Last weekend in Kebd, farm areas: Volunteers found a horse in a terrible condition in front of a farm on a paddock. When we arrived the horse was lying lifeless in the middle of the sun, that time we had about 46 Degrees Celsius. We tried to inform the people inside of the farm but nobody answered. Without hesitation we went inside and tried to motivate the horse to move into the shaded area at the corner of the paddock. When the horse got up we realized his terrible constitution …he was sighing under great pain and was not able to stand on his front legs, he tried to jump on his shivering back legs into the direction we asked him to…after an hour for us endless time the horse made the 4 m distance and fell down in the shade with a scream of pain and desperation. We fixed provisionally fences around him that he couldn’t roll back into the sun, then we immediately pored cool water over his whole body and had a closer look on his front leg hoofs…the picture was indescribable…
He was obviously suffering of an advanced laminitis, the coffin bone becomes detached from the horny wall and may rotate or sink. In lay terms, this is known as “founder,” from the maritime term meaning to sink.
Early treatment of a Laminitis is necessary, a delay of even a few hours can literally be the difference between continued healthy living and euthanasia. This horse was obviously not treated properly or at all for days or even weeks…
I sent the pictures of the hoofs to a horse vet, he never saw a laminitis in this stage, the sole of the hoofs were already gone…
We tried as good as possible to disinfect the raw feet, padded the hoofs and applied bandages to protect it from further infections. Actually in this stage there is no other solution than to euthanize a horse. He was in agony, his eyes were broken and he was the whole time sighing that we all had to fight our tears.
After half an hour finally the staff of the farm came out and were quiet surprised about the activity outside. We asked for the number of the owner and asked them to move the horse inside but they were unable to do anything, they haven’t be aware of the serious situation. They told us the horse was treated a while ago and showed us some old medicine, they didn’t even have betadine, bandages or anything else which was appropriate.
After taking care of the horse we had to leave and hoped to reach the owner at least to euthanize the horse in a humane way as it was his duty…but the following hours taught us cruely about the ignorance and arrogance of some human beings.
A few hours later I was called back and was accused to have stolen dogs from the property, I was accused of entering a private property without permission. The Kuwaiti lady was threatening me to send me to jail, she could find out my place of living and tonight her brother would show up with the police to arrest me…I offered her to meet her brother at the police station, because I just helped an animal in pain and asked her if she would be able to pray tonight with a clear heart and without any regrets to leave a creature of GOD/ ALLAH in this condition outside without any medical support or even supervision; her answer was:
“This is my country and I can do whatever I want with my animals, it’s not your business!’’
Really? Is she right? Is it that what this country wants and needs?
I explained to her that any suffering animal or human is our all business, education, empathy and humanity are the keywords for a modern world, for a modern society..
The threats and calls continued, I begged her to euthanize the suffering horse, but she refused. At least her brother, the owner, went out that night to have a closer look….
A conversation with a local horse vet confirmed me in my believe that Kuwait needs urgently regulations, screening, registration, statistics, research when it comes to animal husbandry or breeding.
Animal Pharmacies allow every private person to treat their animals by their own good will, with or without medical background. Thousands of animals are suffering in farms and breeding stations due to wrong diagnoses, wrong treatment and unprofessional care. Most of the animals which are later sold are suffering from incurable diseases, cost the owner a lot of money to cure these diseases or lead to abandoning cases.
I would love to tell you a happy end of this tragic story, but there is none…when we visited the place at the next day the horse was gone…
By: M. Winkler