Mike and I held the little filly down on her side in the stall while the vet hobbled out of the stall on her crutches. Safely out, she stood to the side, ready to push the door closed behind us.

            “On the count of three”, Mike said.

We both prepared to dive for the door as we let the filly loose. John, having arrived just in time to see all the theatrics, laughed as we both scrambled for the door just as the filly regained her feet and turned to glare at us beyond the safety of the closed door.

“Do you mean to tell me that little runt has got all of you running scared?”

John stared in disbelief at the little Arab; so tiny she could walk under her mother’s belly.

“Well, John,” challenged the vet, “why don’t you just step in there and give her a little pat?”      

Snickering at the ridiculous notion of a threat, John pushed open the door and stepped inside. From the opposite corner of the stall, where she stood peering out from behind her mother, the filly snaked back her ears and bolted towards John. Whirling in front of him, she fired with both back feet, aiming for the spot John’s chin had occupied a split second before. Safely outside and slightly panting with the exertion of his narrow escape, John grinned sheepishly.

“She’s a little velosiraptor,” laughed the vet; and “Raptor” she became.

Raptor had been born just weeks earlier, and was not even due to be born for several more. Due to an infection in the uterine lining, the mare had given birth to a fully developed, though terribly weak, filly, a full six weeks early. What she lacked in strength, she made up for in attitude and will to survive. Birthed at the bottom of the hill in a ten-acre pasture, her mother left her there to get her grain in the morning. A few hours later when one of the farm hands was doing the weekly cleaning of water troughs, she managed to raise her head high enough to be seen above the tall grass. Without being able to stand on her own, she had somehow managed to scramble halfway up the hill, trying to follow her wayward mother. She was quickly rescued and brought into the barn.

As luck would continue to bless her, our vet was at the farm on another call and had a student with her that day that just happened to work in the neonatal dept. of the university hospital. They inserted a stomach tube through her nose and fed her milk from her mother. At intervals through the day we continued to help her to her feet and hold her close to the mare to suckle, but she was too weak to stand on her own so we had to express the milk from the mother and feed her through the tube. That night the decision was made to send her to the hospital for more intensive care.

Five days later, when she came home, she was stronger, standing and nursing on her own. We had to go into the stall every four hours and give her antibiotics in her IV. Almost always lying down, she would calmly lay as we administered the meds and seemed to enjoy the pets and rubs, which always came with them.

But that was before the diarrhea  started. Her butt was raw and bleeding. Several times a day I would have to clean her, smear her with diaper rash lotion, and squirt Pepto-Bismol down her throat. People became the enemy. At the first sign of a threat she would jump to her feet and start backing towards the door, ready to fire with both back feet. Sometimes she would be hiding behind her mom, then come raging around, or under, with her ears pinned flat to her head and teeth barred.

At 3 months old, when she moved to my farm, her leg was all but unusable. 

Some had been calling her "Magnolia", but "the Raptor" won out.

Her other problems cleared up and eventually she became quite fond of people again, now that the meds were done and only pets and scratches accompanied the people. Everyone who came to the farm went by to visit. Only her right front leg remained a problem. Because she had not stood, soon and enough; the tendon in that leg remained contracted, not allowing her to straighten and stand on it easily. As she walked forward and tried to put weight on it, her leg buckled forward throwing her onto the front of her fetlock. We tried “casting” it with a rolled up magazine, but she continued to carry most of her weight on her left front, which was now developing crooked from the strain of balancing her front end.

After surgery, 8 wks of stall confinement with a cast on (signed by physicians & friends!)

With a mom who was completely self-absorbed, she struggled to keep up. Given a chance to lay down and rest, her mom would soon move off without her, forcing her to jump up and follow. I couldn’t take watching it. I finally went to the barn manager and asked if they were not going to do anything, at least have her humanely put down. I was told they had decided to do just that over the weekend.

Several days later, having been away from the farm. I stopped by the vet’s office before returning to work. I tentatively asked about Raptor.

“Funny you should ask” she said; as she pulled down a medical text and proceeded to explain a procedure she wanted to try.

“I’ll help in anyway I can”, I offered.

“As a matter of fact,” she replied’ “they have offered to give her to me, but I can not do all of the follow up care she will need after the surgery. If you would be willing to be partners with me…”

After surgery and 8 weeks with a cast, she needed time to learn to trust that leg.

So that is how Raptor came to live with me. The surgery, which cut the suspensory tendon, and the eight weeks in a cast afterwards were a tremendous success. There were a lot of stops and starts. Four days after removing the cast, we had to tape half of it back on again when the leg weakened. But with time and moderated exercise, it grew as strong as her other leg, which had begun to straighten, now that it was not carrying the entire load. It was up and down for the next few months, but when she was six months old she was able to go out in a pasture a few hours every day and she was eight months old when she was turned out permanently to live with another yearling.

She is small, standing just 13’2”;  a consequence of being premature. Regardless of the size, she is near perfect! When she was two we entered a halter class at a local Arabian show and took First Place! Now that she is three, I am going to break her to drive, since I am too big to ride her.

She is still Raptor, (though these days when she swings her butt at you it’s mostly for a scratch) but her registered name is “Beylami”. It means “intimate friend”, and I think we have been that to each other.