You always remember the first one. The one that really brought meaning to your purpose. Luna was ours.
Her story began with a message from a local farrier: Please help this horse, accompanied with a horrific picture of a walking skeleton. We began digging for information and a week later, Luna came home to our foster farm outside of Harlem. Though severely underweight, Luna was a sweetheart from the beginning and has perfect ground manners. Her foster parents fell in love almost instantly. She got a bath to combat the small amount of rain rot on her hindquarters and we introduced her to her new pasturemates, a herd of nanny goats.
Turned out in a large field of grass and getting two meals of high-fat pellets a day, Luna has blossomed into a beautiful glossy gray mare, and though she has a bit of age on her she will still come kick up her heels at dinnertime! She is gaited, about 15hh and is a lovely fleabitten gray. Her farrier who originally contacted us is still doing her feet, and remarks on how good she looks! We have not evaluated her riding potential at this time, as she still needs to fill out her topline a little more, but her spirits are high and we cannot see her ribs any more! Hooray!
Thankfully her situation was very straightforward and she was fairly simple to rehabilitate, but she will always have a place in our hearts as the first success story.
Photo Captions
Top left: The photo we received from her farrier, Luna's cry for help. Not only her emaciated form, but the hopeless look in her eyes spurred the Serenity team into action!
Top center: Day of intake, at her foster home. She scored about a 2 on the Henneke Body Condition Score (developed to gauge an animal's body condition, 1 is extremely emaciated, 10 is extremely obese)
Top right: Happiness incarnate! Ears looking forward into a bright future! (Day of intake)
Middle left: Wow what a difference a couple of weeks can make! Luna had a spa day, getting a much needed bath, mane and tail brushed and lots of loving and cookies!
Middle center: Patiently standing while her tail gets brushed and trimmed.
Middle right: Her favorite thing to do, chowing down!
Bottom left: Two months after her rescue, Luna reached her happy place. Her topline still a bit underdeveloped, but no more ribs!
Bottom center: More tail brushing, without the hipbones sticking out!
Bottom right: Look ma, I'm even getting a little bit of a belly!
Very bottom photo: Luna is such a sweet girl and loves getting petted by everyone that comes to meet her.
Luna will stay with her foster family, who wish to adopt her permanently. Happy endings for all!
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