More about Jolene
Update 09/21/2021
Jolene is doing really well. She is here 8 month now and she grew quite a bit. She was at about 15.2 hands when she got here. Now she stands and 16.2 hands. That's pretty amazing.
Jolene has a great personality and she is very smart. Also her Stringhalt is so much better. I believe the Vitamin E ( all our horses get Vitamin E) is helping that. It's not nearly as noticable anymore. I think she will be ready for adoption by June/July 2022.
Update 04/24/2021
Jolene is probably having the best time of her life. She found her place in the herd and just loves to run around, buck, eat and sleep. She looks really, really good! All she needs now is to build up some muscles.
This girls has a beautiful soul. She starting to trust humans again and is very interested in everything that is happening around her.
For now, we don't ask much of her. We just do simple things to gain more of her trust.
The next couple of month Jolene just gets to be a horse before we start with her training.
Update 02/15/2021
Jolene saw the vet again on February 10, 2021.
We finished her vaccines and she also had her teeth floated.
In addition she had a full lameness exam, here are the results:
Spastic upward motion bilaterally in hind end. Much worse on the right then the left.Significant muscle atrophy bilaterally in the gluteal muscles. Hunters bump present. Moderate effusion in all four fetlocks and both carpi.
No pain on palpation of cervical, thoracic, or lumbar spine. Normal cervical flexion.
No pain or difficulty of manipulation of any limbs
Backing - normal
Tail pull - normal
Circles -normal
No ataxia noted
Assessment:
Jolene's gait abnormality does not appear to be a pain response. Flexions were difficult to assess due to abnormal spastic motion in hind end. However, no advert lameness was detected.
This is likely stringhalt, or a neuromuscular dysfunction.
Farther diagnostics such as diagnostic analgesia, radiogrpahs/ultrasound were decided to do in favor of an nsed trial.
Plan:
Bute - 2 grams orally twice daily for 5 days. If no change in gait, discontinue bute and start Equioxx one tablet orally once daily. If her gait abnormality disappears, farther investigation into her SI and other structures is warranted.
Jolene started her bute trial 2 days ago so we just have to see if there will be a change in her gait.
We will certainly get to the bottom of what causes the abnormal gait, but we just have to work our way through it.
Jolene's vet visit was a total of $386. Not quite as expensive as we thought it would be.
However, we had to stock up on medication for some of the other rescues so the total vet bill ended up being $606.
Otherwise this sweet little mare is starting to make friends with some of our other mares, now that she finished her quarantine.
She looks so much happier than when she arrived. Jolene is running around, bucking and just enjoying being a horse. Her weight has improved and her eyes and coat are shiny.
Her personality is just wonderful. She has probably gone trough a lot in her short life but she wants to trust. She will make a wonderful companion for someone!
But first we have to get her back on track.
Update 01/29/2021
Jolene saw the vet on Monday 01/25/2021. She got a physical exam and we started the first round of vaccines.
The vet confirmed her age, which makes it even sader. Such a young horse "driven to the ground".
We decided to hold off on getting the issue on her right hind leg checked out until it is safe to take her into the barn to be sedated, so she can rest in a stall afterwards. We don't think she is in a lot of pain because of it, so this was the better decision. We have to check out other joints on her legs as well because they just don't look very good. We have a feeling we might have to do quite some work on this girl to get her back on track.
The vet will be back in about 1-2 weeks and then we will take a look at all of this and also get her dental done and do the second round of vaccines etc.
The vet bill from 01/25/2021 was $198.
So far we have already spent $723.
The next vet visit is probably going to be expensive. If we are lucky it will "ONLY" be somewhere between $700- $1000.
Please consider donating to Jolene's cost.
Thank you!
Otherwise this sweet mare is doing "ok". She is eating hay and drinking water well.
We also put her on Tribute Ultra Calm which is a high fat/low sugar pellet feed.
The first few days Jolene totally refused to look at us straight ahead.
But she is finally coming around to actually do so. She is also finally taking a treat out of our hands.
It is going to take quite some time to put a spark back into this girls eyes. Her soul is just broken and beat up. But as long as she doesn't come down with an illness that she caught in the kill pen and can't pull through, we are certain, we can put that spark back into those beautiful eyes!
01/24/2021 Pictures from Jolene´s arrival:
