Lazarus

We were contacted by the Riverside Department of animal Services regarding Lazarus.. They had been called to the residence for a neglected horse.  He was found with extremely overgrown, shod hooves, emaciated, and lame.  The owners were willing to relinquish and we offered to take him.  His shoes had been removed and feet trimmed by request of Animal COntrol prior to us taking him.  When we arrived to take him, we found him in a small 12 x 12 corral in the back of a residence,  There was no shelter, no food, no water, and standing in months and months of old manure.  he dragged us out of there and I am not exaggerating when I say he jumped in the trailer.  He was ready to go.  He is lame in his front left and it was immediately obvious he had a toe crack and a bad case of seedy toe.  We had Xrays done and he has mild coffin rotation from mechanical founder.  All indications show he can recover to at least pasture sound.. We had him shod and he is currently working on gaining weight.  At 16.3H he is a big boy and eats a ton!  He is a tattoooed OTTB and appears to be Wazzu Willy at 19 years old.  He is a kind boy and is soaking up the love and attention.  Who knows how long it has been since he was around other horses or received any kind of attention. Thank you to G.H. for covering his intake fees and to Cristine S. for being his monthly sponsor.

It is with the heaviest of hearts we had to help Laz over the Rainbow Bridge.  His lameness seemed to improve and even his bouts of choke were fewer and farther between, but one day he went dead lame.  I decided to have him nerved.  It was discussed before and reserved as our 'last resort'.  I pulled that card.  He deserved relief.  We scheduled the surgery but the day of, the nerve block did nothing.....When he first arrived he had a tentative diagnosis of radial nerve paralysis, but as he improved, we kind of dismissed it,  The day of the 'nerving', when the block didn't work, he was definitively diagnosed with radial nerve paralysis. The best we could hope for would not be any kind of quality of life.  We gave him the only gift we could, relief. We love you Laz.