At HFH they see all kinds of horses with all kinds of injuries. Certainly all of the horse standards: leg, bite and hoof injuries as well as a range of sores, lice, worms and complex dermatitis. All the things that horse owners generally see and treat.
One difference is that the severity of these injuries is usually greater and they frequently have been left untreated for a very long time. So simple leg injuries come in as deep tendon sheath infections requiring months of antibiotics and bandaging. Its all part of a day in the life of the rescue.
Once in a while they get horses with extreme or unusual problems. Like a hoof growing out of a pastern or a completely eviscerated forehead or a congenital maxillary sinus tumor in a 10 year old horse or a shattered hock in a mini horse. Some of these problems take years, many surgeries and many thousands of dollars to resolve. HFH believes that once a horse gets in the door it is their responsibility to fix it if at all possible, regardless of time or money. Of course usually lack of money increases time but as long as the horse is willing they will not give up.
Over the next few weeks I will try and document these unusual injuries as a resource for others encountering similar problems. Check back here on a weekly basis for any updates or new stories
Look for articles about the following conditions:
⁃ Injury from a trailer accident confused with brucellosis (Windy)
⁃ Maxillary sinus cyst resection, flushing and magical resolution (Isabella)
⁃ Paraphimosis due to starvation and injury, updated treatment protocol and long term solutions (Oscar, Bobbie, Kelsey)
⁃ Untreated tendon sheath infection (Josie)
⁃ Displaced hoof coronet section with multiple unsuccessful surgeries (Haley)
⁃ Refeeding syndrome in a pregnant mare (Faith)
⁃ Intractable lice in a large population of starving horses (Anita Miller)
⁃ Severe hoof deformities due to long term confinement on an uneven floor (Jonah)
⁃ Brood mare with a broken pelvis and lacerated vulva (Angel)
⁃ Unresolvable soft tissue breakdown in the hind legs (Pete)
⁃ Seizures in an elderly horse (Dahlia)
⁃ Full coffin bone rotation (Humphrey, Brass)
⁃ Damaged eyes and the enucleation of the eye decision (Chance, Diva)
⁃ EPSM and a starving horse (Uma)
⁃ Feeding ramp up causes bone spavins (Eli)
⁃ Shattered hock in a mini horse (Rowdy)
JM
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Is it really so bad
It's the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and I reread my turkey day post and I have to laugh at myself. Tryptophan can make you do strange things.
On some levels though things really are bad for horse rescues. We are all full. Horses in need go to the auction and from there to Canada for slaughter. Of the 5 counties we used to deal with 3 are effectively out of the horse impound and rescue business. One is even closing down animal control all together. Horses die in the fields or are dropped off in the national forests to forage for themselves.
Horses that go to auction are being sold for $65 to kill buyers.
But things are slowly changing. Prices for hay and grain are down. Old fosters who couldn't afford to keep our horses are returning. New fosters are showing up and the best news of all is that we are slowly starting to adopt out horses.
The T-day post was about an impound of 15 horses. One died of old age. 9 have been adopted, 2 are at foster homes and 3 are still here with us at our intake barn.
It's coming on 2 years now. During that time we did squeeze in 2 more equines (mini and hinny) but effectively things were closed to incoming traffic. Now we are slowly opening up new capacity at the same time that animal control is withdrawing from the horse seizure business.
It's hard to say then where things go from here. The need has never been greater but the structure of the horse rescue business has been completely turned on it's head. 2 years ago there were 10 identifiable horse rescues in Western Washington State. now there are over 30. Where before people would drive by and shake their heads or at best complain to animal control now a few are actually organizing to save at least a few of the hundreds of unwanted and neglected horses in this area. Government withdraws and people step forward. Maybe things aren't so bad.
For us the question is an old one. How do we really make a difference. Caring for a few horses makes a big difference to them but it does nothing for the underlying problem of horses and people in America.
The last 2 years have been a time of great churn. But we are still here. All of this tumult has given us a different perspective. Both broader and deeper. Primarily though it has given us time, time to think about the bigger picture, time to build an extraordinary force of volunteers, time to solidify a real board of directors, time to plan and work on many new levels.
Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.
.
On some levels though things really are bad for horse rescues. We are all full. Horses in need go to the auction and from there to Canada for slaughter. Of the 5 counties we used to deal with 3 are effectively out of the horse impound and rescue business. One is even closing down animal control all together. Horses die in the fields or are dropped off in the national forests to forage for themselves.
