All Vegas Horses’ rescue program, L.E.A.N., just celebrated its first anniversary.   While looking back at the last twelve whirlwind months of launching this rescue, I realize it was rather like an unplanned pregnancy….something I didn’t expect, that was met with a mixture of joy and panic, and that….one way or another… blossomed into an entirely new experience in about eleven months (we are talking horses, after all).   Over our early months leading into Summer, we developed a fostering plan and began recruiting both friends and strangers (who quickly became friends) to help.  From the unexpected media coverage of a little stiff-legged pony’s surgery (Bay-Be-Boy) to the Facebook frenzy over pictures of our leopard appaloosa’s horrendous wound (Poca), we found a community willing….in fact, compelled….to offer their help.

Starting back in 2003, varied groups of horse lovers have met on a regular basis to talk about a concept referred to as Last Chance Park. The plans were made, maps drawn and public meetings were held about three years ago. No one has mentioned it since.  Those horse lovers continue  longing for local horse trails, dog runs, picnic areas, playgrounds and a  natural area where people could trail ride away from street and highway noise, and in a setting that would be kept natural, while also protecting those lands and properties for critters and people.  Claire Toomie, one of the original organizers, reminisces about the professional support that has been part of the planning, including riding professionals, the National Park Service, Conservation Study Institute, the Nevada Trails Program, American Hiking Society, Bureau of Land Management, and seemingly endless numbers of local people.

For over twenty years as a sports medicine veterinarian, not a day has gone by where I haven't sometimes wished a patient could tell me where they hurt or what they were feeling.  However, being a realist, and knowing that I am never going to get that info verbally from my patients, I have looked long and hard for the tools that allow my patients to speak to me in other ways.  Ten years ago, an equine surgeon friend showed me just such a tool newly transitioning from the military into the medical market.  That tool was thermal or infrared imaging, a diagnostic imaging tool using technology to read reflected heat from a body.