Shiredale Farm Equine Sanctuary

12/13/2023

Happy National Day of the Horse! We are so blessed to be able to call these ours! Our little sanctuary for special needs horses! So blessed to be able to work with the neurologic horses so they have a soft place to live out their days. It is amazing to be able to watch them learn how to use their bodies to the best of their abilities. Aurora didn't know how to rear when she got here as she was so unstable on her hind legs. Through supplements and care (and Rampage her pester buddy) she has learned to rear. They will never be normal but they can be here and just be the best horses they can be! In honor of all the previous horses in the world all the way through the ones in the future, Happy National Day of the Horse!

12/09/2023

The princess FULLY enjoyed her acupuncture session today! We started acupuncture treatments over the summer when Cami and Adrianna were struggling with anhidrosis despite being on supplements to increase sweating, being under fans and in front of misters. After the first treatment they got so much better, they were on weekly treatments for awhile, then graduated to every other week and are now on their maintenance once a month treatments. Cami learned acupuncture is her favorite thing in the entire world (other than her food!) and I now question who she loves more, me or her acupuncture vet Dr. Tavel. Whenever Dr Tavel comes she is relentless about getting Dr Tavel to work on her. She regularly pushes into the needles, then she clearly falls asleep during the treatment and gets grumpy when she goes to remove the needles! Spoiled little princess! But whatever keeps her happy!

08/16/2023

Some new updated pictures of the herd! They are surviving what will be one of the hottest and driest summers ever recorded in Scottsdale, Arizona! Adrianna and Cami enjoy staying in stalls during the day under the fans and misters since they are both anhidrotic horses (they get acupuncture treatments and LOVE their acupuncture treatments provided by local veterinarian, Dr Tavel). Cassie, Aurora and Rampage are all doing really well, think I have their neurologic conditions as controlled as can be! Annie is looking GREAT, she just gets better with age! Zorro finally got to join the herd (he has been isolated since arrival to ensure adequate manure production, but he hasn't been happy isolated, so finally took the chance to let him out with the herd, and so far two weeks in he is doing just fine!) and he loves spending his time in the barn under the misters! We are all ready to put this summer in the rear view mirror and start enjoying the 9 months of paradise that Arizona is so well known for!

08/16/2023

07/05/2023

Happy 4th of July! Celebrating the day with our blue girl Camille aka Cami. Cami is doing great on her weight loss journey! She doesn’t have much more weight to lose till she is at a healthy weight for her; now more just waiting on the fat adiposity to go away which takes longer than normal fat! Hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th of July! Happy Independence Day America!

06/12/2023

Well it is officially Summer in the Desert, and although the temperatures have been very mild for a typical June, it is still summer (highs are in the upper 90's although usually we are 105-115 this time of year....not complaining at all just surprised having been her for 16 years now). Took some new photos today of the sanctuary horses. You won't see pics of Cami or Cassie as they are currently stalled on a diet (they get to go out later at night) to encourage weight loss since they are both Metabolic. Aurora is REALLY learning how to rear, so proud of her as when she first came she couldn't figure out how to do it without flipping over/falling over. But all the playing she does with Rampage has really helped her feet placement and learning how to leave her feet safely. So there is a group of 7 photos showing her rear the highest I have ever seen! Zorro is enjoying his retirement, a bit too much to the point he doesn't even keep his tree trimmed, so I have to let the professionals do it (took some photos of the professionals hard at work). All the ponies are fat and healthy, just as they should be, getting ready for the rest of summer!

05/12/2023

This is the real side of the horse world, especially when caring for “special needs” horses. It’s been a long, difficult week at the vet hospital, get off work at 7pm tonight, get home and immediately go start feeding dinner to the horses. Immediately notice that Zorro, who normally has 4 very large piles of manure in a 12hr period, has 10 small piles. Red flag. Feed him and start cleaning manure. Zorro eats for a little bit then goes and attempts to pass some manure but is straining with just a couple f***l balls passed. Clearly having an impaction flare up. So go get his “care kit” which is comprised of IV Banamine, IV sedation, re**al sleeve and l**e 😁. So Zorro and I got to spend some “quality” time tonight clearing out all the manure that was in his re**um. Some f***l balls were larger and drier, so back to the drawing board on increasing his hydration. He is already on daily electrolytes and he has gone without an impaction for the last four months, but it did get a little cooler yesterday so he didn’t drink as well as normal 😔. Thinking of trying Gatorade on him and see if he likes that. He is clearly still a work in progress on how best to limit impactions (for those that don’t know him, he has a fractured pelvis and a small bone fragment that sits on a nerve root to his re**um, so if his manure gets too dry he loses function to be able to push it out of his re**um effectively). Just blessed through my horse career thus far I can care for him in his time of need! Hopefully morning brings his normal large piles, otherwise we are spending more “quality” time together 😂! Oh Zorro what would I do without you? 😁

05/08/2023

Well it was the herd's favorite day of the week when their favorite person Joanna Casella, came to assist with baths and their favorite part.....carrot time! We are all so thankful for her help, I know she considers it therapy, we all simply consider it helpful! Thank you Joanna and look forward to more visits ahead!