Horses that go to auction are being sold for $65 to kill buyers.
But things are slowly changing. Prices for hay and grain are down. Old fosters who couldn't afford to keep our horses are returning. New fosters are showing up and the best news of all is that we are slowly starting to adopt out horses.
The T-day post was about an impound of 15 horses. One died of old age. 9 have been adopted, 2 are at foster homes and 3 are still here with us at our intake barn.
It's coming on 2 years now. During that time we did squeeze in 2 more equines (mini and hinny) but effectively things were closed to incoming traffic. Now we are slowly opening up new capacity at the same time that animal control is withdrawing from the horse seizure business.
It's hard to say then where things go from here. The need has never been greater but the structure of the horse rescue business has been completely turned on it's head. 2 years ago there were 10 identifiable horse rescues in Western Washington State. now there are over 30. Where before people would drive by and shake their heads or at best complain to animal control now a few are actually organizing to save at least a few of the hundreds of unwanted and neglected horses in this area. Government withdraws and people step forward. Maybe things aren't so bad.
For us the question is an old one. How do we really make a difference. Caring for a few horses makes a big difference to them but it does nothing for the underlying problem of horses and people in America.
The last 2 years have been a time of great churn. But we are still here. All of this tumult has given us a different perspective. Both broader and deeper. Primarily though it has given us time, time to think about the bigger picture, time to build an extraordinary force of volunteers, time to solidify a real board of directors, time to plan and work on many new levels.
Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.
.
Monday, November 30, 2009
They hate because they can
Its Thanksgiving 2009. So many volunteers came out today, brought their families, scratched the horses. said very nice things about the work we do. It gave me a few idle hours and I floated between thankfulness at how well all the horses are doing and melancholy for the struggle the last 2 years have been. So I wrote about a piece of it. Originally I had names and dates and specifics but I realized that the individuals don't matter. This is a summary of a bigger story. The long version is being written but there is an essential sub-element that may be of generic value to those who think about people and horses and coming together to help them, or not.
What happened to us is not all that unusual. What surprised us was how disconnected from reality and how mean spirited it all ended up becoming.
Even now we find it hard to believe but there are people out there who hate us. We are one of many horse rescues in the Pacific Northwest. We deal almost exclusively with horses impounded by animal control agencies. You would think that good intentions would count for something. Not in this case.
There’s a woman who initially did a good thing and fostered two seized horses for animal control. Her almost immediate demands that the horses then be given to her (starting just 4 days later/before the defendant was even charged/while the seized horses still belonged to the defendant) caused a cascade of actions, reactions and mistakes that continue even now 2 years later. She blames us.
There’s a vet who tried to treat one of the horses with a bloody, paralyzed penis. The injury was already several weeks old in a situation where hours and days matter. She didn’t succeed. We had more time so we did a little better but not completely. She blames us.
When animal control (at the order of their boss) took the horses (a stallion and a colt) away from the demanding foster home, with a goal of collecting all the horses (evidence) into one location, we ended up caring for his injury and their bodies. Everybody blamed us.
The demanding foster threatened to sue the county and the county caved in. She got the horses back. We returned them nearly healed, healthy and bright eyed but still skinny. Everybody blamed us for everything and by now everybody also hates us.
Our group has pushed for animal control to pay rescues at least part of the cost of transporting , rehabilitating and adopting out these sorts of seized horses. There’s a man who likes to go to county council meetings who says as a private charitable agency we should do it for free and that we are a bad bunch for taking any county money. He hates us.
Some of these people are working with and being advised by a lawyer who lost a case where his client starved one mini horse to death and left 9 others out in a muddy field without shelter, food or water. It was one of his first cases. It didn’t go very well. His client pled guilty to 2 felony and 7 misdemeanor counts. She tried for 2 years to get the horses back so during that time we could not adopt them out. The court ordered that she pay us during those 2 years to care for the horses that she couldn't manage to feed in the first place. The lawyer hates us.
There’s a community activist that agitates for change, agitates for the efficient use of in-county resources and agitated to kick us out because we’re an out of county agency. It seems that from her perspective everybody is incompetent and needs to do as she says. I think ultimately she just hates everybody, but now, 2 years later less than 5 horses have been rescued by this county and most were sent to out of county agencies even though these people had pushed for the establishment of an in county equine rescue network. She of course hates us in particular.
