TLAER

Back in October, I wrote a story about a horse named Maggie (Read Maggie's full story here). Maggie was a sweet old horse that had fallen into pond in February and needed our help to get her out. It was a rescue call, but we were a 30 minute drive away. The firefighters got there much quicker than we did, but they had not been trained on how to work with horses and could not get her out of the water without our help. A variety of factors went into her rescue and we were not able to save her. The weather, the 30 minute drive, her age, and the fact that the firefighters did not know how to rescue a large animal all were working against us.

I had mentioned in my blog that I had taken a Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue course (TLAER) in college. I found the course very interesting, but also thought that it was something that I would never have to deal with. After my experience with Maggie, however, I realize how important it is to be prepared and know how to deal with an emergency - you never think it is going to happen to you until it does. To have the knowledge and skill going into a situation like that can make the difference between life and death for that animal in distress. The firefighters that we were working with had not been trained in TLAER, if they had known how to work with large animals they probably would have been able to pull Maggie out right away and we would have just shown up to help warm her up and work with the vet. She would have been saved.

Click Here for the TLAER website

Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue offers courses that help you prepare for situations like barn fires and floods, trail riding mishaps, and everyday emergencies around the barn like loose horses off property or what to do if your horses somehow get into your hay loft (yes, that really did happen). Dr. Rebecca Gimenez is the president and primary instructor of TLAER, Inc and she has put together a wonderful program to help prepare people on how to deal with a large animal emergency. The program mostly tailors towards firefighters, police officers, animal control officers, and other such rescue responders, but anyone can benefit from these courses. When I took her class in Ohio, I was just a student in college and had no idea that what I learned that day would be put to use years later.

During the two day, jam-packed clinic, we learned everything from basic horse handling to sling techniques to discussing real-life rescue scenarios. At the end of day two, we even did some hands on learning with a few horses so non-horsey firefighters could get a hang of handling a horse safely. Even if you already are an experienced horse person, this clinic still offers a lot of new knowledge by the way of rescue techniques (and it is fun to watch firefighters try to work with horses. For being fearless in the face of a raging fire, they certainly were slow to volunteer to work with the horses!).

A picture from www.tlaer.org, showing a hands-on training course

Just off of that two day clinic, I learned so much and was able to take that knowledge and use it in real life. TLAER even offers another clinic that uses real horses (that they have trained) and dummies to re-enact real rescue situations and lets participants train hands on. If you are a firefighter or an emergency responder, work at an animal rescue, or even just own a horse, I strongly recommend TLAER.

This past week, I got the chance to share my story about Maggie and chat a little bit about horse rescue with Dr. Rebecca Gimenez and radio show host, Glenn the Geek on the radio show Horses In the Morning. Click on the link below to hear the radio clip:

                                                       Horses In The Morning