Michigan: Malnourished horse abandoned.

Too close for comfort, this story begins within an hour away, and ends just a few miles from home.

This story broke with a frantic plea for help on Craigslist:

I am in need of a caring person to give this horse a forever home. This is the story:

Two nights ago in the middle of the night I was woke up by my dogs barking and my little filly hollering. I ran outside to check on all my animals to make sure everything was ok, i just had a bad feeling ... what I found was disturbing.



It was a VERY, VERY skinny TB mare standing on the edge of the road eating grass, quiet as can be—just enjoying the food presented to her. After brain-storming and looking around the road, putting everything together I figured out she had just been dropped off like a stray dog and then when I found the halter laying on the edge of the road I really knew that she was literally just dropped off.



She is the most gentle, loving mare ever and seems to be sound and healthy, besides being very underweight. I am guessing she is in her mid to upper teens. She is great with one strand of hot wire and the other horses.



I would really love to keep her but I just don't feel like I can truly give her what she needs. She needs special grain and lots of groceries. Her feet are good and she has a upbeat personality. She is around 15.3 HH.

I am hoping I can find someone with the time and funding to bring her back and give her a chance ... if you're that special someone PLEASE contact me!!

Thanks you so much for taking the time to read this! Hope to hear from you ...

A fellow horse lover on a message board copied the post, and the ad submitter joined the board and shared additional information.

Over the course of several posts and replies, it was revealed that months earlier the horse had been rescued by the farm it was returned to, after having been adopted out to a "forever" home.

This is a picture of her before I re-homed her in June. I had her for 2-3 weeks. She has lost a lot of weight since then. I feel even worse for her now ... I originally obtained her because people couldn't feed her anymore; they were losing their house. I took her in, and re-homed her to ****. She was starved and dropped off at my house this weekend ...

It is assumed that the adopter could no longer care for the horse, and—not wishing her to die slowly of starvation or be dumped at auction with a good chance of leaving on a one-way trip to Canada—chose to leave her with the former owner under cover of night.

Another message board regular, after responding to the Craigslist ad along with dozens of other concerned horse lovers, stepped forward to take on the rehabilitation of this skinny mare. This story will most likely have a happy ending.


Now, what should happen next?

Some say the law should be alerted, that animal cruelty charges should be filed.

The horse could have been killed, or even worse, caused a fatal car accident involving innocent human lives as well.

However, I see another side to the issue.

I imagine these are the actions of someone desperate, rather than criminal-minded.

Dumping a horse by the road is a bad choice—no two ways about it—but there are worse fates awaiting horses that cannot be adequately cared for by their well-meaning owners or adopters.

I put it this way:
Better a baby in a basket on the porch,
than a baby in a dumpster.

I would hesitate to further punish the person who could no longer care for the horse and likely saw their actions as saving her life, because the next person who could no longer feed their horse could be scared away from leaving it somewhere it could be saved and may instead dump it at auction, in a remote area where it could be days or weeks before the horse gets care, or even keep it in a barn or remote field for weeks while it slowly starves, out of sight of those who could help.

But I see things differently than many.