When Chocolate Muffin arrived at our shelter, she was very withdrawn. She obviously needed time to adjust to her new surroundings, but we were all very upset to note that she had not been looked after very well at all. Her hooves were extremely overgrown, and we could see that she had difficulty walking on them, and was possibly in pain. This photo on the left, taken on the day she arrived at the shelter, shows just how overgrown one of her hooves was.

Thanks to your kind donation, we were able to get emergency treatment for her, which involved a visit from a local farrier. The farrier carried out an initial trim on her hooves - as you know, they cannot be trimmed down to a normal size in one go, and required several future visits. She no longer hobbles as she used to, now that her hooves have been trimmed down to a good size, and she moves around a lot faster. However, she still has a slight limp, which may have been caused by many years of walking on overgrown hooves. Her leg muscles and tendons will hopefully adjust to the new walking position, although it is possible that she may unfortunately have permanent damage.

Chocolate Muffin has now been at the shelter for more than a year, and the improvements are clear to see. She is much more outgoing - whereas before she used to hide behind one of our stables for most of the day, she now accompanies the ponies into the main field. She has even been joining in with their "games" ... we were all delighted the other day when the ponies were having one of their "silly half hours", running full pelt after each other around our field, and Chocolate Muffin was running around with them, bucking and braying playfully!

She still uses the back of the stables as her little personal hiding place, usually when our goats are getting a little too boisterous and starting to annoy her! During the cold weather she sports a new blanket on her back, very kindly donated by one of our volunteers

The photos shown below were taken in February 2008, and includes a close up of her nicely trimmed hooves - a vast improvement!

Our ponies, September and Bugsy, who share the paddock with Chocolate Muffin, are shown below.