Episode 6 Animal 24:7

Britain's animals are under threat.

All too often, our wildlife and domestic pets are the victims of cruelty, persecution and neglect.

Fighting to save them is a dedicated band of people, trying to protect and care for them around the clock.

This is Animal 24:7.

Today on Animal 24:7, the bruising battle to rein in and rescue a frightened foal.

We need to get this foal into a place of safety where it can be properly looked after.

A heathland fire sparks a mercy mission to save some of Britain's rarest wildlife.

They're completely unaware of what's going on, disorientated.

They're suffering every anxiety you can think of.

And the hi-tech tools being used to track down the country's cruelty offenders.

Often we don't have the evidence that an offence has been committed.

CCTV puts a completely different spin on that.

Horses are very popular pets, but keeping them requires a major commitment of time and money.

Sadly, here in the UK, the number of abandoned horses is increasing every year with hundreds reported.

So, of course, when a wild horse gives birth,

another unwanted animal is added to that number.

Hatfield in Hertfordshire.

This field is home to a group of horses, most of which are well looked after,

but the RSPCA has been concerned for a mother and its foal,

both of which had no owner and were struggling to cope.

The mother has been removed and now officers have returned to round up the foal.

Inspector Mel Fisher has ten years' experience dealing with horses.

She and her colleagues have made one aborted attempt to rescue the foal,

so now she knows today's operation will be a real challenge.

Because the foal is very wild, we weren't able to catch the foal initially.

We took the mother for her own safety and welfare. She was very sick. But we can't leave the foal here.

No-one has claimed the mother.

The people who use this field and own the other horses state that the foal doesn't belong to them,

so we need to make sure that this foal is cared for and monitored.

If it's not owned by anybody, it's in its best interest if we take it to a place of safety.

Mel's colleague Pete Warne knows that removing this foal today is essential.

Nobody is responsible for it. It might be able to wander round the field, eat grass and get some water,

but if it gets sick or whatever, it becomes our responsibility in a way.

Because we've removed one, we're responsible for the other.

Police community support officer Karen Broad is here to help.

This is her field of expertise.

I will basically just talk to it quietly and gently and get it to gain my trust.

My colleagues keep calling it horse-whispering. I'm not so sure. I'm not a horse whisperer.

In my pocket, I'm laden with carrots. I will try and entice it to gain my confidence.

But despite being armed with goodies, Karen knows this won't be easy.

My worry today for this little foal is because it's never been handled,

it's been handled perhaps never, it's going to be extremely frightened and nervous,

then the other problem is once I've got hold of it,

it is likely to either try and run off or it will rear and buck all over the place,

so we're going to have to be extremely careful and it's going to be a very long, slow process.

In I go, into the lion's den.

As Karen attempts to befriend the foal,

Mel and Pete are trying to distract the other horses who clearly aren't as nervous.

We'll try and keep everybody calm in the field and hopefully, Karen can work her magic, fingers crossed.

It's a bit of a juggling act to try and keep them away from Karen

without stressing out the little foal,

so yeah, I think we might run out of carrots!

But we'll have to see.

As Karen predicted, this isn't going to be a straightforward job.

No, it just keeps pulling faces at me.

She tries the sneaky approach.

I'm just trying to use this one to work my way down towards it.

The team is very anxious about this foal.

The problem is, any attempt by Karen to get near ends with it shying away.

So it's looking like Plan A isn't working.

So can you get close to it all?

It'll come close to you,

but as soon as you try and get eye contact with the pony,

it turns around and walks away.

So far, trying to rein in the foal has proved a frustrating process.

It wants to come, but it's just so timid

and apparently, it was born in here,

so that won't help because it means it's never been handled.

It wasn't handled to be dumped in here either.

So it appears they'll need to resort to Plan B.

We need to get this foal off this land and into a place of safety where it can be properly looked after.

If we can't manage to approach it enough to put a head collar on it,

we might have to use the tranquilliser rifle to dart it

and that will sedate it and hopefully we can pop a collar on it and lead it into the horse box.

It seems like sedation is the only option.

Are we calling it a day?

