| Featured Article - May 2008
In The Shadow of Equus Funding for a
Better Equine Life |
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| When
two-week-old Babli and four-week-old Ramdulari were abandoned at the
Thulai horse fair in the Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh in India,
they were in dire shape. They were suffering serious dehydration from
lack of fluids. They were scared and so weak from exhaustion that their
breathing was heavy and laboured, signalling the possibility of
respiratory infection. By a sheer miracle someone found these tiny
scraps of life and alerted the Brooke mobile vet team. The donkey foals
received emergency fluid therapy and antibiotics. Difficult as it was,
a foster jenny was found to nurse the babies. But they needed a
permanent home with special care for months. In Pakistan, Azim Khan’s donkey staggered. Chitta always worked hard. But today, in the blazing heat with her crippling brick load, she just couldn’t go any further. She stumbled, then collapsed to her knees. Twelve-year-old Azim was frantic. His family relied on him and his donkey to earn money to feed his eight younger brothers and sisters. Then he remembered something. There was one place in Peshawar that could help. There was something wrong with Chanda. Sixteen-year-old Ismail was worried. Chanda wouldn’t eat or drink and was scared to move. His limbs were stiff, his jaw was locked, and he was sensitive to light, sound, and touch. Ismail, whose family depended on him for an income, knew he had to do something, and fast. The emergency help for all these donkeys came from the Brooke Hospital for Animals. The international equine charity, headquartered in London, England, has been helping donkeys like Babli, Ramdulari, Chitta, and Chanda since 1934 by providing free veterinary care and invaluable education to animal owners. The organization operates in nine countries across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Central America, treating over 650,000 horses, donkeys, and mules annually. Their goal is to reach five million equines. In March, the Brooke announced its annual “Horses in Need” fundraising campaign, a major public relations and communications endeavour to raise funds for their veterinary work. Anyone anywhere worldwide is encouraged to host a fundraiser of their choosing. You can organize a benefit horse show or gymkhana, a fun run, bake sale, an activity at work or school, a sponsored distance ride by horse or bike, a car wash, or a garage sale. Once you register your activity online at the Brooke website, (www.thebrooke.org) they provide some pretty useful backup support, including your own fundraising page that not only gives information to others about your activity, but allows others to donate to the Brooke through your page, helping you meet a set goal. Funds raised by the Brooke go directly into the field for essential services to horses, donkeys, mules, and their owners. In addition, money is dedicated to equine research specific to the special needs of working animals in poor countries. While the basic health needs of horses and donkeys are universal, those that have to work in constant pain or under endless stress are more complex. One study explored how to identify pain-related behaviour in donkeys. Because of their stoic nature, donkeys may not often show pain as blatantly as horses, leading many to wrongly believe that donkeys don’t suffer pain. A groundbreaking research project is to identify what working animals choose to do to relieve stress, ranking their uses of resources and social interactions. The goal is to give advice to owners about simple ways of giving their animals a happier, more enriched life. |
At a Brooke conference, a
paper presented on Animal Welfare:
Sentience and Suffering by John Webster, University of Bristol,
documented that horses and donkeys are sentient creatures, i.e., they
have feelings and emotions connected to their environment, their
experiences, and their coping strategies. Suffering happens when
animals cannot cope with a life condition and cannot respond in ways to
relieve their stress. Improving the lives of working equines doesn’t take a lot of money. For instance, $1 will buy four hoof picks which are given to owners for foot maintenance; $1.50 will provide a vaccine for life-long immunity against tetanus; $30 will treat 25 horses or donkeys for lameness; $40 will pay for ten boxes of painkillers for animals suffering leg or hoof problems; $80 will pay for a vet for a day to treat injured or sick animals and educate their owners; $130 will pay for a roadside rescue pack for weak or collapsed animals; $750 will pay for a mobile team to be on the road for a week helping hundreds of animals. The efforts to save Babli and Ramdulari paid off in spades. The Brooke team approached a family of the Dhobi caste. They are “untouchables,” people branded as impure and who live at the bottom of the Hindu caste system. They beat the impurities out of clothes on the banks of rivers and take on work shunned by others higher up the social system. The traditional washer-people agreed to take on the task of caring for the abandoned foals. The Brooke team would oversee their care and the Dhobi family would benefit from new knowledge and experience. In time, when they are older, Babli and Ramdulari will carry the loads of laundry for their new Dhobi family. Chitta was given emergency care. He was extremely dehydrated and suffering from raw saddlepack wounds. Brooke worker, Zahir Shah, showed Azim how to mend and fit his donkey’s harness properly, how to groom him, take care of his hooves, and ensure he had nutritious food. After some rest and medication, Chitta was able to work again. Chanda was diagnosed with tetanus from a festering wound on his back. He was medicated with penicillin and muscle relaxants, kept in a dark, quiet stall away from light and sound, given wound treatment, and provided nutritious food. Meanwhile, Ismail was shown how to care for his donkey and he participated in his recovery. Two weeks later, Chanda was on the mend. If you would like to help the Brooke and have a fundraising event to help working equines in third world countries, check out their website and get registered (www.thebrooke.org). |
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