THE STORY OF BEAR!
Bear came to be with me only a few months ago.
After a run of ‘bad luck’ with horses my husband and I
finally decided to bite the bullet and spend a little more than we could
actually afford in order to get me back out in the competition ring after
retiring my old mare a few years ago.
Bear has been a level 1 Show-hack and has had some
great success over the years. He is well educated and a real show stopper.
He was all my dreams come true and exactly what I had been searching for
in a horse for quite some time.
After some initial teething problems with settling in
to his new home, Bear and I were beginning to build a nice partnership and
had our sights set on some up coming shows.
Then I got ‘the phone call’
My husband had the day off work and was feeding up in
the morning when he noticed Bear had a swollen eye. Doing the right thing
by not panicking he brought Bear out and bathed the eye in some salt
water. It didn’t look too bad at first. There were no foreign objects and
it was only slightly swollen, so we decided that he was ok to go back out
into the field and be reassessed later when I got home from work.
By the time I arrived home most of the swelling had
come down and I was preparing for our afternoon ride. Bear didn’t seem
bothered by the minimal swelling nor did he seem like he was in pain.
Suddenly the sun just hit the eye on the right angle
and I noticed something in the middle of his cornea.
A HOLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Being a Vet Nurse I am fully aware of how quickly the
smallest eye injury can turn nasty let alone something like this. So the
Vet was called IMMEDIATELY!
The most likely diagnosis was that Bear had put his
head down to eat his hay and a spike of hay had stabbed him fair and
square in the middle of his cornea. It left quite a deep puncture
mark with a small split above it.
After copious amounts of atropine and extensive
staining of the eye we found a large ulceration of the cornea under the
puncture site.
The plan? Hit him hard with Equibutazone, some IV
antibiotics and into the stable with complete darkness until further
notice. If the eye doesn’t get infected we should be ok!
Well, this is where my research began.
Bear is quite a well-behaved horse, but being stabled
and not seeing any daylight for several weeks is enough to send the most
sensible of horses just a little loopy.
This
is when I found the Guardian Mask. I phone Debbie that night and had the
mask in the mail the following day.
Not only did the mask cut Bear’s stabled time down by
more than a week but it also gave me some reassurance that no foreign
objects, dust or further injury could affect the eye while it was healing.
Bear was not worried by wearing the mask in the
slightest. It seems quite comfortable and sturdy and never moves or rubs
while being worn. So far I have found the mask to be of sturdy material
and great design with loads of adjustment.
Bear’s eye has now healed and he is back out at pasture
but still wears his mask on sunny days. I am not sure how he would have
coped with much more stabling time and the Guardian mask played a key role
in cutting this time down to the absolute minimum.
We are back on track now with our training and
hopefully will be out and about very soon. I was so incredibly frightened
that I would loose my dream horse to such a common injury. Bear was lucky
that we got onto the Vet within a very short period of time of the injury
and he will make a complete recovery. But the Guardian mask was a huge
part of his treatment. It certainly gave me peace of mind as far as
Uveitis is concerned and helped incredibly while the eye was still under
the effect of the atropine. Ruling out yet another foreign object
re-injuring an already damaged eye was something else that was very
comforting.
I just want to thank Debbie and Guardian masks from the
bottom of my heart for their prompt service, friendly follow up phone
calls and their FANTASTIC product.
Kind Regards
Simone Coleman and Celebrity (Bear)
Thank you Simone, for sharing your
story. Although it might sound unusual, this type of injury can
occur! Bear is without a doubt a fine and beautiful horse and
we're so pleased to know Guardian Mask is there to help. Also
a special thank you, to Debbie Webber as well for all of her hard work in
spreading the word and helping with distribution in Australia!
Guardian Mask
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