I sure have been blessed to have had so many amazing horses come through my barn and my life...but it isn't always a 'walk in the park'.  Horses bring so much joy and like anything else you love -- sometimes a whole lot of sadness.

I have learned so many lessons and been given so many gifts from my "kids" - I hope that the little I do can in someway pay them back for what they so generously give me.

Super Sugar Baby -- one of my first rescues.  This is how she came in from the feed lot.  And about eight weeks later hanging out with her pal Annie.

We have seen some pretty nasty abseces around here.    Sometimes I think that once their bodies start to get healthier and have some more resistance all of the "sickness" in their body -- kind of congeals and comes out wherever it can.

We've had abseces just about anywhere you could think of.  This one was the size of a cantaloupe!  

Doc Jester came out and cleaned it up!  Looks a whole lot better already.  Poor filly, she was already pretty darn scared of people and had to have this dressed with iodine four times a day
(not to mention penicillion shots twice a day).
OUCH!

We had to carry Fancy to her stall.  She just couldn't make it.

Wheezie (Fancy Bonanza Doll) about a month after she came.  Looking a whole lot better than she did.

These gals were really malnourished.  Can you believe she is a yearling in this picture?!?  And she was a whole lot skinnier than this. when she first arrived.
 
But they all put on weight quickly.   This is Wheezy about three weeks later.
 Well aren't I cute?? Mom was going to auction and wasn't even supposed to be pregnant.  Look at her poor back -
she would have been sold to a kill buyer for sure.   And then I would never have even had a 
chance. 
PS - Mom says she is staying with Terri forever so don't worry about her!
 

And here's Golden at almost a year old - showing off with his new owners.    Its nice to be one of the lucky ones

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When my first group of rescues came I sure had no idea what I was getting myself into.  For a few years I had seen the PMU foals available on line and had bookmarked a lot of web sites thinking to myself...Someday I will get one of these babies.  But not right now.  I am too busy, don't have enough money, have enough horses (all true of course).  

Then I saw a little sorrel filly called Fancy Bonanza Doll on a website.  She and a whole bunch of others were in the kill pen awaiting slaughter unless someone was willing to save them.  My gelding's name is Fancy Bo and I figured (wrongly as turned out) that this filly was related to him (plus she looked pretty cute too!).  That was enough for me and I she should be the one.  I started putting my money together to purchase
her from the kill pen.  

Of course, I kept looking at that darned website and  there were so many other horses that needed a home.  My eyes were drawn to a pretty paint filly who no one had purchased.  She was going to the slaughter house in just a few more days if no one took her home.  So I found a few more dollars, added Sugar to my list and started to arrange shipping for my two new girls.  But there were still some more girls sitting in that kill pen and even if I couldn't take them all -- why not a few more?  I found a shire mare I really liked -- someone else wanted her (awesome!) so instead I added Annie and Jess to my list and sent the money to buy them and pay for shipping.

A few weeks later, I got an email saying that they would be on their way in a few weeks.  I made arrangements for them at a local stable and waited for the big day. And waited, and waited and didn't hear a thing.   Did they just take my money??  Was this some kind of scam?  Were the horses ever coming?  What was going on?   About six weeks later I got a phone call from the shipper.  "We'll be there tomorrow morning around ten" he said.

I called my friends over at the barn where my new girls were going and told them that they would be there around ten am the next morning so I would get there around 9 or so.   Well at 6 am I got a call from the shipper.  "We're here".  Thank goodness for horse lovin' stable owners because by the time I got over there the four fillies (MY four fillies) were off the trailer and in a pen, the hauler was waiting impatiently for his cash and was ready to get on the road again.  I gave him the $$$'s and I peeked in the trailer - a big ol' open stock trailer.  There were about 25 horses in there ranging in age from weanlings to full grown drafts -- no hay, no water all crammed in there together - OMG my girls rode in this?

The shipper told us they were all going on to Florida. 

"Would you like some water or hay before you go on?" we asked, "We've got plenty here".  

"No they'll be fine he told us"  -- AND THESE ARE THE HORSES THAT ARE RESCUED! I still shudder to think about 20 hour or more ride all those horses had to endure without food or water in the August heat before they finally got to someone who cared.  And these are the lucky ones-- at least their ride ends with food, water and love instead of a bolt to the head.  

 At the time I wasn't thinking about any of that -- I was just thrilled to have these girls home.  I assumed I could just put them in their stalls and they would be like all of the other horses I had owned.  

