Residents | Happy Tails > Bryce
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Bryce & the
farrier
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Bryce’s injured hoof
& then doing better
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Child petting Bryce
Photo credit: Molly Wald
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Bryce: The Big Boy
Bryce is a beautiful quarter horse/draft mix that came to Healing
HEART Sanctuary when his owner heard that we were looking for a
good horse to train to be a therapy horse for kids. His owner thought
it was the perfect match given Bryce was handicapped himself from
an old injury from the previous year, but could do light riding
and he had a great temperament.
The previous year Bryce’s leg had gotten stuck in a metal
gate and would not come out. His owners finally resorted to using
a blowtorch to free his leg. He cut his leg and split his hoof
very deeply, not to mention getting burned by the blowtorch.
His owners tried everything they could think of to heal the joint
and hoof but to no avail. Eventually it just healed over with
a lot of proud flesh and that was that, he was handicapped.
Upon arrival at HHS, Executive
Director Laura Bradshaw immediately started wrapping Bryce’s
leg, still swollen from the year before, with colloidal silver-soaked
pads to try and pull out the infection that was buried there.
As the proud flesh disintegrated, the infection cleared up. At
the same time we also used the Infratonic 8000 sound wave machine, to try and release any scar tissue
he may have had and his leg at least began to look like a leg
again. His hoof was another story all together as it was split
so deeply. We tried special shoeing in the hopes that that would
take the pressure off the split, and it could then heal and grow
out without the split. But every time he saw another horse, he
would get so excited that he would split it all over again.
While all this was going on HHS had the pleasure of having teenagers
from a local at-risk teen facility come and volunteer. Bryce
was a big hit and loved spending time with the teens. The son
of his previous owner (another teen) also volunteered at HHS
and spent many afternoons with Bryce. Bryce always seemed so
happy with teenagers around him.
Sadly, the trainer we were using moved suddenly, the teen facility
closed, and Bryce was very lonely. We tried getting a buddy for
him (another horse named Kaiser)
but Bryce was too busy showing off and trying to be top dog that
he kept blowing out his hoof. He needed a trainer to ease him
into coping with companions, something we could not provide at
that time. Healing HEART Sanctuary never has a problem making
sure we find the best match for an animal. And in this case,
thankfully Best Friends decided to take him on.
His
is very happy now with all his equine friends and recently
had a surgery on his ankle. He is one lucky, beautiful, big boy.
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