I've managed to stroke its bottom,

but as soon as it realised I'd got a finger on it, it was off.

I don't think I'll ever get near enough to its head. I think you'll get close enough to dart it.

That's not a problem. It's how it will react to being stung on the bottom and where it goes.

Vet Anna Turk has been on stand-by and arrives with the sedative.

-That's enough for a 400-kilo horse. He'll only be about 300 kilos.

-Oh, he's having a little roll!

The dosage is all-important.

We need enough because getting that on to a box...

-It's going to be a problem.

-You'll practically have to knock it out to get it on a box anyway.

-Yeah.

For the team, this is very much a last resort,

but they need to remove this foal today.

There's just no other way. We can't even get close enough to get a syringe and hand-administer the drug,

so this is going to be the only way we'll be able to catch the foal

and it's just going to be a small injection to its bottom.

Hopefully, once it's been startled by the actual dart going in,

it won't feel much and the sedative works really quickly.

The vet's supplied the drugs and this is the RSPCA dart rifle equipment that we use.

It takes about 20 minutes once the drug has been injected,

then hopefully, it'll be nice and quiet, nice and calm, nicely sedated,

enough for us to be able to go and put a head collar on it.

With uncertainty over how the foal will react to the dart and the sedation,

the team knows this might not be a straightforward process.

Still to come, tension rises as the team aims to sedate the foal.

-Easy, fellas. Easy, fellas.

-Well done, Mel, brilliant!

And the tactics helping to tackle some of Britain's worst acts of animal cruelty.

I imagine he wasn't aware there was a camera in that lift.

Heathlands are home to some of Britain's most rare and precious wildlife.

They're the perfect habitat for reptiles, mammals and ground-nesting birds.

But one of the biggest threats to the wealth of wildlife that lives there is fire,

so when a huge blaze took hold of a heathland in southern England,

it triggered a rescue operation like no other.

Poole in Dorset. On the outskirts of the town, the biggest blaze in decades is ripping through a heath.

200 fire-fighters are battling to stop the flames from engulfing nearby homes.

But another tragedy is also unfolding.

This 500-acre heath is a site of special scientific interest

and a habitat for some of Britain's rarest species of wildlife.

And sadly, much of that wildlife has now been decimated.

It's five days after the fire which destroyed around a third of the heath.

Where there was once glorious green,

now black dominates.

Volunteers have come from all parts of the country to help save any animals

which have just managed to survive.

Steve Davis of Dorset Wildlife Trust is in charge.

We went through lots of emotions last week when we watched the fire brigade trying to tackle this thing.

We've worked on here for years and years and we knew what was being engulfed in it.

And you really did feel down just watching it.

It's been raining all weekend and today,

but when you walk on there, you get the acrid smell of the smoke catching the back of your throat,

just walking across this wilderness.

Stephen and his team have been here every day since the fire

and so far, they've recovered around 110 animals

which managed to take refuge underground from the flames.

Many of the animals they've picked up are clearly pregnant.

That's emphasised to the rescuers how important their efforts are.

Today, the team is back again to look for any signs of life in the devastated area.

Britain's heathlands have got international importance.

It has so many rare species that cannot survive anywhere else.

When they're emerging into black, they're easy to spot and buzzards and gulls are picking them off,

so we'll go out there over the next few days to rescue these things and transfer them to the unburnt heath.

All six species of British reptile can be found at Upton Heath,

including the adder, the only venomous snake native to the UK.

Some of the adders out there are very small and easily confused with small grass snakes or smooth snakes,

so no picking up any snakes at all - I'll do that rescue.

Across the charred remains of heathland,

volunteer Andy Fale is handling a snake, but this one is not likely to hurt him.

Well, we've got a dead smooth snake here, unfortunately,

one of the casualties.

We thought we might find a few of these.

It looks to me like this one has actually survived the fire and then has perished.

The reptiles that have survived are emerging into barren surroundings.

The volunteers only have so much time.

We're here for the live ones. We think there's a lot more out here.

It's a bit of a race against time. We've got only this week, really.

Beyond that, I don't expect to find anything.

It's not just reptiles that are being killed by the fire.