This is like a case study in hate. A study in people who want to tell other people what to do. A study in people who judge other people. It’s also a study in an animal control agency paralyzed by the vitriol of a few initially well meaning but ultimately misinformed people who have gone sour. People who use hate as their justification. Primarily it's a study in wasted opportunities, other horses left to die and bad feelings all around.
Over time we have come to understand that that it is common for animal oriented charitable organizations across the country to encounter disgruntled donors, volunteers, board members, activists, adopters or just bystanders who have very specific expectations that may not be precisely met. They take these feelings as a license to tear down all the efforts of these organizations. It’s so destructive and so unnecessary. It shines a light not on the inevitable and correctable mistakes of rescues but on the very worst inside these people who hate. In our case it stole time and focus and money and enthusiasm from those of us who would try and the horses we would wish to save. In the case of the county it gave them the justification to do nothing.
Being constructive is hard. Finding out the truth is hard. Working together to make things better is hard. It didn’t happen in this case. So many unhappy people. They complained, they pointed fingers, they threatened, they maligned, they pushed us out of their county. It’s their ball game now. So how are things working out so far?
.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Who is the founder?
In any organization (fraternal, commercial, nonprofit etc.) there is always a starting point and frequently a single person who deserves credit for "the idea". With Hope For Horses that person was a veterinarian from Monroe Washington named Dana Bridges. From this beginning Dana reached out to other people to help her make her idea for a horse rescue real. My nomenclature says that the person with the idea is "The Founder" and those that were brought in at the very beginning and actually labored to make the organization happen are founding members of the organization or "Co-founders". This seems trivial but it's important in recognizing those who were there at the beginning working to make a non-existent thing real.
Jenny Edwards was one of the first people that Dana brought the idea to and who she asked for help. Jenny had experience in creating and operating a non-profit organization. She was also a member of a number of local (Social Venture Partners) and national (Council on Foundations) non-profit support organizations that provided assistance for this kind of startup.
It was on Jenny and John Edwards' back porch in the spring of 2001 that Dana (at that time their horse vet and their friend) defined her vision for Hope For Horses. Jenny helped her with the nuts and bolts of creating the new organization and would have been an active member the board of directors when the group was incorporated. The actual organization and incorporation of the group occurred over the fall of 2001 and early 2002. Jenny attended these meetings and it was assumed she would be on the founding board of directors (attachment).
Fate intervened and in June of 2001 Jenny was diagnosed with Stage 2B Ductal Carcinoma. It was a combination platter with many of the worst options that Breast Cancer can provide (ER/PR positive, HER2 gene, Invasive not DCIS) . Amazingly there was no lymph node involvement but finding that out caused her left arm to be permanently affected. It took 8 months of surgery, chemo and radiation and 5 years of Femara to get statistics on her side. Jenny continued her involvement in the formation of Hope For Horses through surgery and chemotherapy but the radiation treatments in February of 2002 caused her to withdraw from HFH.
I wrote this section about my wife. She rarely talks about her cancer except to someone else in a similar situation. This is not a ploy for sympathy but a statement of pride - my pride in her for surviving this trial and coming out the other side a better, stronger and more determined person.
By the summer of 2003, her hair still short, Jenny had begun to feel human. Dana called her again to ask for help, things were not going well at Hope For Horses. Two boards of directors had resigned in a disagreement with Dana over the direction and operation of HFH. This should not inherently be viewed pejoratively toward Dana. Non-profits regularly go through startup twists and turns trying to find their way and decide what they should actually do. HFH was certainly doing that.
Jenny jumped in with both feet. 2 years of looking inward and fighting cancer poured out as she worked to rebuild HFH. Within 6 months Dana finally decided that her original vision was not going to be sustained at HFH and she left the group for good. Jenny became Executive director and started turning HFH into the professional Horse Rescue that it is today.
Now there is some disagreement about what constitutes a Founder of HFH. Jenny considers herself a co-founder of HFH because of her efforts at starting up the group in 2001. A more precise way to put it is that she is "one of the founders" of the group. This does not detract or diminish the importance of Dana Bridges to the creation of HFH and her role as "The Founder".
