“I’m not going to fall in love with you til you promise me that you’ll pull through this,” I swore as I leaned down to pour him his grain. I put my arms around his neck and he rested his chin on my head. We stood there like this for a few moments as my words disappeared into the wind. I hope he knew that my statement was a lie. Because the truth was, I fell in love with this sweet horse the moment I met him.
And despite the fact that I was not truthful in my assertion to him, this sweet boy was the quintessential gentleman. And he tried every single day to keep faithful on his part of our deal. There would be times he would energetically eat, flirt with the mares, and call out to his future herd. But those moments were consistently dissolved by the disease that he was exposed to on the kill lot.
He spent the vast majority of his time with me being poked and prodded with large needles of antibiotics, steroids, and pain medication. And through it all, despite how much pain he was in, he stood there patiently. Because he was always, first and foremost, a perfect gentleman.
I won’t describe the condition I found him in Saturday morning. But to say that witnessing the suffering that he endured throughout the night dropped me to my knees is an understatement. I crawled over next to him as I called the emergency vet for one last visit. My sweet boy was down, he must have been so incredibly scared. But he never thrashed or panicked. Instead, as I sat on the ground next to him, he lifted up his head once more and we sat quietly and watched one final sunrise together. Always a gentleman. Even through his final moments.
This was Parker (Cookie). He spent his life as a kids lesson horse, but was dumped for a kill pen after an injury. I had the sweetest young ladies write me to share stories and photos of their trail rides together. So many kiddos loved this sweet boy.
I loved this sweet boy.
A special and heartfelt thank you to Lanya Clinard for everything you did for us this week.