The volunteers at My Lovely Horse were left heartbroken after they received a late night call in Bray yesterday.
The charity received an Instagram message late last night to say that there was a little foal suffering in a field.
The team were already on a call in Dublin, and with only one van, they didn’t know if they could attend two calls.
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But with the help of a local garda and a vet, they were able to get the poor animal the help it needed.
Orla Donohoe, from My Lovely Horse told Dublin Live: “We got a message last night through Instagram and the person was very concerned about the foal.
“They weren’t sure if he was asleep or if he was just lying down because it was a warm evening yesterday.
“When I looked at it, I didn't think he looked that great. We were very concerned. We were on another call in Dublin and he was down in Bray, but we only had the one van.
“We didn’t know how we were going to deal with this, we were panicking.”
My Lovely Horse rang the gardai in Bray and a young guard helped them out.
Orla continued: “A fantastic guard from Bray station helped us. He was brilliant. He was able to tell us that the foal wasn’t in good shape.
“We got a vet out urgently to assess the situation, the guard got hold of a 24 hour vet last night. We said if the foal needs to be put down, we’d cover the cost.
“You can’t let the poor little thing suffer, this was 11:00pm at night. The vet said that there was no hope and they had to put him down. We don’t know how long the foal was down for.”
Orla explained that there was rubbish thrown around the foal and his mother was there as well.
“She was very distressed,” Orla added.
“It was all kicking off at night but time doesn’t matter to us, we’ll be out. But we only have one van, if we had to go down on a bike we would have.
“I couldn’t stand the thought of the poor thing in pain all night, he was still a baby. It’s horrible. The mother knows that her foal is gone.
“There should be a 24-hour animal cruelty line. It was lucky we were around but what if it’s in another part of the country?
“Our team is always monitoring Facebook and Instagram until late at night, that’s where we get our messages. Things can happen at any time.
“We were so blessed to get a fantastic guard last night who got the vet out straight away, it was fast acting.”
Dublin Live has contacted An Garda Siochana for comment.
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