Dakota

27 yr old, 14.3 hh Tennessee Walker Gelding

Available as a Pasture Mate

This sweet gentleman is an easy going companion horse. Dakota is quiet, gentle, with good ground manners, and gets along well with others in the pasture. He would be a great companion to another senior horse.

Dakota was surrendered to the rescue in February 2023. He arrived underweight, with poor teeth and a sinus infection that he may have lived with for some time. When pulling his teeth, the vet noticed that the infection from one necrotic tooth had eaten through his jaw bone, leaving a fistula, or hole connecting his sinus and oral cavities. Food would pass through and even get stuck in this hole, prolonging his sinus infection. He couldn't remain on antibiotics indefinitely, and the infection wouldn't heal as long as the hole remained open.

Dakota was taken to the NC State Veterinary Hospital for CT imaging and a surgical procedure to repair the hole and flush his infected sinuses. He recovered well from this initial surgery and spent a happy summer with his pasture friend, Kami. But in October 2023, he experienced a recurrence of the sinus infection, which prompted a return to NC State to confirm the cause. Unfortunately, the fistula's plug did not hold as long as we had hoped. After experiencing some complications with a more permanent plug, he remained in Raleigh for almost a month while the Veterinary Hospital's staff monitored the situation. We were glad to see his sweet face again when he finally came back to the rescue in mid-November.