OOPS - no, these girls were terrified of humans. Well who could blame them, I am sure that they had been whipped, herded with cattle prods and who knows what else during the past few weeks (or months).   So they are all in the pen where the shipper off-loaded them, no halters, no way to catch them.  They are NOT coming over for food or out of curiousity and (oh yes) I have to get them out of that pen and into their stalls before night time.

I spent a few hours trying to lure the girls over.  But they were having none of that - and who could blame them.  So as it turned out we had to rope them.  Oh yes, that was nice.  I was not much help as I stood there covering my eyes so I didn't have to watch (never saw horse roped before and it is pretty scary if you ask me) and praying that they didn't get hurt.  Sugar got caught first and we pushed and pulled her into the barn (at least the barn was nearby), next was Fancy Bonanza Doll.  Fancy managed to  put up quite a fight for such a skinny sad-looking little girl.  But she was even sicker than she looked - walking that 50 feet to the barn was just too much for her. She went down and just couldn't even make the effort to get up.  We put straps under her and carried her into her new stall.   Once Fancy and Sugar were inside, Annie and Jessie pretty much let us catch them and followed their friends inside.

Wow was I stressed at this point and pretty much wondering whether I was up to the challenge of four wild, terrified horses. They all looked so sick and so awful and I could tell this was going 
to be a lot more expensive and time consuming than I had imagined. I had some vision that this part would have been done by the rescue that I purchased the horses from.  This was really a big learning curve for me.

Finally they were all settled in and getting comfortable in their new stalls.  I think the big piles of hay went a long way towards making my newest horses dare to hope that maybe, just maybe they were actually in a safe place.   I wanted to give all those sad, skinny little things buckets and buckets of grain but...no they only got a single flake of grass hay at a time to make sure that they didn't over eat and make themselves even sicker than they all ready were.  

By the next morning, the girls were all eating and aside from looking skinny and sickly seemed to be doing pretty much okay.  Except for Fancy who was wheezing like a freight train, could barely lift her head off the ground and was draining awful green pus from her nose an eyes at an alarming rate.  She was sure eating though - poor thing.  They were still pretty scared but you could tell that even after all they'd been through they really wanted to try to be friends.  

I went in each of their stalls and with a little bit of patience, I managed to handle each of them enough to rub them around the head and body and even to get each of them all brushed off a little bit.  I couldn't imagine how I was going to get those horrible gooey number stickers (from the auction pen???) off their butts (we finally figured out that baby oil works wonders - but that was a bit later).

The vet finally made it out and took a look at each of the girls (they were not real happy about this - that's for sure but all in all I'd say they behaved like champions).  He didn't want to vaccinate any of them because of how skinny and just plain sick they were and said we could do that in a few weeks.  When he left, I had a bottle of penicillin, a whole lot of syringes and instructions to give each 
of them a shot twice a day (Now how was I going to do that?).  Also, worm them and start increasing their feed slowly so that they could gain some weight.  And keep your fingers crossed --- very comforting advice.  

I really didn't think that Fancy would make it - she looked about as bad as any horse I have ever seen but she is a tough gal and not only made it through that day and the next, she made it through weeks and months of wheezing and coughing up gobs and gobs of horrible phlegm.  (And so her new and for me her forever name -- Wheezy).  

Through the weeks and months that followed the girls finally grew healthy, fat and sassy.  They learned how to lead, lunge take bathes and all kinds of other things too.  And especially they learned that people weren't quite as bad as they thought (in fact maybe they weren't bad at all).  And I learned a lot
too and enjoyed every darned minute of it.

Since those first rescues that came through my life, I have welcomed quite a few horses come to our little corner.  They have come off the trailers in all different kinds of shape but most of them were scared and skinny.  A few used to be someone's horse -- and they give a big sigh of relief when they find a warm, welcoming stall and a pat on the nose.   Most haven't had a person yet and it takes them some time to get to know us.  I have worried about them when they were sick and tried the best I could to take care of them, love them and teach them what they need to know to find a warm, loving home for the rest of their days.  And I have cried tears of joy mixed with sadness when they leave me to go on to their new lives.   I know if I don't find new homes for them I can't bring in any new ones but I still hate to see them leave.

All of my horses are special to me - or else why have them in the first place?  But there is nothing I like better than visiting or getting emails or pictures from someone who has opened their hearts to one of my "kids".  

When people come over to see the rescues or when I tell them that these horses were going to go to slaughter the question that I hear the most often is "Why were THESE horses going to be killed?" and THE question is always followed with they are soo cute, or so friendly or pretty or well-behaved or....

And all I can say is "I just don't know but there are a whole lot more just like them"