To: Joycegonzalez@rainbowtel.net
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2007 10:27 PM
Subject: RILEY (Horse with injured pelvis)
Hello,
This is Christina Faris, and I was hoping you could find a rescue facility
that could take in my injured horse Riley.
I Got Riley January 2006 from a man named Bruce Dirksen. You see I have
always wanted a horse, and I was looking in the paper for a horse that was
in my price range. When I came upon his ad. I went to his ranch in Elkhorn,
NE. At the time Riley had just turned 3. He said she was Greenbroke. He
rode her around the arena saying "she may lay down on you, but you just
gotta kick her and she'll get back up." Bruce weighed at least 250 lbs. He
let me ride her, and she was really calm and gentle, but she just didn't
have that urge to go like a lot of horses, but I loved her, she seemed
perfect. He told me that her back end was flat like that because she was
young and hadn't filled out yet, he said I would just have to work with her
a lot. So I told him I could make payments and he agreed.
I thought he was just a really nice guy, because a lot of horse owners want
their money right then and there, but I realize now he accepted the payments
cause I was the only one dumb enough to be suckered into believing that
their was nothing wrong with that horse. I paid $900 for Riley it took me 3
months to work up that money because I was only 16. I started paying in
November and took her home in January. I rode that horse for about the next
6 months, but she was different from all the other horses I had ridden she
didn't want to go fast. Everybody told me it was because I wasn't pushing
her hard enough, they told me to "get mean" so I pushed her. I worked with
that horse everyday, and she showed no improvement. I hired a horse trainer,
mark lyons, because Riley had a real hard time backing up ( which Bruce
explained as she pulled a cart so she has a "fear" of backing up and running
into a cart, real smooth) Mark lyons also told me I wasn't pushing her hard
enough. he took her reins and told her to back up and gave her a push on the
chest she slowly started moving backward and he pushed her to go faster by
whipping her with the leather reins really hard on both sides of her neck.
Riley tried to move faster to get away from the pain of the reins but he
said she was "dragging her feet" so he continued to hit her until she got so
scared, and in pain that she fell over backwards, where he continued to hit
her until she got up. That was the last time that trainer ever saw Riley. If
I had any common sense I would have stopped him mid hit, but at the time I
didn't know that anything was wrong with her. I regret that so much. Over
the next few months I realized something was just not right with Riley when
I was riding her and she showed pain when she would go up hills. I took her
to a vet in Glenwood and she pushed on her back where the spine meets the
pelvis and said she had a problem and she would need X-rays, but the only
clinics that had a machine that big would be Ames, IA. I couldn't trailer
her that far at the time so I just stopped riding her. we put her on acres
of land with my uncle Pete's other horses. Where over the winter months her
condition would worsen. When the snow started to melt Riley actually got
Stuck in the mud and had to be pulled out. We brought her over to the other
side of the farm in a smaller area. I went out the next morning because I
had decided that the hay just wasn't keeping the necessary weight on her, so
I went out to give her grain. I discovered that she had either fallen or
laid down on the mud and was unable to get up. This time was worse, we tried
pulling her with the halter and pushing her but none of our attempts were
working. so we ended up pulling her out of the mud by tying her lead rope
onto the ball of a truck and Dragging her out of the mud. on the dry surface
we were able to pull her up but she was really shaky and weak. Her condition
was so bad I thought it would be best to put her down. but through the next
day her condition seemed to improve and I changed my mind about putting her
down. Over the next few days I discovered she also had blood in her urine so
I knew she needed to see a vet right away. The next day a vet named Kelly
Turner from Oakland came out and looked her over. He said that the blood in
her urine was just a bladder infection, and her hips were probably a birth
defect or an injury that she would probably live with for the rest of her
life. I asked him if she should be put down and he said no it was not that
bad. Well he gave me medicine for her bladder infection, and I am still
treating her for that infection, but I am pretty sure it is gone, she just
has a few more days of treatment left. I had scheduled a different vet to
come out before I had scheduled Turner, but they weren't able to get their
till April 4th, so I used Turner and meant to cancel them. I forgot to
cancel them, they were from Gretna. He had already drove out to Crescent to
see Riley so I figured I would get his opinion on her hips because she was
still going down with out the ability to get up. He looked at her and said
she probably broke her hip when she was real young and it healed wrong and
now she has arthritis in the joints. He told me I should send her to a kill
lot so "she can have a meaning for her life" and that she would live for
another 15 years, but it would be cruel if I kept her alive. So here I am
unable to give up on that horse, because she still seems to have a will to
live, and if she hasn't given up on herself why should I. But I can't keep
her because my Uncle Pete doesn't agree with my thinking, and wants me to
put her down, or she has to leave his land.
So I have no where to put her, and she needs medical attention. I love that
horse more than anything in this world, that is why I can't put her down
without knowing for sure there is nothing that can be done to help her. And
why I am willing to let her go to someone else to provide her with what she
really needs.
Thank you very much for your time and concern
Christina
The yellow spots are just an ointment, she got a few scraps from a fence a
few days ago when she went down.
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