We've found several animals that were caught by the fire - rabbits...

Unfortunately, we've even found a couple of deer.

Finding a fawn was probably our darkest point.

Ground-nesting birds have also suffered, including the rare nightjar.

Nightjars have literally just arrived back from Africa, a massive flight all on their own.

They've come back here to nest for the summer.

The nightjar's reaction to danger is not to fly or flee in any way.

They depend on their camouflage.

If they feel threatened at any time, they hunker down and keep still because the danger will pass.

We were hoping all day on Thursday, as we were watching the fire progress,

to see some nightjars flying and getting out of the way. We didn't see any.

That just reinforces that these things did literally perish

because their defence doesn't take into consideration fire.

But despite the low points...

-There we go.

-..the team take heart every time they find an animal that has survived the blaze.

A lovely little common lizard. It's in remarkably good condition, considering what it's been through.

It will have been underground and it's only now felt able to come back up and try and find cover.

It's always really good to see something and to be able to rescue it.

And I'm sure if he could speak, he'd thank me if he knew what I was doing.

It's a long way for Steve to find a suitable release site for this lizard.

And as volunteers fan out over the heath, others are making similar discoveries.

This is a common lizard I found on this heavily burnt-up bit, sitting there feeling sorry for itself.

It's lost its tail. It looks like it might have been burnt off, but it's survived,

so this one is going to go back on to the little bit of heath that's still remaining

and hopefully survive and have some more baby lizards.

Sifting through what's left of the lost habitat, the volunteers need to be extra-vigilant

as the area is a breeding ground for our only venomous snake - the adder.

And that's exactly what Steve is receiving an urgent call about.

Still to come, Steve dices with the danger posed by a feisty survivor.

Because it's poisonous, I'm in a difficult situation trying to recover that,

but we'll see how we get on.

And tension rises as the team struggles to bring a foal under control.

Easy, easy. Easy, easy, easy!

The RSPCA are in the front-line when it comes to tackling animal cruelty.

Last year, they investigated nearly 160,000 cases,

resulting in over 2,400 prosecutions.

Often the tip-off comes from members of the public,

but now officers have a new tool to catch some culprits red-handed,

leaving them nowhere to hide - CCTV.

'Salford, Greater Manchester, and inside this tower block,

'Maddox, a defenceless puppy, falls victim to a brutal and cowardly attack...

'..which is too shocking to be shown on television.

'It's a vicious and sustained assault from the one person who is supposed to care for him.

'A split second after we froze these pictures,

'the dog was subjected to continuous kicking and punching, lasting a full three minutes.

'Trapped inside the lift, Maddox couldn't escape the violence.

'With nobody else in sight, the drunken owner thought he would escape justice.

'But someone was watching.

'The whole incident, which is one of the most disturbing we've ever featured on Animal 24:7,

'had been captured on camera and the RSPCA was alerted.'

-Hi.

-Hi. Nice to see you.

'Chief Inspector Cathy Hyde picked up the case.'

-Extraordinary brutality!

-And it's just walking obediently on the lead.

He looks very worse for wear.

'With ten years' experience as an RSPCA inspector,

'Cathy has dealt with a huge range of cases of animal abuse.'

Is the dog doing anything? It's not trying to bite him.

No, the lead is static. There's nothing happening down there.

'She's used to picking up the pieces,

'so seeing this assault unfold before her eyes was new and alarming.'

This was one of the first times I was involved in CCTV being used as evidence,

so that was very shocking for me, the first time.

My key thing was that dog needed to come away from that situation immediately.

'With this level of violence, Cathy didn't know if Maddox would be alive when she reached him.'

I've seen it on the screen, but this is the scene of the crime.

What were you and your team thinking as you got here?

The most important thing for us was to get the dog away.

Having seen the brutality of the attack on it, I wasn't prepared to leave here

without the dog coming into our care to get it to a vet and checked out.

'Inside the lobby, six cameras captured the whole ugly incident from every angle.'

So you had every step of this guy's way tracked.

We did from the moment he came into the building.

-The first one we pick him up on is this camera here.

-Right.

