It is astounding how quickly your life can change in an instant. As the saying goes, we are always just one incident away from living a completely different life.
I pulled into the farm driveway on a Saturday morning in October. This was a busy day and I arrived early, just after sunup. On my mind was accomplishing four major objectives for the day:
First, we were set to host a Girl Scout Troop from Madison for a two-hour interactive farm tour featuring Wisconsin’s agricultural ambassador, Alice in Dairyland. Second, a family from Chicago had rented the farmhouse for the weekend for an authentic farm getaway, and I was scheduled to provide them with a guided tour of the farm. Third, two separate horseback trail rides were on the docket for that day. Fourth, I was scheduled to work the line cooking at Pancho and Lefty’s, a local restaurant I was cutting my teeth at in the food service industry. Meaning, two separate farm tours and two separate horseback trail rides needed to be completed by 3 p.m., so I could arrive at the restaurant in time for pre-service prep work. Piece of cake!
As I pulled in the farm driveway, the meticulously laid plans all went out the window.
There, in the corner of the horse pasture was Chaz, our equine patriarch. He was waiting for his morning breakfast like always. We had established something of a routine — he is one of a few horses that gets a special senior ration for the coming winter months, and they always get fed in a designated corner of the pasture. As I pulled in the driveway, I could see Chaz waiting patiently for his special treatment.
On this day, tragedy struck — one of the other horses took advantage of Chaz’s vulnerable position, trapped him in the corner, and began kicking him just as I pulled in the driveway. Let me tell you, I could not jump the fence and break them up fast enough. In a lifetime of working with livestock, I have never witnessed an animal act with such aggression, as Chaz was attacked with that morning. Breaking up the fight, I watched Chaz limp away and knew something was seriously wrong.
The aggressor horse had kicked Chaz repeatedly in his hindquarters, putting a number of superficial cuts and scrapes up and down his back legs. One wound was alarming in its severity — just between Chaz’s hock and knee was a deep laceration. The flesh had been flayed to the bone. As he limped, I could clearly see exposed bone and tendon. This was deadly serious; my best friend needed help.
An emergency phone call brought a local veterinarian to the farm. She took one look at the wound and verified what I instinctively knew — there was nothing we could do for Chaz at the farm, other than administer pain medication. He needed to go to UW Animal Hospital for immediate care in a controlled and sterile environment. Since the wound was to the bone and between two joints in his leg, infection was our immediate concern. The wound could not be stitched; it would have to remain open so it could drain and heal properly.
As is procedure, the veterinarian called UW Animal Hospital for a referral, and to verify that Chaz would be immediately received. All of this, while simultaneously hosting Girl Scouts, a farmstay group, and gearing up for the first of two trail rides. Believe me when I say, I have the best support network helping out at the farm and making this all work.
With the referral accepted and space verified for Chaz at UW, we proceeded to attempt to load him on the trailer. I backed the trailer to an embankment, so as to minimize the step-up. In order for Chaz to load, he would still have to step onto the trailer with his front feet, and then push forward from his hindquarters. As I walked him to the trailer I could see in his eyes that he knew how much this was going to hurt. How do you explain to an animal that you are helping them, even as you ask the impossible?
It took nearly half an hour to load Chaz. His first several attempts put too much weight on his injured leg, and he backed away from the trailer. His eyes spoke louder than words, and I was terrified to think that he might give up. Finally, after the soft words of encouragement from everyone involved, Chaz stepped three-legged onto the trailer and we headed to Madison.
At UW Animal Hospital, Chaz was immediately received by a team of veterinarians. They cleaned his wound, weighed him, and x-rayed the injured leg to check for fractures. The lead veterinarian pulled me aside and provided an update:
Chaz is an older horse at 25 years of age. He is starting to show signs of arthritis and joint inflammation — all of which I already knew. Obviously, there was a lot at stake, with the wound being so close to two joints. On top of all of this was the obvious cost we were about to incur with Chaz being there.
I interrupted, “Once you get to know this horse, you’ll understand why he’s here. Please, do what you need to do to help my friend.”
— Dan Wegmueller is the owner of Wegmueller Farms and his column appears regularly in the Times. His website is https://www.
farmforthought.org.
