This photo (and the far below ‘very graphic’ photo) was all I needed to agree to help Vulcan. Starved and horribly neglected with an old, horrific wound to his genitals – I could not turn away.
Warning: the photos below are more graphic.
HE ONLY NEEDS SURGERY AND FOOD (and love)! We CAN help him heal!
Vulcan is an OTTB (off the track thoroughbred) who was left in a horrid junkyard to starve. Neighbors alerted the authorities and Hearts of Phoenix Equine Rescue FB linked here. Website linked here.)
Evidently, his owners did not feed him or tend to his gaping wound – which Vulcan dragged around the mud and filth of his enclosure. It is horribly infected, but the vet says we can fix him with surgery – and FOOD!
We can help him! Surgery will cure his injury and food will fix the rest. He is totally fixable – Vulcan just needs humans to right the wrong his previous humans bestowed upon him.
All donations are 100% tax deductible. Thank you in advance. I so appreciate being able to help this guy.
Every drop adds up in the bucket! Please help us help him. Thank you thank you!
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WARNING: GRAPHIC.
(Imagine how painful this horrific injury has been for him – all this time…)
HIS STORY AS TOLD BY HEARTS OF PHOENIX RESCUE…
(Phoenix Equine Rescue FB linked here. Website linked here.)
We were called out by the sheriff department’s animal control following a neighbor’s report of a starving and injured horse in Cabell county, WV.
We drop many backwood, country type miles to arrive on a hillside where we had to park in the middle of the one lane road. This emaciated grey gelding was living in belly deep mud in a junk filled yard without shelter. His penis had a grotesque injury that has been, as the owner admitted, present and untreated for 5 months or more. During this time, he has dragged the open, raw and swollen injured body part through the manure and mud and stood outside in the junk yard without shelter or sufficient body hair to keep him warm due to the malnutrition. He is covered in rain rot so extreme, it will need weeks to remove the scabs because they are so deep, they hurt too many for him to even be brushed. They claimed he was a buggy horse, but upon inspection of his tattoo, he is actually Louisiana Gumbo, a well bred off the track thoroughbred gelding.
He is a body score of 1. The penis appears to have been injured and left untreated and infected to the point he cannot retract it. The pain level is extreme, as evidenced in the way he moves and he has had no relieve for months on end. Upon having access to water and minerals/salt, he drank and drank and drank for half an hour and stood at the loose minerals, having been deprived of even enough water so long, he would rather have minerals and water to even food.
PLEASE HELP RIGHT THIS WRONG FOR VULCAN – and fix this, fast! THANK YOU!
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Hi Dorothy: I am the blogger, not the rescue that cared for him. And, this was written a few years ago.
But, I do know that you could google UC DAVIS REFEEDING PROGRAM and start from there.
Good luck and thank you for helping this horse!
I just rescued a horse exactly like this.
Same living conditions.
What was your prodical for the horse. How is he doing?
I am slowly reintroducing food. Hosing down 2 times a day, rubbing with A & D ointment, and it is in a homemade sling made out of my son’s arm sling.
I don’t know… but they did surrender him without issue. I think that might have been the best outcome.
This is a very impoverished area of West Virginia. The animal negligence is abundant, sadly, I am told.
My question is…what, if anything, are they going to do to the “owners” that allowed Vulcan to get in this condition? I just wished the neighbors called before he got this bad.