Friday, February 13, 2009

What Love can do

On Friday January 30th, we almost lost our very first rescue here at Fauna; our beautiful horse Jethro. He was discovered early in the morning lying down on his side, covered in snow, and unable to get up. Jethro is over 30 years old and had an injury to his back leg months ago. He will always have a problem with it, and has medication to take when he looks uncomfortable. Jethro loves to lie down to sleep, but on this day, he probably did not have the strength to get up. He had lay for too long on his side, and struggled to get up, and ended up exhausted and sweating. When the carpenters who were working at the horse shelter that week discovered him, they called over to my home immediately. We called our amazing horse Veterinarian, Dr. Cesarie, and he came within 15 minutes. Seeing a Horse lying on his side, and to hear the sounds he made as he tried so hard to get up was heartbreaking. He was shivering and we were desperately trying to keep his body temperature up, until the Vet got there. It was so terrifying and so sad, Jethro is so special and I prayed he would not die that day. When the Vet arrived he gave Jethro pain killers IV, and then we all tried to help him stand up. Horses cannot lie down for long, and he was going into hypothermia, from sweating and being on the snow. He was clearly exhausted, and had lost feeling in his front leg now, from laying on it, pressing on the nerve. Dr. Cesarie massaged him, told us to keep him warm and to walk him back and forth. He did not want him to go into a building, but instead to stay in his winter shelter outside, for fear he go down again, and be in more trouble in a stall. I had to leave for a conference that day, and we had staff on vacation at this time, leaving us with enough people to do all the chores, but not enough to spend the day with Jethro, so our carpenters took over the job. We were lucky that day too, that Pat Ring was back in town, he worked with me here for nearly 20 years, and he knew Jethro well, so when he saw that Mario was walking Jethro and making sure he was comfortable we were all greatly relieved. Dr. Cesarie gave great instruction on what to do, and how to help him, to be careful not to let him lie down again, eat too much, or slip on the ground. Dr. Cesarie stopped by later that day, and could not believe how good Jethro looked, and how well he was being cared for. He said we got there just in time, we could have lost him. So, I thank Jocelyn for finding him, Dr. Cesarie for saving him, Joanie for being there so quickly, and Mario for caring for him all that day and the next two days when he needed to be so closely watched. Dr. Cesarie drives by and checks him daily, from the road, but that is the kind of extra attention and dedication a Veterinarian has for his patients. In my heart I felt that Jethro put his heart into it, because of the energy around him. So this is one the most special Valentines Gifts I received.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So nice to see Jethro is still with us We had also an older horse on on my daughters hobby farm and they are just wonderfull with some extra care at their old age. Big Hugs to Jethro Keep well dear one..