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One Saturday afternoon a truck unexpectedly comes down the sanctuary
drive pulling a trailer with a horse inside. This is rarely a good news! We know the woman and her son and they
are good horse people. They are at their wits end trying to care for a Tennesse Walking Horse gelding that they
bought in 2005. The poor horse has been diagnosed with Recurrent Airway Obstruction (RAO) previously known as Chronic
Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
The horse had been treated by a vet many times over the past few years. A
few days before he had been treated with Prednisone and was also getting Ventipulmin, an equine cough syrup.
He was now gasping for air. The family had become so desperate to save him they had given him a shot of Dexamethasone
despite how damaging it is to the liver. Nothing was helping the horse.
With all the recent rain, the barn had been flooding until the rubber
mats began lifting. Mold and fungus were growing every where. This had been a recurring problem for years and
they had spent a small fortune trying to repair the problem. They had moved their other two horses to another property
until everything dried out but could not send Noble because he needed to be under constant care.
By now he had
lost about 100 lbs and was slightly dehydrated. Over the next four days we tried every trick in the book to
get him eating again. We added aloe vera juice to soothe his stomach and enticed him with tiny bits of apple and a
little soaked alfalfa mixed in his feed. The supplement DMG to aid with his breathing and Ulcer Guard were
also added to his feed.
Noble has improved but summers are hard for horses with RAO. His papers indicate
that he has passed hands several times over the years and always during the winter months when his breathing problems
are not an issue. We have worked with the type of problem before and are confident that we will be able to help Noble.
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