Zelda

Hello! I'm Zelda!

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Pet Pleasures:  Playing Super Smash Bros on my rare collectors                                 edition Nintendo 64.

 

Pet Peeves:  Sore losers.

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Arrived at FARRM:  2025

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Sex:  Female

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Age:  2024

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About:  After being contacted by a concerned neighbor we were put in touch with a gentleman in the St. Albert area who had a sheep escape from his working farm. While loading his herd up for auction one of the sheep managed to get out and go on the run in the very rural area. It became apparent through our conversations that this person had no interest in catching the escaped sheep as it was not worth his time and effort. The call for help to catch this sheep came in late that evening. Once we had the owner’s permission to keep the sheep, if we were able to catch her we decided as a team to head out that night. Our biggest concern being that if left out without protection for another night she might not survive.

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What ensued after the 1.5 hour drive was nothing but a display of sheer will power and determination. Trying to catch a scared, unsocialized sheep with endless amounts of space to run and hide was hard enough. Trying to do this in the middle of the night, in a dark, remote area surrounded by heavily wooded areas and deep snow was near impossible. Nonetheless, we spent nearly 5 hours tracking this poor girl. Using flashlights to follow tracks through knee deep snow. For hours in the cold we searched and searched with no sign of her. Exhausted and ready to call it quits we got a text from one of the members of our team saying “we got her”.

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Unfortunately, the sheep has gotten herself badly injured. She was visibly bleeding from her back end, unable to move herself any longer. She was buried in 3 feet of deep snow and too tired to continue fighting. At that moment we knew that she never would have survived the night. This 80 pound sheep was unable to walk and now needed to be carried over a mile through deep snow back to a roadway where we could get her to a vehicle. We took turns carrying her down a set of railroad tracks we had found trying to keep her calm and comfortable as we alternated moving her the long distance back to the truck.

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It seemed like nothing short of a miracle that we located her. Truly a needle in a haystack that night. The next day we took her to our vet for a full check up. She had a badly injured back leg that needed stitching to close up a wound near her hip. She had bruises all throughout her abdomen so we had an ultrasound done to make sure there was no internal bleeding. Neither of her back legs were functioning so we took X-rays and confirmed that she had suffered a trauma affecting two of her spinal discs. She was very much in shock and we wanted to establish a baseline for her. Zelda came home with us on pain management and an antibiotic.

 

The next morning we knew something just was not right with her still. We believed she was still in shock and not managing well so we rushed her back to the vet and kept her there on fluids until she had stabilized. Her blood work revealed just how serious her fleeing had been on her body. She was presenting very similar to animals experiencing capture myopathy, which could have caused her death.

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Since her arrival, we have worked for hours every day trying to get this beautiful sheep mobile once again. We built stands, utilized slings and vests trying to get her up and working towards mobility once again. For weeks her improvement seemed non-existent but we continued stretching and exercising her with physio day after day. Eventually we started to get more strength back in one of her back legs and she had fully regained strength in both her front legs. This was enough for us to customize a wheelchair to aid us in physio each day.

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With the help of a wheelchair we have been able to get Zelda moving for 4-5 hours a day. We are happy to say that with the aid of a wheelchair Zelda can use one of her back legs now and has started to show signs of movement in her other “dead” back leg!

At this time we will keep helping her get her life back and give her the space she needs to thrive however that may look. Our goal is to shoot for the stars and hope one day she can walk again without the aid of a wheelchair. ​