Meet Soleil.
We were told it was worms. It was sickness. It was something else. It was anything EXCEPT bleak starvation, the owner said, but we know starvation when we see it.
We know when we look at a horse kept up in a carport with a halter 3 sizes too small cutting into her face, when filth covers her and no one cared enough to brush her, when her mane hangs in thick and twisted matted pieces, when she limps because of infection in all 4 of her feet, when she refuses water even though she had none where she was in lieu of eating hay… that we are looking at starvation.
I do wonder how much one’s heart can take. Sometimes, I wonder.
Her spirit was as low as I’ve seen in nearly 300 cases of abuse and neglect.
But in the end of each horse’s journey, whatever they have lived through before we find them, we make it better. Not always in the way we hope, but always better.
And this 7 year old Tennessee Walking mare will be better, however it goes. I suspect she will have an amazing after. I hope despite how she weaves when she walks, despite how her eyes tells of horrors, hunger.
She was living in a carport alone behind a house without turn out. I do not know for how long, really.
Gauging her reaction to hearing other horses when we unloaded her, I can tell you she was lonely and desperate for a long time.
Her wavering frame tells me she has been starving a long time. Her lameness when she tried to walk on hard ground tell me she has been hurting too long. Her bloody face tells me that old halter didn’t fit for longer than made sense.
Thank God for the law enforcement officers and for our state HSUS Director who all made this save possible, made it possible we could show up, and regardless of the excuses made by the woman who neglected her for so long, we could save her life.
If you would wish to donate to her life saving rehab, visit http://www.wvhorserescue.org/donate.html