05/01/2023

As April comes to an end, the reality is setting in that summer is soon approaching! Haven't posted in quite a while since been trying to get everything ready for the upcoming summer, so figured would share some new photos of the ponies.

03/12/2023

Sometimes in life you just feel like you are put in the right place at the right time. That even goes for horses. Little bit of back story.....April 2022 we lost Tug at my place of employment, Scottsdale Police Department's Mounted Unit (SPD). Tug was a super special horse and was going to end up here upon retirement but unfortunately, we lost him to a sudden onset colic. In June 2022, we found a horse to take his spot in the barn named Zorro. Zorro is a 7yr old dark bay Percheron/QH cross, he was underweight when we looked at him, was slightly off in his right hind (not a true lameness, just off) but he had the mentality to be a police horse. He wasn't sure of all the stuff we brought to see how much desensitizing he needed, but he just stood there and took it all in. So we ended up bringing him to SPD a few weeks later. In mid-August, he stopped passing manure, never got colicy, till the next day which he just laid down once, so he ended up coming into my other job at Southwest Equine Hospital (SW) for evaluation. Well, he was literally loaded with manure from front to back it seemed, so spent a couple days manually evacuating all the manure out of him, started him on a super soft diet of soaked pellets, we found an abscess at the top of his re**um that was large enough to obstruct the nerves to pass manure out of him. So he returned to SPD on antibiotics and soft/soaked diet for weeks/months. In January 2023, he came up lame in the RF, took him back to SW, treated his coffin joint and sent back to SPD. After three weeks he still wasn't much better, and he suddenly stopped passing manure again. Got him back over to SW, and did more ultrasounding this time, as he doesn't show pain at all when he can't pass manure. He is still super bright and hungry and has no clue that he has an issue. It was on this visit we found the main source of the issue, an old pelvic fracture on the right side of his pelvis, and he has a bone fragment that sits near/on his S1 nerve root that is one of the nerves responsible for sending signals to the re**um to do its job. So, what we suspect happens is a) he has reduced nerve signalment so if he gets slightly dehydrated and the manure is harder to pass, he can't and so he gets backlogged. Or b) he losses nerve function and then physically can't pass manure. Or c) some other issue that we haven't figured out nor will we ;). So between these issues and the still unresolved RF issue, it was determined his career as a police horse was over, really before it even began :(. He isn't the type of horse one can sell, as he is high maintenance and needs to be watched like a hawk for lack of manure production, then manually evacuate him until he regains function/ability to do so on his own. And of course, I just happened to fall in love with him over the past 9 months as he is the SWEETEST boy! SW's recommendation other than euthanasia was if a home could care for him and love him despite his issues that would be a good option as well. So with SW's backing I would be a great home for him, I offered if SPD was to relinquish him, I would try and care for him as long as his condition is manageable. It went through the chain of command and finally got the approval and all the signatures needed on Friday March 10th to allow Zorro to call Shiredale Farm Equine Sanctuary home! So, Zorro arrived yesterday, March 11th, 2023, to live out the rest of his days (which we hope is many years to come but will take whatever we can get)! He is kind of a capstone horse for me, combining all my Equine knowledge/skills I have accumulated over my career. Going to utilize the Vet tech side to constantly monitor for colic, increased lameness/degree of discomfort, etc. Then being able to re**al him and clean him out when needed from all my equine repro days from earlier in my career! We have changed up some of his diet and added some supplements in the hopes we can prevent further issues (he is on Equinety, Vitamin E supplements, and Electrolytes for now). So welcome Zorro to SFES, the herd is already quite attached to him and so far he is doing all the normal things a horse should! Many thanks to SPD for letting him come here to live out his days!

09/18/2022

Not sure how or when we became very interested in neurological horses. But somehow along the way it happened, and we are home to 4 of them! One of them, Aurora, got a spa day today and got to take some fun photos of her. Now, I say fun, meaning if you know normal horse gait's you will look at these and question what is happening! This is her version of the canter :). Being neurologic her gaits are hypermetria (very exaggerated motion, lifting her legs/feet higher and quicker than normal). For those that know the ataxia scoring for horses she is a grade 4 (we have one other grade 4-Rampage, a grade 2-Cassie and grade 1-Annie). She really has no idea anything is wrong with her though, so she fully enjoys putting on a show! So enjoy admiring her version of the canter :)!

08/29/2022

It's been a long summer (as Arizona summers usually are) and it is finally starting to come to an end! Didn't get to take as many pics of the horses this summer as we did some property work in late spring and brought in a bunch of dirt, which took forever to settle without dust clouds every time they moved around, let alone dust storm type dust if they would play. Looking forward to taking and posting way more photos this fall! All the horses are doing very well and will post more info on each over the coming months when they get their full fall baths and fresh photo shoots!