April

Do you recognize this former SAFE horse? It’s April, who left SAFE over a year ago to live at Equamore Horse Sanctuary in Ashland OR. Jessica F visited her last week, and took some gorgeous photos of this lovely mare. April was brought into the barn to be groomed and photographed, and Jessica says that when she was taken back to her field, her companions were waiting for her and came to greet her one by one. Thank you Equamore for providing April with a perfect home and a happy future!

We got this wonderful update on April from our friends at Equamore. It’s absolutely thrilling to hear (and see!) that she is doing so well!

Here is a picture of April with Sara, another liver chestnut mare, and other mares in the mare field this morning. It has been really fun watching her try to manage the herd and figure out her place. Lots of drama, lots of excitement — all good and seemingly natural. Sara is the alpha mare in that field at the moment, so she is probably a good choice for April to sidle up to. She even went up the aisle to the upper field with Sara and the others today. 

April seems like she has never had herd experience and isn’t quite sure what to make of it all. She is learning! BTW, we have not yet seen any signs of lameness — she galloped quite nicely during all the excitement — beautiful to watch.

Main Barn and Arena

Secondary Barn and Paddocks

Large Group Pastures

Smaller Group Pastures

The story of how April came to be a SAFE horse is a sad tale: she lived alone in a small muddy pen, her owner barely cared for her, and often she had nothing to eat but stale bread and potatoes. Her living conditions had already attracted the attention of Animal Control, but it wasn’t until she got tangled up in barbed wire that her owner finally surrendered her to the authorities. The barbed wire cut a 5” long and 4” wide gash into the muscles of her neck, exposing and just missing her jugular vein. When SAFE agreed to take her, it was uncertain if she would even survive her injury. Fortunately, our vet was able to suture the wound closed and stave off infection until it healed with minimal scarring.

Once recovered from her ordeal, SAFE sent April into training to be a riding horse, where she proved to be an excellent student. For a long time, we considered her one of most promising horses available for adoption. We did notice that she was very dominant with other horses, and cautioned potential adopters that she’d need to be introduced carefully into a new herd because she had a tendency to kick and act aggressively towards other horses. This behavior was troubling to us, but there are plenty of horses who don’t get on well with other horses, and plenty of horses who have to be kept separated because of this.

As her training progressed, it became clear that April was physically not quite right. There were periods of time in which she did quite well in her under saddle work, but they were always followed by periods of lameness. April was given long periods of rest and time off work, but still she did not remain sound. She began to show definite signs of pain with a rider on her back, throwing her head in the air, and refusing to move forward. When she did move forward with a rider, it was very reluctantly and she consistently dragged her toes. On the ground, we started noticing more ear pinning, angry faces, and grumpy behavior. We began to suspect that she was experiencing some form of back pain. She received chiropractic care, which helped a little, but did not return her to full soundness. 

Based on April’s symptoms, our trainer, Brittney Stewart, became concerned that April might have kissing spine or a similar condition. This spring, our vet examined April and palpated her spine and agreed that kissing spine was certainly a possibility. Kissing spine is most commonly found in the vertebrae of the thoracic spine, which is area that lies right beneath the saddle, which is where both Brittney and our vet felt she was experiencing discomfort. Horses with kissing spine often display avoidance behavior when ridden, which is understandable given that the saddle puts pressure on the affected vertebrae, causing them to rub together painfully. 

In order to confirm the diagnosis, we would need to have our vet perform additional expensive diagnostics. It was at that point that we began to have a difficult discussion about April’s future. If diagnostics confirmed a back issue such as kissing spine, it would be extremely difficult for SAFE to justify the cost of trying to treat it, with little promise of success. Had April, at one point in her life, had good experiences being comfortable as a riding horse on a consistent basis, we may have had a foundation from which to attempt to rehabilitate her. Unfortunately, this was not the case. We could not justify either the expense of treatment or the discomfort of rehabilitation for a horse who had shown no ability to hold up to or enjoy being ridden. It was time to look at retirement options for April, hopefully as a companion horse.

However, once again, we were faced with a problem. A companion horse needs to be able to get along peacefully with other horses. Sadly, April has never been that kind of horse. Since coming to SAFE, she has displayed aggressive, dominant behavior towards all other horses except for one, Zanadu. When she lived in the main barn at SAFE Harbor, she pinned her ears and lunged at her neighbors. Moving her out of the main barn into a more separated paddock seemed to make her calmer for a while, but even there, she began getting more and more demonstrative toward horses working in the arena, or even passing by her area.

The other problem with turning April out to pasture is her weight — after a summer spent on grass during one of her rehab periods, she gained so much weight that we were concerned she might founder. We suspect that her diet of starches in her early life may have altered her metabolism to the point that keeping her in a pasture situation long-term would be dangerous to her health. At SAFE Harbor Stables, we were able to slim her down by watching her diet and keeping her in a gravel or dry lot paddock. Which might be okay for a horse that’s getting regular exercise. With April’s lameness, she is facing a life living in a dry lot, with no friends and no “job.” Even that wouldn’t be the worst thing for a horse were it not for the fact that April doesn’t seem to enjoy it. She displays boredom behaviors like wood chewing, and eating poo, she hates her neighbors; and just generally appears depressed/unhappy in that scenario. 

Therefore we made the difficult decision to put April into our Hospice Program …to give her one last summer to live in a field, eating as much grass and hay and treats as she wants without having to worry about her weight. At the end of the summer, we will let her go, as kindly and as painlessly as possible. April is currently living at a foster home where she has spent a lot of time previously, in the care of someone who loves her very much. 

