In the region of Birtle Bury, Sarah Lord was riding her 11-year-old gelding Frank on a bridleway until Frank was fatally injured by a dog.
On the ride with two other horses a man with a Border Collie came across, at the dog attack the dog was leashed, nevertheless the dog jumped at the horse in the direction of the shoulder. For Sarah this was very unexpected, because the dog did not seem aggressive to her and was finally leashed.
Suddenly blood dripped over Frank’s leg, when Sarah addressed the dog owner about the dog’s behavior and the bite wound, the owner didn’t want to know anything about it and walked away. Sarah made her way home as quickly as she could with the wound. At home she sanitized the wound.
The next day, however, the shoulder was swollen so she had to call the vet. The vet cleaned the wound and prescribed an antibiotic, so that he should be fit again.
But the opposite was the case. The inflammation developed into a severe infection, so that further antibiotic treatments had to follow. Yet the wound never healed completely. To the point where Frank could no longer walk, the infection spread throughout his body. His legs were so swollen that the gelding could no longer walk and developed stress laminitis.
This was the point Sarah made the decision to put him down.
Sarah is having a hard time getting over the loss of the family horse. She is trying to track down the dog owner through Facebook posts and appealing to dog owners to give horses more space, whether the dogs are on a leash or not. That something like this will hopefully never happen to horse owners again.
Quelle: Horse&Hound
