Take A Sad Song, and Make It Better

Meet Jude. His name originally was "Skinny" but considering the circumstances, retaining a name like that seemed in poor taste at best. It was decided that we would rename him Jude, partially in honor of a generous donor, and partially for the saint, Jude the Apostle. My Catholic friends may recall that St. Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes, desperate situations and hospitals, so we thought it was a fitting name for this guy. He's very old, starved almost to death and extremely weak.

Please note, no animal gets to this state of emaciation overnight. This happened over weeks and weeks of insufficient, or perhaps, entirely absent nutrition. By the time Jude was rescued, he had started eating dirt, bark, pine straw, leaves, etc. - basically anything he could get into his mouth. Horses poop pretty much constantly, and it was almost sixty hours before Jude passed anything due to his digestive tract being so, so empty of food, and clogged with garbage.

Jude's situation is not unusual though. His former owner has Alzheimer's and it was left to others to take care of him while they were also supposed to be taking care of her. Unfortunately for all involved, that didn't happen, and Wednesday, the crisis was revealed to another family member who was appropriately horrified and sprang into action. Elizabeth Steed was contacted and agreed to take the horse into LEARN for rehabilitation.Upon her arrival, she was also asked to take in three dogs as the local animal control was going to euthanize them due to a lack of space in the shelter. So, they came too but need to be adopted - they are two sibling Australian Cattle Dogs that would love love love to find their forever human!

And yet, even with everything he's been through, Jude met me at the door of the stall, followed me around inside of it, pushed his head against my chest to get some petting and repeatedly smelled and softly blew on my hand. We went for a walk and he did some grazing, but he has a very long way still to go and there are no guarantees he will even make it. Elizabeth and LEARN have a great track record with cases like this, but it's not magic and it's not always 100% successful when things have gotten as bad as this.

Here's the worst part: Jude was supposed to have been monitored by the local animal control authorities over the past few weeks, but any sentient human being should have been able to look at this animal and know immediately that there was something terribly wrong. This begs three questions: a, did no-one actually monitor him, or b, did anyone monitor him and not care, or c, did someone monitor him and actually think this was okay? Lack of large animal welfare laws combined with inadequately staffed and trained animal control agencies make South Carolina one of the weakest protectors of horses and livestock in the country. Some counties are better than others, but across the board, there is a serious amount of change needed in order to turn the tide of neglect and abuse.

We at LEARN need your help and any of the following would be much appreciated:

• Financial support - proper care of a large animal is extremely high and we are heading into the winter, which means no grass, which means high feed bills. We also have an ongoing need for wormer, supplies and assistance with our vet bills.
• Volunteer support - you don't have to be an experienced "horse person" to help out. We'll train anyone who is reliable, honest and wants to help. You'll be amazed at how rewarding this can be.
• Social support - contact your representative and tell them to help change the reality of large animal welfare in South Carolina. It's time to join the 21st century. 
• ADOPT! We have lots of great horses (and two dogs) available for adoption and sponsorship.

You can keep up with Jude and LEARN on our Facebook page and website.