Post by schwung on Mar 30, 2007 16:52:30 GMT -5
A Hard Lesson Learned - The Story of JR
As you may or may not know, the founding members of SAFE met online on the Chronicle of the Horse (COTH) bulletin board in the spring of 2005. What began as a few people pooling money to purchase a single horse off a feedlot turned into quite a large group of people banding together in support of a rescue organization working from an Eastern Washington feedlot. The money raised on COTH was called the SAFE Fund, and was used to purchase and sponsor slaughter-bound horses. In those days, our group purchased horses, paid for quarantine/boarding in Eastern WA, and paid for initial shots and farrier care, but the actual adoption was handled by the feedlot rescue. Back then, the feedlot rescue did not have the bandwidth to do site visits, and horses were adopted out without adoption contracts.
As the SAFE fund grew and our group became more organized, we took over more aspects of the care of our horses, including checking out potential adopters and ultimately, making final decisions on adoptions. In November of 2005, our group split apart from the feedlot rescue and formed the organization that you know now as SAFE. This was when we began developing our mission and our own adoption policies, which now include site visits, full reference checks, an adoption contract, and subsequent follow-up visits.
But, such was not the case in April of 2005, when a 20+ year old swaybacked Quarter Horse gelding named JR arrived at the feedlot. JR was a sweet old fellow, in good shape but older and swaybacked, so he was not really suitable for anything other than being a companion animal. The SAFE fund purchased JR and placed him in quarantine care in Yakima. From there, the other rescue group placed him and another horse into a home, where we were told he was to be a companion and friend to a young girl whose family lived in Eastern WA. This is the only photo we ever received of the horse we rescued, taken at the feedlot:
One thing that SAFE has tried to do since becoming an organization is keep track of all the horses we adopted out during that first year. We have kept in touch with almost all of them that we have been able to get contact information from the other rescue on, and been able to receive updates. One of the things though that we are trying to do is go back and do the site visits on these horses, and we have recently asked our bulletin board members to help us with this daunting task, as many of the horses are several hours’ drive from our home base in Western WA. JR’s adopter had kept in touch – in June of 2005 and in February of 2006, we received wonderful updates saying how well he was doing and how much their family loved him.
A couple of weeks ago, a bulletin board member offered to do a site visit for JR. As it turned out, she knew the family and had given them one of her rescue horses, to replace a horse they lost to cancer the previous year. When we received the site visit report back, we were horrified to see the following photos:
After seeing the photos, I called the adopter directly and spoke with her. She was very upset to hear from me, and seemed to know exactly why I was calling. It did not go well, but after several discussions back and forth, she agreed that she did not have the resources and ability to properly care for JR, and agreed to return him to us. We quickly arranged transportation and housing for JR, and last Sunday, with many thanks to Juliane for driving to get him, we picked JR up. Here are some photos of JR on the day we picked him up (all subsequent photos courtesy of Juliane):
The next day we were able to (with a little begging on my part) get Dr. Hannah out to Juliane’s. He was in such poor shape, we were not sure if he would make it, which is why we have waited until now to tell JR’s story. Thankfully, JR will recover, but he has several significant issues to deal with right now. His adopter stated his feet had not been cared for in the entire two years she had him, and it was obvious that this was true. In addition to being long and overgrown, he is suffering from a severe case of thrush that has turned his feet and frogs to mush and caused deep cracks to develop on his heels, which were oozing pus. This explained why he was standing strangely on his hind legs – he had been trying to keep the weight off his heels. His terribly emaciated state was explained when we looked in his mouth – his teeth being only the second worst set of teeth Hannah had ever seen. He has snot coming out of one nostril caused by an abcessed tooth gone untreated. It is amazing this guy was able to eat anything. Please, remember that regular teeth care is absolutely essential for these older horses or their teeth develop sharp points causing their molars to no longer align and causing pain when they eat. JR is a prime example of what happens when poor teeth causes the horse to not be able to chew the food they get properly!
Here is JR with me and Dr. Hannah:
Photos of his feet. Note the deep heel cracks as shown by the hoof pick:
JR is currently on a mush diet and being re-fed slowly so as not to shock his starved system. He is on antibiotics twice a day, with twice-daily soakings on all four feet in Epsom salt and betadine. Hannah has prescribed belly lifts to help strengthen his muscles and ease the strain of his severe swayback. His teeth will be addressed in a few weeks when he is stronger. His feet have been trimmed and all the old, rotting material debrided, although they were so soft and so sensitive that his feet bled when trimmed. Here are some photos of his feet trimming:
Juliane has done a tremendous job in stepping up to care for JR’s many issues and intensive care, and on Sunday he will be hauled down to Winters Lake Farm where Chelsea will take over his care, and he can hopefully recover well along with Heidi. Despite his horrific condition, JR is bright, alert, eating well, and there is no reason not to expect him to recover fully at this point.
Clearly, and without question, this horse has been SEVERELY neglected. SAFE takes full and complete responsibility for what happened to JR, and our sole interest at this point is in the horse’s welfare and doing what we can to rectify our mistake. We are stepping up our efforts to check in on each and every one of our horses adopted out in that first year. We hope that by sharing this story, other rescue groups and individuals that privately adopt their horses can learn from our mistake. ALWAYS do site checks. Do NOT rely on emails to provide reassurance that a horse is being well-cared for. ALWAYS have an adoption contract. We were lucky with JR that we were even able to get him back, as there was no contract in place, and should they have not agreed to return the horse to us, we would have only been able to rely on the authorities to rescue JR for us.
SAFE has absolutely nothing to hide regarding what happened with JR. If you have questions, please feel free to ask them. The only questions we will refrain from answering are those that involve individuals not directly tied to SAFE, as we do not want to implicate others in this situation. We are accepting all blame and responsibility for this situation and are concentrating our efforts on the welfare of JR.
Here are more photos. Juliane's latest report is that JR is tolerating his twice-daily soakings well, remains friendly and curious, and as you can see by the video, even managed to trot and canter a bit! Despite his poor sore feet, he moves quite freely.
Link to video:
s84.photobucket.com/albums/k28/jtaft1221/JR/?action=view¤t=JR3-29-07.flv
Photos taken yesterday with Juliane's daughter Cassidy: