door with my eyes pegged on him to see any signs that would help me decide if it was time to make “the decision.”
I suddenly got the feeling I wasn’t alone…that feeling when you know someone is looking at you from behind. I turned and a few feet away was a skunk. We both looked at each other for probably one second. I said “Oh s—t” as we humans often do when faced with a crisis, and s/he may have felt the same. I figured my only hope was to turn and walk away, hoping to squelch any threat the skunk might be feeling. After walking a few feet, I turned and saw the skunk had turned and was walking away rather nimbly in the other direction. One crisis averted. And actually some humor inserted into a scary situation.
I kept up the vigil for an hour or so more and noted Sheldon still seemed very relaxed. Whatever was in that sedative cocktail seemed to have shifted something in his insides. He was resting and seemed comfortable. By morning he seemed fine and back to his old self. The vet called and was pleasantly surprised I think. That was months ago, and Sheldon is still happily with us. The decision to give him more time to work through the colic turned out to be a good one. Maybe we got lucky. The decision made by the skunk and I to just turn and walk away turned out to be a good one too. I love it when decisions turn out to be the right ones.