Free The Hippo with Toothache by Lucy H Spelman

one-horned rhinos in the wild. Throughout India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Thailand, this species—also known as the Indian rhino—lives in swampy grasslands and mud wallows.
    Mark recommended that zoos dramatically change the way they housed these rhinos. A pool isn’t enough, he said; give these animals the swamps and mud their feet need. Takethe pressure off their soles by getting them off gravel and cement floors. He also pointed out that many zoo rhinos were overweight, compounding the problem. Why weren’t zoos providing the proper conditions? It was partly due to lack of understanding of what this species needs to be healthy, partly the cost of adding wallows, and partly the weather.
    For nine months of the year in Washington, Mo had access to his outdoor pool and the mud around it. And he spent most of his time there. During winter, however, he lived mostly inside, protected from the cold. Mo’s feet worsened within weeks of the start of wintertime housing routines.
    While he spoke, Mark flashed images of normal feet from wild rhinos in Nepal alongside images of abnormal ones living in captivity. Rhinos have three toes and a main foot pad. They naturally bear most of their weight on their toenails, each analogous to a horse’s hoof with a hard outer wall that extends well below a concave sole. Healthy wild rhinos are “toe walkers.” Since they naturally walk on soft ground, their toenails show very little wear. Captive rhinos have short nails with flat soles that fall even with the main foot pad; they are “pad walkers.”
    Suddenly, Mo’s real problem became crystal clear: his toenails were completely worn down from a lifetime on hard ground, exposing his soles—and then his main foot pad—to excess weight. Swampy ground might have prevented this problem, and it certainly had to be part of the long-term solution, but for now this rhino’s feet were caught in a painful vicious cycle. Every time we cut the overgrown sole tissue back, it barely came even with his nails. He walked mostly on his sore soles.
    I arranged for Paul to stop by to see Mo so I could show him some of the photos. He reacted to Mark’s findings with a new idea.
    â€œOkay, so let’s put shoes on him,” he said.
    â€œShoes?” I was surprised. “Paul, you’re crazy. How do we do that?”
    â€œWe’ll just glue ’em on. No problem. I’ve been putting these aluminum shoes on the US Equestrian Team dressage horses because they’re light, and you don’t have to put nails through their feet to keep them on. We use epoxy and a fiberglass patch. You know, the way you fix broken turtle shells. If we can just get him up off his soles and give his nails some relief, they might have a chance to grow out more normally.”
    â€œBut won’t we have to go back and take the shoes off at some point?” I asked, worried about the number of times we’d have to put the rhino (and ourselves) through anesthesia. The more I thought about an aluminum shoe glued onto the bottom of a rhino foot, the crazier it sounded. I imagined two scenarios: the rhino would wake up from anesthesia, tap around inside his enclosure, and throw off the shoes. Or the glue would hold them in place forever.
    â€œNah, he’ll wear ’em off eventually. Most people probably won’t even notice he has them on.” Paul thought for a moment. “Send me measurements of his back feet—the really bad ones—and some tracings of his footprints, if the keepers can get them. I’ll make a prefab set of shoes so the whole thing goes quickly. I think we should do this sooner rather than later, before his feet get really bad again.”
    We were all excited when the time came to give Mo hisnew shoes. Once again, there was extensive secondary infection in his rear feet, though the front feet were not so bad. After the trimming and antibiotic perfusion, Paul pulled the