Lola
Passed away: January 2009

One Sunday morning in January 2009, after a night of torrential rain, we received a call about a horse in distress.

When we arrived, we found an old and undernourished horse, lying in cold, wet mud, where apparently she had been all night. We immediately called a vet, and in the meantime tried everything we could to get her to her feet.

With some comforting words and a little food, she managed to raise her head for a short while. But, she was very weak. After two hours of trying to get her up we were advised by the vet that she had probably suffered heart failure and was unlikely to survive.

She was obviously in pain, but due to the law in Spain the vet was unable unable to end her suffering until we managed to locate the owner, which took around another hour. We tried to make Lola’s final moments as comfortable as possible. In the end, she was surrounded by people who cared.

Lola was 23 years old and still being used by her Spanish owner for pulling a plough in the fields. She lived alone in an orange grove with no shelter, little food and no veterinary care. For Lola we were too late, but there are many other cases like Lola’s. It is the others we need to help.