If you love animals, it's incredibly difficult to hear about innocent creatures who have been put through pain and abuse.
No animal should have to deal with being abused, but sadly, it happens more often than most of us think.
We often hear stories about abused and neglected dogs being rehabilitated, but there are a lot of other animals that are treated poorly, like this circus bear.
At the Oakdale Equine Rescue (OER) in California, horses are brought in from bad situations and brought back to health by wonderful rescuers.
Recently, they got a new horse, 15-year-old Bey, from animal control. He was in rough shape when OER got ahold of him, and they knew it would be a long recovery process for the sweet horse.
They posted photos of Bey on their Facebook page, wanting to share information on his recovery process. Poor Bey was completely emaciated and his hooves had grown dangerously long.
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The kind people at OER wrote:
Some of the pictures in this post may be hard to look at. It has been an emotional day for us. This is Bey. He is a 15 year old Quarter Horse gelding. He came to us from animal control.
We took him straight to Sweet River Equine Clinic where he will stay the night for observation. He is a sweet boy and we are going to do what we can to help him recover.
He will be with us for awhile as he recovers.
Tomorrow he will have his hooves worked on. He will probably have to be sedated. We will keep you posted on his progress.
Keep him in your thoughts and prayers. He has been rescued but he is not out of the woods.
Here are some pictures before, during and after Bey’s trim. He will be in rehab for his feet for a long time. Radiographs show how far his hooves could be trimmed before hitting live tissue.
His back hooves are back to a normal length. After cutting off the largest hoof we estimate it weighed about 5 lbs!
Sadly, Bey has saddle sores on his back. We can only guess the condition he was in when he was being ridden.
We are cautious but optimistic about his condition. He is a sweet boy and we will do what he needs to get him through rehab.
We want to thank everyone for the outpouring of concern and support for Bey. People are coming forward asking to adopt or foster him now.
Although we appreciate the offers, we will not be fostering or adopting out Bey anytime soon. He is not stable and needs to stay here to rehabilitate. He is not yet out of the woods.
He is eating and drinking very well and loves his salt block. Those nasty cockleburs seem to have also been his food source because he is passing them in his manure.
Jeannine took him out of his stall for a few minutes to graze. He enjoyed his time out (that is what the pictures are of) but then had to go back to his stall. He loves the attention he is getting and talks to us as we go out to check on him.
Bey Update:
As he settles in we are learning more and more about him. First of all he loves people. As we do chores around his area he "talks" to us and to the other horses.
We have him on a refeeding plan and he is doing great! He has to eat on the ground for now. He is on mats and has thick shavings to stand in. He has a view of the other horses but is being kept away from them till he builds up his immune system.
This horse backs out of a trailer, picks up all 4 feet, and takes fly spray like a champ. There is no reason for any horse to be treated like this and especially Bey. He appears to be very well trained.
He is still stiff and sore, but he seems to have improved in the few days that he has been with us.
Thank you for the out pouring of concern for Bey. We will continue to keep you posted on how he is doing.
Here, you can see that Bey still looks skinny, but his hooves are healing and he is already filling out thanks to all the love and attention from his new family.
If you're amazed by this horse's recovery so far, please SHARE this article with your friends and family!