And you see him kick the dog for no apparent reason.

This is the lift that the incident took place in.

-This is the camera?

-Yes. I can only imagine he wasn't aware it was in that lift.

-It's like being beaten up in a box, isn't it?

-It is.

-There's nowhere for him to escape the blows.

You can't see the dog, so the dog is obviously making itself as small as possible in the corner

to try and avoid the brutality of the attack.

'The attack continued all the way to the 13th floor.'

Animals do understand right from wrong, but this dog is probably thinking, "What have I done?"

There's no disobedience from this dog.

'Maddox survived, but his injuries were not immediately obvious.

'Without CCTV evidence, Cathy knew she would have had to walk away.

'Happily, she rescued the defenceless puppy

'and the owner received a three-month jail sentence.'

He got, most importantly, a life ban from keeping any animal.

The main purpose we prosecute is to deprive people of animals they've abused or neglected

and also to ensure they don't get the opportunity to do that to another animal in the future.

'Since Maddox was rescued, CCTV control rooms like the one that helped save him

'have become a key tool for the RSPCA.'

This is an impressive array of screens, but unblinking eyes like these now look out

over many of our towns and cities,

and sadly, Maddox isn't the only animal cruelty case that the RSPCA have caught on camera.

Recently, the number of camera-led prosecutions has rocketed.

Who can forget this shocking case?

If it wasn't for CCTV, the poor cat could have died in the wheelie bin.

Instead, it was saved and the offender was successfully prosecuted.

And it's not just CCTV cameras catching out the culprits.

Mobile phone evidence is also increasingly common.

It's how this thug was brought to justice.

Cathy has found camera evidence has become a powerful weapon in the fight against animal cruelty.

It's so, so important because we get a lot of allegations of dog-beating

and sometimes it's somebody has heard something or seen something.

It can come down to one word against another. In a lot of circumstances, it's not enough.

We don't have the evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that an offence has been committed.

Sometimes we have to walk away. CCTV puts a completely different spin on that.

'If it wasn't for security cameras, Maddox might still be trapped with his abusive owner.

'But today, he's happy, healthy and re-homed with new owner Liam Jones.'

-Hi there.

-Hi, Liam. How are you doing? Is this Maddox?

-Yes.

-Come and say hello.

-How's he doing?

-He's doing good.

'It's hard to believe that this is the same dog I saw cowering in that lift.'

-How does he look to you, Cathy?

-He looks fabulous. I've not seen him for about 18 months.

What I notice most is his personality.

Although when we picked him up, he wasn't specifically underweight or anything like that,

he was very subdued and nervous, but he's a different dog.

He's really keen and excited and obviously, very happy.

'He certainly is and it's great to see.

'Hopefully, Maddox can now look forward to a much happier future.'

There was a very violent beginning to this story, but a joyful ending.

Absolutely. Look at him now - he's very happy, very fit, very settled in his new life.

Without the evidence of the CCTV, he would have remained in that very threatening and violent situation,

probably for years, and that may have resulted in him coming to much worse injury,

but to see Maddox as he is now,

happy, fit, healthy in a very safe home is so satisfying and gives you such a boost.

Now we return to Hertfordshire and the RSPCA's attempts to rescue a foal.

They've already removed his mum from the field and found her to be in a very poor condition

and because no-one has claimed ownership of the two horses, they need to take the foal as well,

but this is much more tricky.

This foal was born in this field.

He has never been handled and now nobody is caring for him.

RSPCA Inspector Mel Fisher and her team are anxious to take him with them today,

but he is extremely nervous around people and the only way they can lead him away

is to sedate him with a tranquilliser dart.

We've got the drugs in the top half of the dart. It's a gas-powered dart.

I need to be able to insert some pressure into the end of the dart,

then we put the fluffy, pink pom-pom on the end, so we can find it if it does fall out,

but these are barbed darts, so it should stay in the foal.

It's always a risk. You're administering a drug and drugs have side-effects.

I've darted ponies before. I don't see it being a problem, though it is quite a large field.

They react to being stung initially by the dart going in and as this foal is a bit of an unknown entity,

we don't know what the reaction is to the dart entering the skin.

