A Shorty Story

When you live in the country and care for a lot of animals as we do, life and death are much more a part of everyday life.  Wild animals fall prey to road kill and hunting - a major pasttime here.  I spent the first two hunting seasons cringing with each shot.  Now, I hardly notice them.  I cried the first time I hit an adorable wild bunny with my car.  Now, I know that these instances are, to some extent, unavoidable.  Our domesticated animals fall prey to coyotes, owls, and sometimes our own animals.  At least two of our dogs are intent on reducing our chicken population whenever the opportunity arises.  And, our harsh winter brought on a disease in our meat rabbits killing as much as 15% of our breeding stock.  I have had a tough time adjusting to seeing and experiencing death on this scale.   But . . .. .

On the other hand, we also revel in the creation of life.  Our rabbits produce between 40 to 50 new bunnies each week; we are still excited with each new litter.  In the last two months, we gathered and incubated 3 dozen Brahma chicken eggs; we have 13 healthy baby chicks.  This time of year, our neighbor's fields are full of adorable young calves.  That brings me to the true subject of this story - Shorty.

Shorty was an appaloosa horse with a wooly white coat - not too tall (I assume that is where he got his name) but stocky with thick legs and big head.  He never belonged to us but he touched our lives deeply.  Shorty was owned for many years by our neighbor's cousin Dave.  Dave and Shorty were great friends.  Once they were lost on a Midwestern praire in a blinding snowstorm.  Dave could not see his way home so he closed his eyes, patted Shorty's neck, and asked him to get them back to the barn safely.  The next time he opened his eyes, he and Shorty were there.  As he thanked the horse for saving his life, Dave promised Shorty that he would make sure the loyal hard working horse would be allowed to "die of old age".   As we all know, life does not always follow the natural order.  Several years ago and way before his time, Dave succumbed to cancer.  Shorty's fate was left to family members who struggled with how to take care of Shorty while living up to Dave's promise.  This is how Shorty came to Shine Hollow Ranch.  He was grazing pastures with our neighbors' cattle when calving season came.  They were concerned for the safety of the calves as horses have been known to cause harm to young calves.  The decision was to move Shorty to Shine Hollow's equine pasture to ensure the safety of our neighbor's calves. 

According to Wikipedia, horses live an average of 25 to 30 years.  We were told that Shorty was at least 32 years old when he came here a month ago.  He moved slowly and had difficulty seeing, but he enjoyed the new grasses coming up in the field and a bucket of sweet feed  now and then.  He loved sneeking in to the barn to escape the weather and took some coaxing to get him back out into the field.

Yesterday was our first beautiful Spring day with lots of sun and temperatures in the high 60s.  In mid-afternoon, Shorty laid down in a sunny spot and died of old age.  It happened very quickly.  I am sure that it was just the way that Dave would have wanted it.  

As with any loss, we were sad to see him go but also thankful that he touched our lives.