Don't Forget The Summer Open Day Sunday 12th July 2009

Open at 12 Noon  Admission Price £1.00

Open Days include a wide range of entertainment and items for sale. There are games of skill and chance for both adults and youngsters alike. Most Open Days also include a horse parade or other entertainment with our horses. For additional details you can contact reception in the weeks prior to the event.

If you are attending one of our Open Days the car parks will be marshalled for your convenience. On the busier Open Days we use a field for an overflow car park and operate a one-way system on local roads. We would be grateful for your patience and cooperation with these matters.

Don't miss our Farrier doing a demonstration on re-shoeing a horses hoof.

Yes—I really did it, 15,000 feet straight down!

If any of you fancy doing a sponsored event for us we would be very glad to hear from you. We will provide you with a letter of introduction and sponsor forms.

A short while ago one of our supporters was successful in persuading a dog owner to part with their two dogs. You might think that we have enough animals without going looking for them! However if you look at the first photo you will see why we were so keen to get these two dogs admitted.

Sol, in the photo, had an extremely large mass attached to his left hind leg. This will have taken a long time to have grown and had reached the position where it had potentially serious affects on his long term wellbeing. The size and weight of this mass could cause damage to the surrounding tissue if it wasn’t removed.

Once Sol joined us we found that he was a wonderful dog who certainly didn’t deserve to be in the predicament that he found himself in. Our vets had a good look at Sol and decided that the mass was operable. The operation was scheduled for as soon as possible and went very well. We were all very pleased with the new Sol. There was only one worry—that was biopsies had been taken during the operation and we had to wait for the results.

Sadly, what we had all feared came to pass—the results were not good. Even though the mass was well separated from Sol’s leg it had been there for so long that the cancer had spread to his lymphatic system. There is nothing that we can do for a cancer that is throughout the body in this way; we suspect that it won’t be that long before we have to make a difficult decision on his behalf. Hopefully it will be later rather than sooner.

The second photo shows Sol as he is now very happy and completely unknowing that we are all worried for him.

Of course we wouldn’t need to be worried if his previous owner had cared for him. If that had been the case the lump would have been removed a long time ago before it had metastasized to other parts of his body.

It probably won’t surprise you that since we brought Sol and his friend Ella in to the sanctuary their previous owners have mysteriously vanished from their address. When neighbours checked all they found in the home was the three cats that also belonged to these people. Needless to say, the three cats are now with us and doing very well. There are two females that we hope to home together and a male that will be homed separately.

Lennon came to us during the night of 9th April. Our night staff member, Mandy saw suspicious activity on the security cameras covering the car park entrance. Unfortunately this is not an unusual situation. This kind of activity usually is a prelude to an animal being dumped, and was so on this occasion.

When Mandy got to the gate the car was speeding off down the road and there was a young dog lying on a blanket near the car park barrier. He appeared to have a broken leg that most likely was caused by a road traffic accident. Mandy brought him in, made him comfortable and called Neil (Bleakholt’s Manager) out. When Neil got to the sanctuary it seemed best to let Lennon settle down for the rest of the night. This was done and by morning the swelling was down a little and Lennon was more composed. Later on during the night when the morning light came up Mandy found a note under a brick near to where she had found Lennon. It told us his name, age and breed and asked us to care for him as his owners couldn’t afford his vet care.

When Lennon went to see Sean, one of our Vets at Pet Medics in Bury, the next morning he was sedated and given an extensive check up. It was obvious that he had injuries to his leg but what was of more concern initially was to check if he had any internal injuries. If he had they could be more life threatening than his leg.  After a series of X-rays and a thorough check up Sean decided that there was extensive bruising in other parts of his body but nothing serious or urgent. He further decided that the best way forward would be to amputate the leg. The damage was so severe that to try to keep the leg in any way could be prejudicial to Lennon’s health and probably wouldn’t have been successful. If there had been a way that we could have saved the leg we would have done it.

People sometimes feel that a dog with only three legs will not be able to cope. We generally reply by saying that even though they are one leg missing they still have one more than us! Lennon will manage very well with only three—he is a young dog and a hind leg is better to lose than a fore leg. In fact when Lennon arrived back at the Sanctuary only three hours after his operation we opened the van to get him out and found him standing up and wagging his tail at us!

So in the end Lennon will be OK—he will get a new home with a family who will care for him and Bleakholt will stay in touch to provide any help his new adopters need.