Unfortunately, there is just no way we can move the foal into a more restricted area,

so we'll just have to play it by ear.

Mel's colleague Pete Warne is here to help.

Even once the foal is sedated, moving him to the horse box could be difficult.

I'll let the foal get used to being in the field, then we'll take a shot and...

-See what happens.

-Yeah.

-No worries.

Mel gets as close to the foal as possible and she's ready to take aim.

Ready?

Come here, sweets.

-DART IS FIRED

-Easy, fellas.

-Well done, Mel. Brilliant!

It's a perfect shot

and the foal doesn't appear to be overly traumatised.

That went really well.

It didn't react quite as excited as I thought it might.

The team's plan is to give the foal as little sedative as possible to relax it and bring it under control.

But after 20 minutes, it's clear the horse still needs more.

He'll have to have another one.

We erred on the side of caution. We don't want to give a foal too much sedative.

We've approached the foal and it's still quite lively,

and we can't get the required head collar on in order to load it,

so with discussion with the vet, we've decided to give it a further slight sedative.

We'll go back in and we'll pop another dart in.

For a second time, Mel hits the target,

but once again, they'll need to be patient to see whether the drugs take effect.

The horse is starting to look sleepy, so we're going to try and get a head collar on it,

but it's still going to be a "slowly, gently, gently" affair.

As it turns out, one more dart isn't enough.

The team have had to be patient and very cautious.

Eventually, they're ready to try and put a collar on him.

Good boy.

But the frightened foal is still showing plenty of spirit.

Easy, easy. Easy, easy, easy. Easy!

This may all be for his own good, but he doesn't understand that.

Whoa, whoa!

He's just not used to being around people.

OK, sideways, if that makes it any easier...

At last, they have him under control.

-Good boy!

-Who's a good lad? Come on.

Just about.

-It's OK.

-It's all right.

-Come on.

-It's OK.

It's taken over six hours,

but the foal is finally loaded on to the trailer.

It is a relief that we've finally got him in the box. It's not over until we've got him in the stable.

Hopefully, he'll travel OK. He seems quiet now that he's confined,

but at one stage, I was wondering if we were going to be able to get him this far.

It's now a two-hour trip to the stables

and despite how confusing it must have been for him,

the foal doesn't seem to be disturbed by the journey.

He's doing really well. Because we had to give him sedative, we were worried how he'd travel,

but he seems to have travelled OK, so we're keeping it nice and gentle as we get him out.

The sedative's worn off somewhat, so he's going to be quite frightened.

We don't want him injuring himself while we try and get him out into the box.

The foal might be frightened, but this is the best place for him.

It's the stables we use quite regularly

and they are brilliant at bringing on underweight foals and ponies.

Nobody has ever cared for him and because he's been sedated,

it's vital a vet checks him over straight away.

Now we've got him close up, we see his feet need attention,

he's underweight and his coat is very woolly and matted, which is why they've called him Womble,

so Womble is going to need a lot more care.

It's made us feel even more justified in having him removed from the field

because if he had stayed where he was, his feet would have worsened,

his weight would have dropped further, so I'm really pleased we've managed to get him out when we have.

So Womble can look forward to some long overdue TLC as he finds his feet

in his first ever stable.

It's nice to see him all settled in.

Obviously, it's going to take a lot of work to get him used to being handled and interacted with,

but at least he's in a nice, safe place, we know someone's going to be looking after him.

Yeah, it's been a good end to a very long day.

Still to come, the farrier braces himself for the hazards of handling a wild horse.

I've broken a rib from being kicked

and I've broken my foot twice from a horse just startling.

Earlier, we saw how fire destroyed a large part

of one of Britain's most important wildlife conservation areas.

Around 200 fire-fighters were called to tackle the blaze at Upton Heath near Poole in Dorset.

The fire wiped out hundreds of rare birds, lizards and snakes,

but now a dedicated team of wildlife experts and volunteers are embarked

on a desperate mission to save as many survivors as possible.

It's hard to believe, but just days ago,

this 500-acre heathland was a thriving haven for some of Britain's rarest wildlife.

