Joan Kievman

Jody Baton

Karla Ashabranner

Kate Turner

Kim Cook

Lacy Merritt

Lee Alsbaugh

Lisa Hand

Lori Mangan

Madden

Randy Lindsey

Rick Reeves

Ron & Laura Miller

Shawna Thomas

Shelley Gish

Susan Snider

Tom Miller

Tommy Wilson

Vickie Morrison

April 2004: Aries at 1,142 pounds.  All the ripples are lumps of fat.

September 28 2004:  Aries  at 1,018 pounds

A Horse’s Reprieve

My horse, Aries (an 11 year old Peruvian Paso) came within hours of being put down recently and I’d like to tell of his miraculous reprieve.

At the end of May, as Aries was recovering from a mild case of laminitis (for the 3rd time in 7 years) he was diagnosed with Cushings (which is caused by a benign tumor on the pituitary gland and is incurable at this time). The standard treatment is Pergolide costing $ 3.00 a day for the rest of the horse’s life and hopefully he will be normal for most of that time. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It didn’t work for Aries and he foundered badly Friday, August 20, 2004. At this point, I was going to put Aries down. The medicine wasn’t working and he was just getting worse and worse.

Our vet stopped me. He said to take him to Dr. Stone’s in Delavan for X-ray’s and a consultation and also have the Doc’s farrier put special shoes on Aries. Dr. Stone claims to have a lot of experience in this area. With the help of Scott & Joan Castell’s trailer and two great friends, Barb & Wayne Dye, we took Aries up to Delavan on Monday afternoon August 23 for his 8am exam on Tuesday.

Dr. Stone’s said Aries metobolics were drastically out of whack and his solution was for Aries to lose 400 to 500 pounds (he was at 1069 and is 14.3 hands) and then gradually to bring him back up in an attempt to cure his faulty metabolics. There was no guarantee that this would work, and he would probably founder again and again before it was over. This was not an option as far as I was concerned. If I couldn’t find a better solution I was going to put him down. Aries is a wonderful animal and he deserves better than this.

That’s when a mini-miracle happened! My daughter Margie (a part-time limo driver) picked up a Nashville singer and took her to the Boone County Fair. They got onto the topics of horses and it transpired that the lady was well versed on Cushings having lost a horse to it. She also said that an exhibitor at the fair had a treatment that could save my horse.

Needless to say, early the next morning I was at Boone County Fair and looking for the exhibitor EquiPride. I went up to the people in the booth and told them I had a horse with Cushings who had just foundered for the fourth time with screwed metabolics – could they help me? They said yes! They assured me that their product could help and showed be “before and after” pictures of Cushings horses to prove it. I almost burst into tears right then and there!!

EquiPride, they told me, would balance my horse’s metobolics (without starving him) and he should be able to be taken off the expensive Pergolide. What did I have to lose at this point? I was already going to put him down rather than starve him. I decided he would be our club test subject. (At this time Aries weighed 1069 pounds and couldn’t seem to lose any more weight. He has been wearing a muzzle all summer but he only lost 79 pounds).

I bought four containers of EquiPride and started Aries on it the same day. He gets 1 ½ scoops of EquiPride and ¾ scoop of triple-washed racehorse oats morning and night and can eat all the hay he wants (4 to 5 flakes a day). That was as of August 26 – by September 8, on this product and diet, he weighed 1018. He lost 50 pounds in 3 weeks and his body shape totally changed. At 1069 his spine was sticking out but his sides bulged and he had an extra belly under his belly. At 1018 his spine was filled in, his neck was not as thick, his sides were slimmed down and the extra belly was gone. He was shiny, and not hungry!!

The story of a miracle, if ever I’ve heard one!

We have now put my friend Denise Erickson’s two horses on this same diet. Both Pant and Fury have lost weight and are really looking good.

Jacque Stokes
Spring Grove, IL

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