Corona

Quick update for your Easter weekend…this beautiful day I took Corona out and cleaned him up. Finally, he is growing in a much healthier-looking summer coat where he had been bald in patches. He is still clinging on to some of the more stubborn long wiry winter coat hairs but is looking better every day. The penis injury is almost completely healed now and he has gained a lot of weight. He still struggles with chronic diarrhea, despite probiotics, so we keep his tail in a tail bag (generously donated by Brooke at Custom Tailbags). Today I scrubbed his hind legs and tail, groomed him, and took some new photos. He is looking much better, isn’t he? Starting to see what a beauty he will be under all that hair!

Corona is doing well, but still not completely healed.  He remains very tolerant for his treatments, however. He is also doing something we have seen with a few starved horses, where they come in with a thick winter coat with a top layer of really long, wiry guard hairs on top.  The winter coat sheds out, but the guard hairs don’t right away, and because of a lack of nutrition or their bodies being out of whack, the summer coat doesn’t grow in right away either.  It’s an odd phenomenon, but we have seen it before and I feel confident that his summer coat will come in and the long hairs will eventually shed.  But right now, he looks pretty bad, with his long wiry hairs and bald skin visible underneath. Otherwise, he’s gaining weight well, and we wrapped his tail up as he is still having intermittent diarrhea issues.  He’s also quite a bit food aggressive, so he has to be made to back to the back of his stall before he gets his food.  He does crib as well, but not obsessively, only if there isn’t food to eat or he is feeling a bit stressed.  Otherwise, he’s very sweet and easy to handle, and extremely low on the totem pole with other horses.  In fact, we are still trying to find the right turnout partner for him, because all the horses we have tried him with were pretty mean to him and chased him.  You’d think with his size he’d have some advantage, but they sense his weakness and vulnerability.  Poor guy.

I was at NWESC today dropping off our two new horses and took the opportunity to get some updated photos of Corona.  He is looking so much better!  He has gained a considerable amount of weight already, his feet look much better, and his injury is looking considerably better.  His blanket wasn’t fitting well, so I found a better fitting one for him while I was there.  Here are some updated photos!  (Note: there is a penis photo included, that, while looking much better, is still graphic in nature)

Corona is doing great!  His bloodwork was rechecked and his muscle enzymes which had been elevated previously are now normal, allowing him to be given some bute this week which has surely made him feel more comfortable.  He continues to be a very tolerant, good boy for his twice-daily cleanings and she thinks that in another couple of weeks he will be healed enough to return to SAFE and just focus on gaining weight and improving the condition of his feet.

Quick update on Corona — he is doing very well, on antibiotics now and the vet reports he is very tolerant for his twice-daily chlorahexadine scrubs.  She does feel bad for him as he is probably in some amount of discomfort, but she has not felt comfortable giving him bute yet because his muscle enzymes were elevated on his bloodwork.  We are going to recheck his bloodwork tomorrow and hopefully if it looks good he can have some bute to make him feel a bit better.   Dr. Hannah spoke to the vet who saw him last week and he stated that there was not a laceration on the penis when he saw him, just swelling and infection, so they determined that the laceration was actually caused by the sutures that he put in (I’m still not sure what the purpose of the sutures was).  In any case it is a good thing Dr. Hannah decided to remove them right away.  She said overall he is doing well and because he is able to retract his penis and urinate normally he does not need to be catheterized or bandaged in any way.  His fecal results came back with only few strongyle ova so that is good news, he will get wormed normally in a week or so.  He is up to free choice hay now and they will slowly start adding some beet pulp and concentrates this week.  He’ll get his feet taken care of soon as well.  We also heard from his previous leaser that there was some type of injury to his left hind leg around 4 years ago.  The horse was stall rested for a while and then was sound after that and returned to jumping, but that he was given away (not sold) to the last owner because of the injury.  I let Dr. Hannah know about the previous injury, and once he is in better physical shape we will take a closer look at that left hind to see if there are any concerns there.

Corona is doing very well! Dr. Hannah has spoken to the vet who saw him earlier this week and she feels like the injury will be relatively minor once we get the infection under control. 

We’ve been contacted by three people who knew Corona back when he lived in Canada, including his former owner, who had him from age 3–7, and a gal who leased him when he was 6. They lost track of him when he was sold into the US in 2008 and have been desperate to reconnect with him since then. We’ve learned that Corona showed in the jumpers up to 3′3″ and schooled up to 4′ at home. He’s a brave and willing horse who never refused a jump or spooked. His former friends speak very highly of him and are relieved to have found him again, and although they are horrified by his current condition, they are happy to know that he is in good hands.

Here are some pictures of Corona in better times that they have kindly shared with us. Doesn’t he look wonderful?

Dr. Hannah finally got a chance to look at Corona last night.  She has not yet spoke to the vet who treated him previously (hopefully will do that today) but her overall impression is that it is “not too bad”, despite how bad it looks.  She was not able to get his penis out completely and did not want to sedate him because of his condition and until she spoke to the other vet.  She was puzzled about the sutures, which seem to have been put in place to keep him from dropping his penis.  She went ahead and removed them and a bunch of pus came out.  However, from what she could feel there are some lacerations but nothing horrible.  She drew bloodwork on him and wanted to check that and speak to the other vet before starting him on antibiotics (she is also concerned about the diarrhea) but is pretty optimistic on his recovery.  She also took a fecal sample and he’ll get lice-dusted today.

Corona is a coming 10 year old bay Reg. TB gelding (registered name “Triple Copy”), 17h who was surrendered by his owner to a private individual who then surrendered him to SAFE.  As we understand the situation, the owner had fallen on hard times and the horse has an injury to his penis she could not afford to treat.  She had advertised him on Craiglist as a free horse, and when a private individual contacted the owner about the horse, she freely admitted the horse was in very poor condition and required care she could not afford to provide.  The private individual contacted several rescues, and we agreed to take the horse and Dr. Hannah Evergreen and Northwest Equine Stewardship Center has agreed to take him into her rehab facility and provide the care for his injury.

We’ve been told that 3 years ago this horse was winning shows all over Canada in the A‑Circuit 3′6″ Jumper division and has extensive training.  The cause of the penis injury is unknown, at first she mentioned the vet speculated that it was due to a protein deficiency, but then she mentioned that there might have been a kick and there are stitches visible.  A vet has seen the horse recently (it seems that this may have been prompted by Animal Control who was on the property recently but as the other 3 horses on the property were in good shape and were getting fed did not take further action), and we will be contacting this vet to get more information about the injury and treatment that has been provided.   The penis is very swollen and oozing and he does seem to have trouble urinating, only able to squeeze out a thin stream of urine which seems to cause him some pain.

Other than the penis injury, the horse is also extremely thin, with a Body Condition score of, to my best guess (the vet will confirm), around a 2–2.5.  His feet are atrocious, low heels, horrible long flared and dishy feet with big chips in them.  He has one minor injury that looks fairly old to his right front heel bulb that has some proud flesh, but other than that his legs are visually clean and he appears sound despite the poor feet.   He looks like he has had chronic diarrhea for a while as it is caked on his hind legs and in his tail.  He has a small amount of rain rot but not bad and was wearing a (much too small, size 75!) blanket.  I also suspect lice as he was very itchy, did not see any but did not spend too much time looking as he will probably get lice dusted as a precaution anyway.  He loaded and hauled really well, has extremely good manners despite being nervous in a new place, and he seems very sweet.

Photos of Corona (warning: GRAPHIC PHOTOS OF PENIS INJURY BELOW):