Righting Wrongs: Dancer

Dancer 2006 After Months of Love and Grain

In 2005 a woman approached me at the local gas station.  I knew her in passing and she’d heard, via the grapevine of our south-side community, about the new horse stalls and arena I was building.  She knew a woman who needed to sell a horse.  The woman lived just down the road, so I consented to visit.

The woman needing to sell the horse was about my age, running a small dog-boarding business, single, and embarking on the adventure of single motherhood.  There were several animals on the property aside from dogs: horses, goats, sheep, pigs, and chickens.  The animals looked healthy, except for one, a gelding appaloosa, who was obviously underweight.  “That’s Dancer,” she said and of course he was the one. 

As we neared him, I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d gotten myself into.  He was blind in one eye, from a virus a previous owner had neglected to take care of, but most concerning was his thinness, seeming fragility.  He approached immediately and I knew there was no walking away, no leaving him behind.  She was asking a $1000.00, too much for a horse into his twenties, half-blind, and malnourished, but I understood.  She had others to feed and he was the sacrificial lamb, being underfed for the sake of a mare and stallion she wished to breed. 

There really wasn’t time to argue with her about a misplaced value system.  She explained she had rescued him from another woman in need, but couldn’t afford him.  So there I was suddenly incensed with a responsibility to save this horse.  I offered $600 and she countered with $800.  Fine.  Though not all that experienced with horses then, I knew Dancer’s time was short.

We didn’t have a horse trailer and I was not experienced enough to ride him home, though only a few miles.  Of course, she would have delivered him for a fee, but I figured I’d given her enough.  On a fall day, a dear cowboy friend and overseer of Eaves’ Movie Ranch, Thomas Wingate retrieved Dancer on my behalf.  As I spotted Thomas approaching along the trail behind our property, I clipped wires at the fence creating a needed entrance.  As Dancer entered he knew he’d arrived home and gave a whinny to Scarlet, a quarter horse paint we’d acquired just months before, a rescue in her own right, but that’s another story.

Dancer December 2005

In a matter of weeks Dancer began gaining weight and by winter his winter coat came in full and healthy.   Come spring he availed himself to my daughter to ride and carefully carried her about the arena, allowing her to hone her skills as a young rider.  Since 2005, Dance has been the best horse ever, always loving and appreciative, a sweet and dear prince. 

Sometimes I think about the things he went through on his path here.  Our best guess is the road was hard and long.  He’s fully broken, meaning anyone can ride him, and probably because he was once used as a cattle horse.  He’s very sensitive about his head, especially his ears, suggesting there was a roughness, borderline abusiveness in his past.  As mentioned, he’s blind in one eye having lost his sight because one owner along the way ignored a simple and treatable virus.  And I know first hand his bought with malnourishment.  I don’t know how much of the woman’s story was true, if she really did rescue him from someone else she wasn’t doing her job and ultimately seemed more interested in quick cash than his health. 

Recently Dancer was diagnosed with Cushing’s an pituitary gland disease in horses.  Over last winter he lost weight and failed to shed in the spring.  The vet gave me two options.  Cushing’s is treatable, but the medication costly, about $185.00 per month.  Of course, Dancer is part of the family; he became that the moment he arrived, so the alternative is not up for consideration.  However, it would surely help if we could find sponsors for Dancer.  As he rehabilitates from the Cushing’s with the help of the medication, he will need additional vetting, which will facilitate the process.   

Dancer is permanent resident of the ranch and will be with us as long as he desires.  He’s taught me much about the plight of some horses; his story reflects that of many, passed from hand to hand, year after year, until somehow being forgotten along the way.  Though his journey here to the place that would become Rasta’s Rescue Ranch was hard, he helped prepare us for the rescues that would follow: Rasta, Chloe, Savannah, and Pirate.  In my heart he will always be the best horse ever, I just wish all his previous owners would have known that too.