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Additional funds will be used for Cowboy's care.
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Thank-You!
Donna A.
Blue Horse Design
Sara H.
Pamela D.
Kay S.
Annie W.
Erik W.
Show Dressed Up
Donna A.
Sylvie H.
Victoria S.
Linda
A.
Cindy M.
Marshall R.
Janet D. |
Cowboy is a 11 year old, 15 hand, Kiger Mule, gelding, NER # 226.
Cowboy's dam was a Kiger Mustang and his sire was a
Mammoth jack. He looks simply amazing!
 
3 days after coming from the auction.
Cowboy has a long story with us. We got him from Roseville
Livestock Auction on July 9th, 2006. He had new shoes on
and his
hoof conformation was pretty poor. Cowboy was lame, the guy who
took him to the auction said that he was sore because he was
trimmed to short.
Needless to say when Tawnee looked into those big eyes, all she saw
pain, fear and hopelessness. There were a lot of people there
looking at Cowboy on the other side of his auction pen. Tawnee
heared many different things as she stood there looking at him
too, but one stuck in her head. "Man, I have a big camping
trip next weekend and sure could used that mule, I'm get 'n that
mule. I need another mule to haul more stuff" Tawnee stood there
listening and then she decided Cowboy was not going to go home
with that thoughtless guy. Who on earth would take a poor lame
anything on a "big camping trip"?
The camping guy sat behind NER staff, but Tawnee kept her eye on him to
make sure that Cowboy didn't go to him. When Cowboy came into
the auction ring the camping guy behind us started bidding and
so did Tawnee. It was fine with all our staff until the bidding
started going up to $600 then $700, then $800 and Tawnee finely
won the bid at over $850. The camping guy looked at Tawnee with
anger in his eyes. Our staff looked at Tawnee bewildered, we had
never paid that much from an auction or anywhere else before.
After the auction our staff had to put up with bad losers of
Cowboy's bidders. The losers where outraged that we had won him.
"I was going to give that mule a great home" - "How dare you pay
that much, you are a rescue, rescues don't pay that much to
rescue!" We replied -
"Well, we just did." We sure
did ruffle up a lot of feathers by saving Cowboy that day.
If
those losers
could have seen the future,
they would have left us
alone for sure.
Cowboy was given lots of love and care by our staff, Cowboy had
a lot of
trust issues and we hoped that he would learn that we would
never hurt him. We took him
to our vet and after many x-rays and vet bills, with no real
answers to Cowboy's hoof condition, we where overjoyed by
an invitation from a bare foot trimmer for Cowboy to come and be
fostered with her and she would work on getting his hooves into
the proper conformation. We took Cowboy over to her ranch were
he had the best of hoof care. We were hoping that all this
loving care on his hooves would enable him to live a pain free
life and be able to run and play as he should.
At his
foster home,
Cowboy was successfully weaned off bute
 and
was doing
well. The following is straight from his foster Mom.
"Yesterday was big trim #1 for us and he was super. All my
ground work, walking, picking up his feet "just cause", petting,
brushing and patience paid off. I used the hoof jack and
grinder with not one problem from him. I really did cry because
he no longer had fear and let me work on his sore feet. I was
so overjoyed. We have a long way to go to reach a proper hoof
confirmation but the "trusting" factor was the biggest hurdle we
had to overcome in order to make progress. Now, it will just be
time."
Over 5
months of being at his foster home Cowboy was doing much better,
but was still lame off and on.
His foster home had gotten special boots for him. He did good in
them, but something was still wrong with his hoof.
It was decided to let his foster mom adopt him so he would get the best
of care for those hooves of his.
Over time Cowboy still was lame off and on. He felt the best in the fall
and winter time, but in spring and summer time he would get
worse. His adopter felt so sad that she was not able to fix his
hooves.
This spring we got a call from Cowboy's mom and she asked
 us
if we could take Cowboy and Nick (who she adopted from us back
in 2005) and another horse named Copper. It was becoming too
much for her to care for all of them. We said yes, we always
welcome any of our adoptee's back.
When Cowboy came back we set up an appointment with our vet for
more x-rays. It was found that he has some navicular due
to damage to his navicular bone, it's not the disease, it is due
to an old injury. Our vet believes with the surgery on that leg
that he would be pain free and then should be shoed. Maybe if he
wore Old Mac boots it would work out well too.
Cowboy has been through a lot and we would love to give him this
surgery. He is a shy, sweet, willing guy that deserves
the best. Please help us, help him. Every Dollar Will Help!
What would have happen to Cowboy if
the bidding losers would have won him?
I really doubt he have a great home. Today he would most likely
be dead or being forced to work on packing trips with pain in
every step. |
