Bo Five Years Later

This past Saturday (March 12), marked Bo's five year anniversary with us at the Sanctuary. It's been a long haul these past five years and have had a lot of ups and downs in keeping Bo happy and healthy. But throughout everything, Bo continues to keep a positive spirit and doesn't let any of his past experiences get in the way of his happy attitude.

The first two pictures are from the day after Bo arrived. It was late that first night and I honestly didn't know if he'd even make it home, let alone make it through the night. He was so weak and thin. The winter coat hides so much of the devastating effects of starvation. He was so weak those first few days of quarantine, that he could barely walk a few feet before becoming exhausted. We did a little of hand walking those first few days so we wouldn't get stuff standing in his stall.

When we pulled him from the auction, I honestly had no idea of we'd rescued a mare or gelding because the paperwork was so off on him. The paperwork shows a sorrel mare. He looks nothing of the sort. In fact, when we first went back to look at him afterwards, I had no idea that he even had white socks. There was so much mud caked on his legs that I assumed that he ad four black legs. Well, he does, but he also has three white socks to go with it.

The following pictures were taken a week after brining Bo home. The devastation of starvation shows much more prominent because I'd put a blanket on to ward off the chill. I wanted Bo to focus on gaining weight, not in trying to stay warm even though we were in March and the snow was melting and spring was in the air. I wanted to do everything I could to get Bo's body focused on recovering, rather than eating away at itself.

The pictures really don't do it justice on how bad Bo really looked. He's always been on the thinner side and a definite hard keeper but the pictures just don't show how bad he really was.

 I tried to spend some time giving Bo some loving during those first few weeks to show that nothing bad would come while staying at the Sanctuary. You can even see his white socks now!

Blogger apparently doesn't like the original pictures of Bo showing how thin he looked those first few days. But the following are more pictures from about two weeks after bringing Bo home. It's such a slow process to gain weight and such a quick process for them to lose weight and go down hill so quickly.

This picture, although hard to look at, actually shows the improvements after just a few weeks at the Sanctuary. Bo was and is a hard keeper. To keep his weight, we have to grain him every day with a mixture of senior feed, Purina Strategy, sweet feed, and Cool Calories supplement. He's not too fond of the supplement but he does eat most of it. We go through about $150 worth of grain split between him and Junior (and Rabbit) and that doesn't include the supplements.

We outbid the killbuyer to bring Bo home. We brought him home fro $110. I've seen time and time again, where a private buyer stops at a certain dollar amount and the horse goes to a kill buyer because of that extra $10. Had we stopped at $100, Bo would have gone to the kill buyer and although I'm sure he would have ended up at a feedlot to be fattened (although I've heard rumors that he was rejected by the feedlot...but that was local and not near the border). I'm glad that we went with the extra $10. Amazing how $10 can save a life. 

We are always looking for sponsors for Bo. Would you like to sponsor him and ensure that he gets all the grain he needs for the rest of his life. We will make sure that he never goes through what he endured five years ago but we are could use some help. Even donating $10 for his grain helps. It's amazing the power of $10.