Now, after the fire,

around a third of Upton Heath has been reduced to a wasteland.

For people like Steve Davis from Dorset Wildlife Trust, the blaze has proved a devastating blow.

These heathlands have got international importance. We've worked on it for years and years.

We went through all sorts of emotions when we watched the fire brigade trying to tackle this thing.

To save themselves from the flames, Steve believes many animals burrowed under ground.

Now, five days on, the priority for Steve and his team of volunteers is to rescue them as they resurface.

It's always good to see something and to be able to rescue it.

I'm sure if he could speak, he'd thank me.

This prized heathland is one of the few places in the country

where it is possible to find every species of British reptile.

And volunteer Andy Fale has found the most dangerous.

I found a live adder, amazingly. In amongst all this black, it was still surviving.

Due to the risk of being bitten,

only Steve has the necessary experience to safely handle Britain's only venomous snake.

It's been 30 years since the last person died in this country as the result of an adder bite,

but he knows he needs to be careful.

It's a difficult position. There's a lot of tangled roots and things.

Because it's poisonous, we are in a difficult situation with trying to recover that, but we'll see.

It's only a small adder, but typically, they're the most aggressive.

To try to protect itself, the adder releases a fluid as a defence mechanism.

If Steve were to be bitten, he'd need urgent medical attention.

OK, this is an adult female adder and also very, very feisty.

Understandably, it's frustrated, angry and frightened.

I think I'll release this one as soon as I possibly can.

But well spotted. Thanks, guys. That's just what we need to do.

That's the most feisty one of the lot. The ones we're picking up are quite aggressive and feisty.

That's to be expected. They're completely unaware of what's going on.

They're suffering every anxiety that you can think of.

They found this snake in the heart of the burned site, so Steve faces a long walk with the angry adder.

He chooses her release point carefully, making sure it's a south-facing bank.

On a sunny day, this would be perfect for her to come out early, do a bit of basking,

get her body temperature up, ready to go hunting.

She's got everything she needs here - a slope, she's got cover, she's got food.

What more could a snake want?

The fire has been especially devastating because it hit

during the peak of the bird and reptile breeding season.

It seems they've saved this adder just in time.

I strongly suspect she's pregnant,

so it's a nice thought to rescue not just one adder, but all its young as well.

Every cloud has a silver lining and this is the silver lining for this one and for the people who found it.

With every single snake and lizard they release, the volunteers know they are making a difference.

Just knowing that we can help, really.

There's not much we can do, but it's been amazing, the amount of people that have shown up.

There he goes, look.

That's him.

And the thing is, if we've saved one, they will go on to reproduce and it means we've saved many in the end.

We'll probably be here again tomorrow and so on,

as long as we can keep finding a few reptiles.

The heath itself will eventually re-generate,

but for the rescuers, what makes this even harder to bear

is that the police believe the fire was started deliberately.

By the end of the eight-day rescue mission, Steve and his team had saved around 560 animals,

and given fresh hope to the future of this precious wildlife haven.

What's really lifted us is people responding to our call to arms to give us a hand,

let's get something rescued, and for those people to come out in this weather,

just to help a reptile,

has been, yeah, heart-lifting, that's what I'd say.

Finally, back to the story of Womble, the foal who was abandoned in a field in Hertfordshire.

With no owner and having never been handled, the RSPCA was facing the difficult task of rescuing him.

Womble's name came from his scruffy appearance,

so now the team caring for him must smarten him up.

For the past month, Womble has been settling in to stable life.

Until coming here, he had had no human contact and was terrified of people.

Easy, easy. Easy, easy, easy.

-It's all right.

-It's OK.

After a dramatic day rescuing him,

RSPCA Inspector Mel Fisher is back to check on Womble.

The people here have been fantastic in trying to get him used to being handled and being round humans.

Now he's at the stage where we can start looking at treating him and getting him ship-shape,

so we can think about re-homing him at a later date.

But before they consider that, Womble needs a complete makeover

and his overgrown hooves are the biggest concern.

I'm here today to assist the vet and the farrier, so that we can sort his feet out,

sort his coat out cos he's still a bit tatty, hence the name Womble.

