Founder Chronicles: Snow rescue, a cure
June 07, 2009
Founder Chronicles 1: Killer lameness strikes
Founder Chronicles 2: We fight back
Founder Chronicles 3: Encouragement, more remedies
Founder Chronicles 4: Battle of the bulge
Founder Chronicles 5: A diagnosis, more solutions
Founder Chronicles 6: Hot days, higher pulse
Founder Chronicles 7: Another little miracle
Founder Chronicles 8: Rejoining the world
The winter following Bonnie’s laminitis attack, nature hit us with three-plus feet of snow a few days before Christmas. The horses would have been “trapped” in their stalls without Bonnie because humans could not punch through the deep footing. Our tractor was otherwise engaged just trying to dig itself out of the hay barn and break us out of our long driveway to the street. We used short, easy-to-mount Bonnie to individually pony 14 other horses to their pens. Bonnie plowed a path through the snow with her front feet, and threatened the other horses with evil, pinned ears and bared teeth if they did not behave. We considered this a good sign. These days, Bonnie still eats only irrigated grass hay and her Triple Crown Lite diet “grain” mixed with Quiessence. When riding, we always give Bonnie, now age 25, long warm-ups and long cool-downs. She wears normal shoes. Bonnie loves to jump obstacles up to about two feet high and she and Buck the Dog remain pals. Immediate veterinary intervention, good nursing, proper shoeing, proactive nutrition, and advice from good friends were the medicine Bonnie needed. We consider our plucky mare cured.
(Read about Bonnie, a real-life horse character in the novel Winning Bet, available in paperback and on the Amazon Kindle.)