Friends:
Maybe you thought like I,"They Shoot Horses,Don't
they."
Brother Russ
Ya gotta meet
Molly...
Meet Molly.She's
a gray speckled pony who was abandoned by
her owners when Hurricane Katrina hit southern Louisiana . She spent
weeks on her own before finally being rescued and taken
to a farm
where abandoned animals were stockpiled. While there, she was attacked by a
pit bull terrier and almost died. Her gnawed right front leg became
infected, and her vet went to LSU
for help, but LSU was overwhelmed, and this pony was a welfare case. You
know how that goes.
But after surgeon Rustin
Moore met Molly,
he changed his mind.He saw how the pony was careful to lie down on different
sides so she didn't seem to get sores, and how she allowed
people to handle her.She protected her injured leg. She constantly shifted
her weight and didn't overload her good leg.. She was a smart pony with a
serious survival ethic.
Moore
agreed to remove her leg below the knee, and a temporary artificial limb was
built. Molly walked out of the clinic and her story really
begins here.
'This was the
right horse and the right owner,' Moore
insists. Molly happened to
be a one-in-a-million patient.
She's tough as nails, but sweet, and she was willing to cope with pain. She
made it obvious she understood that she was introuble. The other
important factor, according to Moore , is having a truly committed and
compliant owner who is dedicated to providing
the daily care
required over the lifetime of the horse.
Molly's
story turns into a parable for life in
post-Katrina Louisiana .The little pony gained weight, and her mane finally
felt a comb. A human prosthesis designer built her a leg.
The
prosthetic has given Molly a whole new life, Allison Barca DVM, Molly's
regular vet, reports.
And she asks for it. She will put her little
limb out, and come
to you and let you know that she wants you to
put it on. Sometimes she wants you to takeit off too.
And sometimes, Molly gets away from Barca. 'It can be pretty bad when you
can't catch a three-legged horse,' she laughs.
Most
important of all, Molly has a job now. Kay, the rescue farm owner, started
taking Molly to shelters, hospitals, nursing
homes, and
rehabilitation centers.
Anywhere she thought
that people needed hope. Wherever Molly went, she showed people her pluck.
She inspired people, and she had a good time doing
it.
'It's
obvious to me that Molly had a bigger role to play in life, Moore said. She
survived the hurricane, she survived a horrible
injury, and now she
is giving hope to others.'
Barca
concluded, 'She's not back to normal, but she's going to be better.To me,
she could be a symbol for New
Orleans
itself.'
This
is
Molly's most recent prosthesis. The bottom photo
shows the ground surface that she stands on, which has a smiley face
embossed in it. Wherever Molly goes, she leaves a smiley hoof
print
behind.
Forward
this
and share it with all of the animal lovers
that you
know.