Thursday in Fez is a day of the Souk, or market, where a lot of livestock is traded. For that reason, the caseload tends to be light on Thursdays, but many people will come to the Fondouk tomorrow with animals they purchased today.

A sad sight walked through the doors this morning. The donkey was three-legged lame, his left hind hoof severely traumatized and sloughing off. The injuries were secondary to a common method of restraint here: ropes or wire (or whatever they can find that will work) tied around the legs. The restraints are generally placed around the pasterns and/or cannon bones as well. Most of the animals bear the white hair and scarring over all four legs from being restrained in this way. I suppose it’s cheaper than putting up fence. The donkey we saw today obviously had to be euthanatized. The owner said that the injury was only three days old, which is kind of hard to believe. The most likely scenario we could theorize was that the donkey was left to graze while tied up for an extended period of time while the rope became tightly wrapped around the pastern, causing devastating tissue damage and disrupting the blood supply to the hoof. Probably the owner had not gone to check on the animal until three days ago.

The donkey’s hoof was traumatized and sloughing off

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