Horses
Applejack's story can be found on our TikTok, and is ongoing. It started with a desperate call from my vet - they had discovered an emaciated, dying horse on a lot next to their client, and had convinced the owner of the animal to give it to them, but they had to move it that day, that minute. Could I take an animal that would require months of rehabilitation? Of course. So Applejack arrived. When he came off the trailer, I burst into tears. He looked like dead horse hide stretched over a skeleton of a horse. His hair was dead and falling out, his eyes dull, his head hanging down, barely able to stand, covered in cuts and bruises. The vets had only been able to get a very limited story from his owner - she had “rescued” him a year earlier and simply put him in a dry pasture with other horses, where she put out hay once a day. She had never noticed that the other horses were biting and kicking him so that he never got any food. She never noticed his hair falling out, his weight dropping, every bone visible. Her “rescue” was on the verge of dying.
Applejack is still not 100% better, and may never be. He was put on a strict “refeeding” program, giving him small amounts of food multiple times per day, in order to put weight on him without causing him to become ill. As much as he is still too skinny, he is worlds better than when he arrived. He is up to getting grain twice each day, and grazes on green grass for 8 hours a day (up from the 7 minutes of grazing he was allowed at the start of his refeeding program). Despite everything, Applejack is one of the most affectionate horses I have ever met. Even when he was dying, he would whinny in excitement when he saw or heard a person. It is hard to get good photos of him, because if he sees me, he wants to be as close to me as he can. His hair fell out, but has come back in shiny and healthy - except for the places he was bitten and kicked. The hair on those scars is white. Applejack wears the signs of his abuse on his coat and probably will forever. But he does not wear them in his heart.
Applejack
Cream Puff
Cookie Monster
Cream Puff and Cookie Monster (brown and white horse) are a bonded pair that were taken from a notorious kill pen in the town next to ours. The man who purchased them purchases horses cheaply wherever he can, and if they survive in his care long enough, he either resells them or sends them to Canada for slaughter for dog food. Cream and Cookie were both in danger of dying where they stood, and we received a desperate call from a person at the lot, begging us to come get them before they died in the freezing rain and mud. We called on our neighbors (as we do not have a horse trailer, never intending to have horses) and rushed to get them. Both horses were standing in mud up to their bellies, freezing rain pelting down on them. We had to dig them out to get to them, and the temperature continued to drop as it was almost midnight by the time we were able to get them out and onto the trailer. That first night, Cream went down in my barn, falling to the floor on his side, unable to even lift his head. Cookie cried at her friend’s side all night, as I sat with his head in my lap and cried with her. The next morning, even the vets were amazed that Cream had made it through the night. He and Cookie had respiratory infections, infected wounds, gastric ulcers, sinus infections, eye infections… the list goes on and on. They were on dozens of medications, being given on schedules that meant someone was getting something every hour, round the clock. But slowly, surely, they got better. The light came back on in their eyes, and Cookie began to earn her real name of Cookie Monster, as she kicked and nipped at anyone who came near to her or her precious Cream. But, as they both improved and they felt safe, Cookie settled into her life here - although she still will not tolerate any other female horses. Cookie is the Queen Bee horse on this ranch, despite her diminutive size. Cream Puff, on the other hand, is exactly what his name says - a sweet little puff of a horse.
My heart breaks for Cookie and Cream whenever children come to visit. They are friendly horses to everyone they see, but when they see or hear a small child, they come running from wherever they are and put their heads down to level with the child’s head, leaning as far over the fence as they can. It was very clear to me that they were both once beloved by a child, and that they are still searching, still waiting, for their child to come back to them. Of all the animals here on the ranch, they can still easily bring me to tears when I think about where they started, and then what they went through to end up cold and dying in a muddy pen.
Cinnamon Bun
Cinnamon came from the same broker as Cookie and Cream. He was purchased at auction where video was taken of him being ridden by someone who appeared to be a full adult, someone much too large and heavy to be riding on a horse that is three feet tall. He was then advertised as “broke to ride and drive.” I grabbed him from the broker because I could see that his back leg was collapsed at the stifle joint (just above the hoof) and I knew that any further weight put on him would lead to a broken leg and euthanasia. He has been receiving pain medications and injections into the stifle joint since he arrived and now can walk and run without pain. He will never have to carry a human on his back, or drag a cart, ever again. Cinnamon is a bit spicy and doesn’t always want to be touched or handled, but remember our saying, “Animals don’t owe us their affection.” If he wants to graze in the pasture and do his own thing all day, he has that right, the same right any of us have to choose to associate with people, or not.