It has been brought to my attention that I haven't updated in quite awhile. It's been busy, missing 1/3 of our crew makes a lot of difference, with what gets done and what doesn't. The good news is John is really doing good, every day he does a little bit more. He's actually doing his exercises, which surprised me. Usually when he's had exercises to do, after a few days he gets a little lazy about them. I guess he really wants to get rid of the walker and get back to doing what he wants to do.
Gigi one of our long time sanctuary donkeys crossed the rainbow bridge a couple of weeks ago. She had probably been born crippled and never had foot or vet care until we were called by a neighbor to take her and her friend Rosie to keep them from being shot and buried.
This is what her feet looked like when she came here. Over the years she had regular trimmings and had to wear shoes on both front feet to keep the feet from twisting to the way they were for years. She had a good life with Rosie, they even had a boyfriend Jasper. The last few months she started to lose mobility, it became harder and harder for her to move around, although she still was going out with her friends, just not very far.
We use quality of life to make the final decision and it's never an easy decision to make. She was still eating, still going out, still begging for cookies............but it was time for her to rest from a lifetime that could have been so much different if her owners had a vet put a cast or brace on her legs when she was born. It would have only taken a week or so at that age to shape her legs, so she could have enjoyed a better life.
This picture was taken 8-9 years ago when she came to the rescue, she was a very pretty girl.
Rather yucky looking isn't it? It's finally getting better and as of today, I wasn't able to find any pus when I wash his legs, although he's got about 6 sores, but they look pretty dry. Suzanne has been taking his temperature twice a day along with checking his respiration and heart rate. He's over 40 years old and we've known for quite sometime that he has a heart murmur, and his heart rate has been pretty high, until the last couple of days.
Of course he needs to be on antibiotics, which for his size is 8-9 rather large tablets twice a day. We tried grounding them up and mixing with molasses for a few days. Gus is very good at using his head as a battering ram, which makes getting molasses which he apparently doesn't like down his gullet an adventure.
Last night Suzanne wasn't here, which meant I got to give him his antibiotics by myself. We had tried animal crackers, ginger snaps, of course the rejected molasses and pretty much got a look from him like, "is this the best you can do?" In desperation I tried peppermint candy. Much to my surprise the greedy boy would take 2 tablets with each peppermint and it worked again this morning....!!! YAY....!! I'm also giving antibiotics to Rosie and Boaz, so far Rosie is no problem, put the 5 pills between 2 ginger snaps and they're gone. Boaz is getting a little reluctant, although he is still taking the pills with cookies. I'm holding the peppermints as a last resort with him.
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