On a recent visit, we were saddened to see that even in her current situation, with only one horse to interact with, April is still acting aggressive and angry, baring her teeth and lunging at her one equine companion, at her foster mom’s dogs…even at us as we stood by the fence. She does seem content to graze in the sunshine, but she can only do that for so long. This is not how we wanted April’s story to end — we had big dreams for this mare — but she has made it clear to us that she is not in a state in which happiness is possible. We could opt to keep her alive, living alone in a dry lot on a never ending diet, but we feel it would be kinder to just give her one last summer before we say goodbye and set her free. On the day that she passes, we will surround her with love and know that she was saved from a far worse fate. She will never feel pain, she will never be hungry, and maybe, hopefully, in some sense, she will never again have to be alone.

April used to occupy the first stall & paddock in the main barn at SAFE Harbor, but recently, after some re-shuffling to accomodate a new intake, she took up residency in the covered paddock next to the Indoor Arena where we originally kept Strider. It’s a good size area for a single horse, but because it doesn’t share a fenceline with any of the other paddocks, some of the horses don’t really like it there.  Volunteers report that she is acting more friendly towards them now that she’s been moved, and she seems to prefer the company of people over that of other horses.

April has the cutest ears! They’re quite round. Turns out she likes having them stroked and petted too! Somewhat unusual for a horse, most are quite insistent that you keep your hands off their ears. But not April, you can pet her ears until your arms get tired! It’s quite sweet.

April is being ridden on a regular basis by SAFE volunteer Kyranny and the two of them are getting along fabulously. April has shown some resistance to going forward when being ridden but SAFE trainer Brittney Stewart worked her through most of these issues. Happily she’s moving very well for Kyranny!

Brittney would like to take April out on some trail rides, in hopes that April might make a good trail horse for someone since she is so laid back and not a hot horse. In the past she’s been a bit nervous on the trails, but that might have been because it was a new experience for her at the time. Hopefully we’ll have an opportunity soon to give her another chance to give it a try.

April has been on pasture rest for several months due to showing some signs of lameness. We’re looking forward to her beginning to come back slowly at the end of the month and we know she is too. She needs to be in work to keep her weight in check and she gets bored silly if she’s not played with regularly.

One thing is certainly true about April and that is she is a sweetheart. Visitors to SAFE Harbor Stables who don’t come straight into her stall to say hello will notice her cute white nose pushing through the bars of her stall, asking for a pat. April is a love bug who adores people and loves being scratched and petted. She is going to make someone a great friend.

Our friend Alexis shot these photos of pretty miss April enjoying a brief spell of sunny weather.

She lived alone in a small muddy paddock with nothing to eat but potatoes. Her living conditions had already attracted the attention of Animal Control, but it wasn’t until she got tangled up in barbed wire that her owner finally surrendered her to the authorities. The barbed wire cut a 5” long and 4” wide gash into the muscles of her neck, exposing and just missing her jugular vein. When SAFE agreed to take her, it was uncertain if she would even survive her injury. Fortunately, our vet was able to suture the wound closed and stave off infection until it healed. Once recovered from her ordeal, April was sent into training to be a riding horse, where she proved to be an excellent student. April will make a wonderful companion for someone looking for an uncomplicated riding horse. She is also a complete and total sweetheart, pretty as the day is long. Only a slight bit of scarring hints at how close April came to dying. April was a lucky horse; unfortunately there are other horses out there that aren’t so lucky. Helping SAFE means that another horse like April gets a second chance at life.

April has returned from training and has done phenomenally well.  In fact, she has been one of the easiest horses to start that we have sent our trainer thus far.  She has been very willing and generally uncomplicated to start — with no real bucking, spooking or major issues to work through.  She is still quite green, but she has finished her 60 days and is walk/trot/canter and has been out on the trails.   She does still have a major issue about tying…she was straight tied in the barn while being tacked up and something scared her and she pulled back, and pulled the entire wall out.  She escaped with only a few scrapes but the incident set her back a bit, and she will need some work still in order to be safely tied again.  She also remains a bit of a dominant mare and you do have to be careful about what horses you put her with, as she will kick.

Her neck injury has healed with a minor scar…more of a dent in the left side of her neck.  It looks great!

On a plus side, she’s really easy to handle, tack up, takes the saddle and bridle easily, is not girthy or spooky and stands nicely for mounting.  We hauled her out to the Redmond Watershed and I rode her and she was great.  Everything was new, and she was leery of the wooden bridges at first, and the painted lines on the roads we crossed, and the sound of the water from the streams next to the trails, but she stopped and thought it through and then made her way through or over every obstacle, with only one bridge (complete with running water under it and a scary wall right before it) requiring me to get off and lead her.  For being only 60 days under saddle I was very impressed with her.  We even tried her in front for a while, and while she was looky at first, she soon settled and quite enjoyed the leadership position.

Some updated photos:

A great update for you on April! Dr. Hannah has worked her magic and the wound is now completely healed. She is off antibiotics and doing great! There will be a scar there, but once she gains some weight she will be ready to be made available for adoption!

Dr. Hannah’s assistant sent me this horrible photo of April’s injury, just before it was sutured up.  THIS IS WHY BARBED WIRE IS NOT SUITABLE FENCING FOR HORSES!!!  If this doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will.   Everyone horse owner should see this photo, as gross as it is — feel free to share it!

April is doing well.  She’s a little shy and doesn’t appear to have been handled much, but she’s sweet and tolerating her treatments well.  So far the stitches are holding well, and the drain has been removed.  Dr. Hannah remains cautiously optimistic, but as deep as the wound is and as she had to do two layers of sutures (one for the muscles, another for the skin), infection is a significant concerns, as is that the wound will open up.

Photos taken April 30th, two days after arriving at SAFE: