Rescue & Adoptions

Healthcare with Heart Stories

Helping to Heal the Lasting Effects of Neglect

Rescued from a Brooklyn, New York home where he lived tied to a doghouse on a cement driveway for five years, Dino loves the freedom and comforts afforded him at Farm Sanctuary. At his old home in Brooklyn, Dino was regularly neglected and treated more like a lawn ornament than a living, feeling creature, but here at our New York Shelter, he receives all the love and care he needs and is valued as an important member of our sanctuary family. Now freed from the bonds of loneliness and deprivation that kept him captive for so long in his former life, Dino is able to greet each new day with joy and enthusiasm. Even so, he may never put the darkness of his past entirely behind him. The neglect he experienced over the course of many years is still impacting his health today.

At the time of his rescue, Dino was very small and emaciated, more closely resembling a baby goat than the adult goat that he was. His rescuers discovered that he had been malnourished for quite some time. As a ruminant, Dino should have been fed a diet full of roughage like alfalfa and hay, but his "owners" had given him only rice, pasta and canned corn. This improper diet, which was nutritionally deficient and did not provide him with any fibrous material to chew on, caused him to develop deformities in his face and misalignment in his jaw. Throughout his time at Farm Sanctuary, these deformities have remained a problem for Dino.

Most recently, in the summer of 2005, Dino developed an abscess at the base of his jawbone. Lab cultures revealed that the abscess had formed as the result of an infection, and after treatments of antibiotics, the abscess disappeared. But then, a short time later, caregivers found another abscess on the other side of Dino's jaw. They also discovered that some of the points of Dino's teeth were overly sharp and were scraping painfully against the soft tissues of his cheeks and the roof of his mouth, causing further infection.

Worried by these discoveries, and especially by his reluctance to eat, caregivers brought Dino to Cornell University's Veterinary Hospital. The doctors at Cornell were a great help to Dino, removing a rotten molar that had caused the abscess to form and filing down the sharp points of several other teeth that were scraping his mouth. These procedures made a huge difference in Dino's comfort level and overall quality of life. Eventually, a second rotten molar fell out of Dino's mouth on its own and thanks to a second trip to Cornell and a special diet of alfalfa and flaxseed oil, Dino returned to a healthy weight and remained happy and healthy throughout 2005.

These days, Dino is doing so well that he no longer requires special feeds. He is living quite contentedly with our main herd of sheep (who are gentler with him than the goats and thus cannot further injure his jaw) and is spending his days grazing our green pastures and napping in the sun. Because of the misalignment of his jaw, however, Dino's teeth still do not move against each other properly, making it impossible for them to occlude and wear normally and posing a continuing risk to the sensitive tissues in his mouth. For this reason, caregivers continue to monitor Dino daily for any changes or infections in his mouth and will have his teeth filed down when necessary. Thankfully, here at Farm Sanctuary, Dino will always receive the best care around. Despite his condition, he has a bright and happy future ahead of him.