We have recently admitted a dog with very unusual circumstances. This is Maddie who is a young female Doberman.This train of events started with a phone call from Blackpool where a family were trying to find a rescue centre that would accept a Doberman that had two broken front legs. They had found this search hard and had therefore cast their net as far as us here in Edenfield. Apparently our name had come up from several of the more local rescues who had said that they weren’t able to accept Maddie but had recommended us to them.We were told that Maddie had been running after a rabbit when her front legs went down a hole and the momentum of her travel caused her to continue forwards and break both her front legs. We were further told that Maddie had been “rescued” from a person who was using her as a brood bitch.Maddie had casts on both front legs that had been put on by a vet in Blackpool. We were told that these were to stay on for 10 days after which they could come off and Maddie should be ok.One of the first things that we did was to have Maddie checked by our own vet and re X—rayed. Our vet was concerned for a number of reasons. The first was that her left leg had developed a smell that is sometimes associated with necrotic flesh. Additionally there was a wound opening up where the cast was rubbing under her arm and the shape of the cast, and therefore her leg under the cast was unusual and therefore troubling.With the casts off her legs and the X—rays done it was revealed that the breaks were within the upper part of her feet and that the left foot was quite bad. We therefore looked at the options.  If this had been one leg only it would have been a simple repair job because Maddie would have been able to carry her weight on the undamaged leg. However as both were damaged this option was not open to us. Sean (one of our vets) suggested that she needed two operations that couldn’t be carried out without a specialist orthopaedic surgeon and his team. More worrying than this he said that these operations would run to about £5,000! In recent years at Bleakholt we have never made a decision to not treat an animal due to cost and we certainly didn’t want to do so now—but £5,000! That is a lot of money.Sean went back to the phone and tried several other private orthopaedic specialists without getting the cost down. He then tried Liverpool University Veterinary School. Bingo! They were willing to do these operations for a little over £2,000. They were able to do this as their primary function is to teach veterinary science rather than be a commercial animal hospital. Additionally they said that they were very confidant of a good prognosis. That settled it—Maddie was going to Liverpool.Maddie has now gone to Liverpool and will be there for about 7 to 10 days. Her treatment is going very well and we are all looking forward to her return. There was one further unusual circumstance regarding Maddie. The orthopaedic surgeon who is caring for her said that he has seen this type of injury previously but they were always a result of a dog jumping down from a high place and taking the impact on their front legs.

     QUOTE :--Neil Martin Manager·        “We have never made a decision regarding veterinary treatment on money. However modern medicine can now do so much more; so we are regularly being offered treatment for our animals that costs thousands of pounds. If anyone feels that they can help us with Maddie’s costs we would be very grateful. In the present financial climate we are very worried about basic costs, these very expensive procedures are a great drain on our diminishing resources.”

The lady who found her told me where she was and I went straight out to her. I found Bonnie stood next to the gate lifeless and drastically underweight. Her feet were overgrown and cracked.

I immediately untied her and brought her back to our stable yard. Then started the flurry of activity to provide for her needs. She needed a farrier to sort out her feet, a dentist to check her teeth and a vet to check her over for health problems. The farrier had to trim her feet by about two inches because they were so overgrown. The dentist said that her teeth were ok and the vet said that her only health complaint was severe malnutrition.

As soon as Bonnie arrived we put her a rug on to preserve her body heat and put her on a diet to slowly but surely put weight on her.

Within just three weeks with a constant supply of good hay Bonnie looks much better. It will be a long haul but she will be fine within her first year with us. She is already gaining weight and has perked up tremendously. She’s loving all the attention that she’s getting  and shows her appreciation by being a loving young horse and letting  us do anything to her to improve her condition.

Bonnie is a two year old thoroughbred who before her neglect would have been valuable. This value means nothing to us.

We have only contempt for people who let an innocent animal get in this state. This was not something that has only taken a short while. It has taken most of her two short years to get her in such a bad condition.

It is now 14 weeks since we admitted Bonnie. She has come on very well. She has spent 8 weeks doing nothing but eat. I have seen her just once when she wasn’t eating—but that was at 4.00am! She has put on about 120kg and is still about 150 kg underweight for a thoroughbred of her age. How she comes to have such a pleasant nature after what she has been through is quite astounding. I never fail to be amazed at how animals can trust and forgive. Often those that receive such trust and forgiveness fall far short of deserving it. We hope to have Bonnie in perfect health and condition by next spring.

We would also be grateful to people who sponsor her as rehabilitating any animal is expensive but this is a particularly expensive project.