A Horse of a Different Leg

Normally, in my family's line of business we are fortunate enough to be able to help people and improve the quality of their lives. Once in a great while, we get the opportunity to do the same thing for an animal. This story began over a year ago.

Lovey is a paint mare horse, who was dangerously malnourished with a life-threatening injury. While living with her previous owners, her right front leg got tangled in a wire fence, cutting off the blood supply to her hoof, ending with an amputation. Her wound became badly infected, and she would have died within days had her owners not surrendered her to the Humane Society of Pulaski County. The story made the nightly news, where my mom heard the horrible story. She then convinced my dad to call and offer our services to see if we could help Lovey.

Over the next year, under the care of the Humane Society Lovey gained around 300 pounds and had revision surgery to repair the amputation site, and got her strength back. It was because of her sweet nature and good attitude that she earned the name, "Lovey".

Fortunately, we have a prosthetist on our staff that owns horses, so he and my dad worked together on the fitting. We had to wait about a year, though, for Lovey to heal enough to be fitted for her new leg. Here's a picture of the casting:

About 2 weeks ago, we went out to deliver the finished product. We were met with a crowd of around 5 different media outlets. Lovey had quite a fan club to witness her first steps on 4 legs. She took to her new limb amazingly well; she will need a lot of therapy, and like humans, she will have to build up her endurance of wearing the leg. Her shoulder and leg will have to gain strength again and she will have to learn to hold her leg straight instead of crossing it over the other front leg. Here is a video of Lovey in her stall before she put on her new leg:

This is when we put the leg on for the media to see. The lady in the orange t-shirt talking is Kay Simpson from the Humane Society of Pulaski County.

And finally, here is Lovey walking on her new prosthetic leg:

We have heard that Lovey is doing great with her new leg, and has adjusted well. I hope to get some follow up video in the future and check in with her progress. Lovey's caregivers told me that they are getting a special trailer for her so that Lovey can travel around and make therapy visits. She will make a great therapy animal. I have to include a picture of the bottom of her new hoof. Now wherever Lovey goes, she will leave a smiling face on more than just the people she meets.

The day after Lovey's fitting, my family and I left town for a week of vacation, but we found out that the Fox News channel as well as CNN picked up the story and replayed it over and over. We've been amazed at how far this story has reached so far. We even got a thank you card from someone in New York. As a family and as a company, we were honored to be able to help this sweet horse. We are thrilled to be able to make a difference in the life of an animal. If you would like to learn more about Lovey and see a more complete version of the story, you can check out some of the media coverage here:

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/wfaa/index.html?nvid=267166

and here:

http://www.fox16.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=4B166215-3C3A-41D5-939D-98EBCAB3E9D8&gsa=true