RAISING DINKY: THE NURSE MARE FOAL (PART II) IN A THROWAWAY WORLD

Today’s world appears to me to be an impatient one. A society where so much is made to throw away and few wish to wait for gratification, instead everything must be now! There is too much importance on things and money and less on those things money can’t buy. A hug, smile, the life of an animal.

Instead too many times they too are bred to be tossed out, to be bait for a dog fight or used as breeding machines. Sometimes I wonder how much we are missing in this throwaway world we live in.

Dinky is a nurse mare foal; he was bred to get his mother in milk that was his only purpose. In the elite horse world, a nurse mare foal has no other purpose. Some of these foals are tossed on the side of the road as if they were garbage. Too many nurse mare foals are sold to the tanner, to make cordovan leather for couches and shoes or pony bags to adorn our homes and bodies until the next trend comes along. Some of them like Dinky are lucky, and a nurse mare foal rescue saves them.

But what happens to this little foal after the rescue has nursed it back to health? Where does it go, who takes care of it, teaches it, and loves it?

Have you ever wondered how this little foal learns what it is to be a horse or if they live in confusion, never learning their place or if they are a human or a horse?

Dinky: The Nurse Mare’s Foal took me nearly three years to write, it was difficult to learn to read the language of a horse. To bond so deeply with them that both of you understand each other, at least as much as any two species can.

If you believe that foals, colts, and horses have emotions, thoughts, and fears of their own should we take this cause on, highlight their plight and force the horse world to change their practice. Perhaps as some believe they are just an animal to be used and tossed aside after they we humans are done with them? If so Dinky’s story and the plight of the nurse mare and her foal will mean little to you.