Hopefully, we can get him a "mani" and a "pedi" and get him sorted out

and just see how he goes, really, with the interaction.

Womble is a bit tamer these days, but for the farrier to work on his feet,

he needs to be sedated again.

Although Womble is only small,

he's only a young colt, he's probably a year at best, he's very muscular.

If he's kicking whilst the farrier's got his leg, the farrier could get very badly injured.

It is a big risk, so the sedation is definitely worthwhile doing.

Farrier Alex Rowley is experienced in treating nervous horses.

He can break your arm, yeah.

I've broken a rib from being kicked and I've broken my foot twice from a horse just startling.

I've been kicked in the stomach before with no shoe and that hurt a lot.

The dart gun won't be required today. Vet Christine Jones will sedate Womble.

We've got two ways of sedating him.

One's into the vein and one's into the muscle.

The "in the muscle" takes a bit longer, but it will be a lot easier to do on a really anxious horse,

so we'll go into the muscle, wait 15 minutes.

He'll probably be sedated enough, but if he isn't, we can top him up into the vein for the farrier.

Womble has developed some confidence around the team here at the stables...

..but for Christine, approaching him with a sedative is a delicate matter.

Who's a good boy?

A bit of food bribery could be required.

But Womble is as sharp as ever.

Ssh, ssh, ssh. It's all right, it's all right, it's all right.

Eventually, Christine is able to administer the sedative.

And it soon seems to be working.

Womble's actually reacted to the sedation really well.

He's now nice and snoozy, head on the floor,

and that's exactly how we want him for the farrier, so he doesn't get really worried and stressed.

This seems an ideal opportunity for routine antibiotic and tetanus injections.

Good boy.

As we've seen before though, Womble's never too keen on an afternoon nap.

But Christine thinks he's ready for his pedicure.

-If there's any sharp noise or sudden movement...

-He doesn't like it.

-Then he calms down, so you'll be fine.

Time for Alex to start work.

-WHISTLES

-I think he might need a bit more. Good lad.

But he realises immediately this won't be a walk in the paddock.

Womble is showing plenty of spirit despite the sedation.

He's all right.

He's just scared. He's absolutely petrified.

He's never been handled before, so he thinks someone wants to kill him.

As long as you keep close... With his feathers, I can hold on to them.

Finally, Alex is up and running.

I don't think he's ever been touched.

No. We had to dart him to get him out of the field in the first place.

He's never had anyone pick his feet up or anything.

I mean, how are they looking?

-They're all right. They're long, but there's no harm done as such.

-Good.

It's just a case of chopping the long bits off. Yeah, there's no real problem.

Just tidy him up a bit, really.

Womble continues to be a petulant patient.

Hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey.

But Alex is able to finish the job.

There you go.

Clever boy. You've got your dancing shoes on now.

So that's the dancing feet taken care of.

And with Womble still a bit sleepy...

-Good boy!

-..Mel and the team take the chance to work on his matted coat.

I'm trying to break up the big clumps.

I'm at the salon!

But Mel knows time is tight for Womble's makeover.

He's starting to perk up a bit,

so we're just monitoring to make sure that he doesn't kick or get too stressed.

We're against the clock to see how much we can get done on him before he starts getting really perky.

The beauty therapy is almost over.

You're doing brilliant.

There's even a spot of furniture polish.

Don't you look fancy-pants?

But there's no slouching on the sofa for the new-look Womble.

Once sedation wears off, it's time for his trimmed feet to go wombling free.

Just seeing him now in the daylight out of the stable, you can just see what a transformation!

His feet are good, he's put on a little bit of weight.

And his coat's coming right.

Yeah, it's little steps, but it's really good news.

Womble has come a long way since that battle to rescue him a month ago.

To see him as he was in the field, I couldn't do this in the field.

The guys here have done a brilliant job getting him used to being handled by humans

and realising we're not all scary and nasty.

It shouldn't be long before he has a new home.

I'm really pleased. He's come on so well from how he has been to how he is now.

Yeah, I'm chuffed to bits. I couldn't ask for better.

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