A Horse With Heart
As most of you know, my wife and I run an animal sanctuary, and we’re usually suckers for sob stories of almost any kind. Back in 2005, we had about fifteen dogs and twenty-six pigs. Then September rolled around and with it came hurricane Rita and an unexpected addition—a horse with heart..
Rita turned out to be a major hurricane, the fourth largest Atlantic hurricane recorded, but fortunately we escaped with minor damage—a few trees blown down and a little fence damage. Rita was followed by a spell of horrific heat.
We knew next to nothing about horses, but when I told Mikki about it, she got her hackles up.
She had a friend drive her to the location, marched up to the house and asked the owner. “What is wrong with you? Keeping a horse tied up like that and with no food or water. It’s hot! How would you like to be tied up with nothing to eat or drink?”
Then she spun on her heels and said, “I’m taking him with me. If you have a problem call Animal Control.”
With that, Mikki walked over, untied the horse, and walked him to our van. She opened the back door and sat holding the horses rope. Then her friend drove her home—slowly. When they got him home, we gave him fresh water and some apples and carrots, as we had no horse feed. We also called the vet and asked him to come out the next day.
The Vet’s Diagnosis
The vet came out the next morning and after a thorough examination, he said we might consider putting him down. “Look at him. He’s been starved. And his hooves are bad, and he’s got a bad limp. And lots of other things.”
Mikki wasn’t going to hear any of that. “What do we need to do if we decide to keep him?” she asked.
She asked the question, but I knew she had already decided; that horse had found a new home. I just hoped he was a horse with heart and he had the desire to go on.
“Well, for starters, you’re going to need to put about four hundred pounds on him. Then you’re going to have to have someone look at those hooves. And he looks like he’s got an eye infection, so you’ll need to take care of that. And none of it is gonna be cheap.”
The vet started to walk away, then he turned and said. “Besides, that horse looks to be almost thirty years old. I can’t imagine he’s got much time left.”
He said that as if it would make a difference. Mikki thanked him and sent him on his way. Next, she went in the house and called another guy who could work on the horse’s hooves and another vet to look at his eye.
Vets Don’t Come Cheap
Not that we were expecting anything less, but within the first month, the vet bills were mounting. This wasn’t a new experience. We had faced large vet bills with Hotshot and with Slick. First on the list was someone to trim his hooves, which we did the first week. Next came a different doctor for his eye infection. This vet prescribed an antibiotic salve and told Mikki to keep a mosquito mask on him because they were so bad after the hurricane.
The most difficult part came afterward, putting weight on him. But that’s something my wife excels at. She’s been putting weight on animals—as well as people—for a long time; in fact, we joke around the house that she is a compulsive animal feeder. She’s the only person I know of who carries several bags of dog and cat food in the car in case she sees a hungry animal.
A Horse With Heart
The outlook was grim, but Joe was not a quitter; he was a horse with heart. Within months, he was putting on weight, and he seemed content with his new home. I’d never seen such a sweet and gentle horse. Some of the kids from the neighborhood even began coming down to see him and to walk him. Sometimes horses can be persnickety, but Joe never was. He was friendly to everyone, and he didn’t spook easily either.
Below is a picture of Mikki giving him his weekly bath.
I’d grown up working around horses at the racetrack. Admittedly, they were thoroughbreds, and tended to be more fussy than other horses, but all that aside, Joe was the gentlest horse I’d seen. As I said, he let anyone approach him, or pet him, or brush him. And he definitely let anyone feed him. He seemed to be not only a horse with heart, but a horse with a good appetite.
But it wasn’t enough for Joe to eat the pigs’ food. During the summer of 2014, we found out how clever he was. Around the time that my granddaughter started coming up to the farm, Joe began making his way through the maze of fences into the backyard. One day we caught him peeking in the back window, which tickled my granddaughter to no end; in fact, after seeing that, she insisted on going out to feed him, which may be exactly what Joe wanted.
Over the next few months, Joe showed us he was more than a horse with heart. He showed a lot of initiative once Adalina began spending the night with us. Adalina and I had a ritual of eating breakfast on a small table in the front yard. And every Saturday morning, when we were eating, Joe made sure to be at the fence, making plenty of noise so Adalina would ask me to let him in. Below are two pictures: one with him still outside the fence; and the other after he was let in.
And of the many dozens of times she fed him, he never once nipped her fingers. He seemed to take extra care when eating from her hands.
The Magic Touch
Once, when Joe was sick with an infection, we had to administer antibiotics. He was being difficult about it, and when a horse doesn’t want to take medicine, it’s tough to force him to.
I was at the fence, calling and calling Joe, but he wouldn’t come. Just then Adalina came out, so I asked her to go back inside and get some apples, then return so we could call Joe. It only took her a few minutes, and when she returned and called Joe, he came right away.
When he got there, she fed him some apples, then I got her to give him the medicine—and he took it. I was amazed. She then leaned in and kissed him and laughed like hell. She liked being the hero. We then put on his mosquito mask. Adalina told her dad all about her heroics, so he took her back outside where she insisted on kissing Joe again.
We laughed and joked about the bond Adalina had with Joe, but it wasn’t apparent how much of a bond it was until one day in late summer, 2014.
Adalina had fallen at school and cut her eye, and the cut was bad enough that it required stitches. While the doctor was working on her, and her mother and father were there with her, she called out—”Help me, Joe. Help?”
I’ve never heard of a child calling for a horse to help her when getting stitches, but it damn near brought me to tears. Adalina loves that horse, and I think it’s safe to say he loves her.
There isn’t much more special than the bond created between animals and kids, and Adalina is fortunate to have several. Next time I’ll tell you about her best friend, Oliver the cat. It’s an amazing story.
By the way, if you enjoyed this, you can read a lot more stories in several books regarding the sanctuary—A Collection of Animal Stories and More Animal Stories.
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Giacomo Giammatteo is the author of gritty crime dramas about murder, mystery, and family. And he also writes nonfiction books including the No Mistakes Careers series as well as books about grammar and publishing.
When Giacomo isn’t writing, he’s helping his wife take care of the animals on their sanctuary. At last count they had forty animals—seven dogs, one horse, six cats, and twenty-five pigs.
Oh, and one crazy—and very large—wild boar, who takes walks with Giacomo every day and happens to also be his best buddy.
He lives in Texas where he and his wife have an animal sanctuary with forty-five loving “friends.