I look at it differently. Jenny came back to HFH in 2003 to find a dysfunctional organization. She was personally responsible for reconstituting the group, starting with a transitional board of directors that has led to the extraordinary cast of characters that serve and guide HFH today. She redirected HFH to focus on neglected, abandoned and abused horses that had been seized by animal control agencies. She became the first representative of a rescue group to join the Washington Animal Control Association board of directors and gained the AC certification granted by the Washington State Criminal Justice Commission after attending the their law enforcement academy. This made HFH a much more knowledgeable partner in focusing animal control agencies on the needs of horses. She also developed a course on equine cruelty investigation and has taught over 80 ACO's from across the region.
Hope For Horses as it now exists is radically different from when it was first conceived. It represents the culmination of 6 years of Jenny's guidance. She is now the only person who has been with HFH from the beginning. From a number of perspectives it's appropriate to call Jenny Edwards one of the founders of Hope For Horses.
Jenny Edwards was one of the first people that Dana brought the idea to and who she asked for help. Jenny had experience in creating and operating a non-profit organization. She was also a member of a number of local (Social Venture Partners) and national (Council on Foundations) non-profit support organizations that provided assistance for this kind of startup.
It was on Jenny and John Edwards' back porch in the spring of 2001 that Dana (at that time their horse vet and their friend) defined her vision for Hope For Horses. Jenny helped her with the nuts and bolts of creating the new organization and would have been an active member the board of directors when the group was incorporated. The actual organization and incorporation of the group occurred over the fall of 2001 and early 2002. Jenny attended these meetings and it was assumed she would be on the founding board of directors (attachment).
Fate intervened and in June of 2001 Jenny was diagnosed with Stage 2B Ductal Carcinoma. It was a combination platter with many of the worst options that Breast Cancer can provide (ER/PR positive, HER2 gene, Invasive not DCIS) . Amazingly there was no lymph node involvement but finding that out caused her left arm to be permanently affected. It took 8 months of surgery, chemo and radiation and 5 years of Femara to get statistics on her side. Jenny continued her involvement in the formation of Hope For Horses through surgery and chemotherapy but the radiation treatments in February of 2002 caused her to withdraw from HFH.
I wrote this section about my wife. She rarely talks about her cancer except to someone else in a similar situation. This is not a ploy for sympathy but a statement of pride - my pride in her for surviving this trial and coming out the other side a better, stronger and more determined person.
By the summer of 2003, her hair still short, Jenny had begun to feel human. Dana called her again to ask for help, things were not going well at Hope For Horses. Two boards of directors had resigned in a disagreement with Dana over the direction and operation of HFH. This should not inherently be viewed pejoratively toward Dana. Non-profits regularly go through startup twists and turns trying to find their way and decide what they should actually do. HFH was certainly doing that.
Jenny jumped in with both feet. 2 years of looking inward and fighting cancer poured out as she worked to rebuild HFH. Within 6 months Dana finally decided that her original vision was not going to be sustained at HFH and she left the group for good. Jenny became Executive director and started turning HFH into the professional Horse Rescue that it is today.
Now there is some disagreement about what constitutes a Founder of HFH. Jenny considers herself a co-founder of HFH because of her efforts at starting up the group in 2001. A more precise way to put it is that she is "one of the founders" of the group. This does not detract or diminish the importance of Dana Bridges to the creation of HFH and her role as "The Founder".
I look at it differently. Jenny came back to HFH in 2003 to find a dysfunctional organization. She was personally responsible for reconstituting the group, starting with a transitional board of directors that has led to the extraordinary cast of characters that serve and guide HFH today. She redirected HFH to focus on neglected, abandoned and abused horses that had been seized by animal control agencies. She became the first representative of a rescue group to join the Washington Animal Control Association board of directors and gained the AC certification granted by the Washington State Criminal Justice Commission after attending the their law enforcement academy. This made HFH a much more knowledgeable partner in focusing animal control agencies on the needs of horses. She also developed a course on equine cruelty investigation and has taught over 80 ACO's from across the region.
Hope For Horses as it now exists is radically different from when it was first conceived. It represents the culmination of 6 years of Jenny's guidance. She is now the only person who has been with HFH from the beginning. From a number of perspectives it's appropriate to call Jenny Edwards one of the founders of Hope For Horses.
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