St. Thomas Dog Blog ? Blog Archive ? Christmas for Horses

A sad, maybe tragic, Christmas story is unfolding on a small road in Southwold Township near St. Thomas. A woman and two children have been evicted from their home. On January 3rd a sheriff will padlock it. The decision was announced to her last Thursday. Two weeks notice ? over Christmas, wintertime in Ontario.

Bad as the prospect is of children aged 13 and 6 and their mother being made homeless, there are more lives at risk. Brenda runs a horse rescue farm. Most are Standardbreds, injured from the track. There are other horses, too, who had been neglected to the point of starvation or abused physically or mentally. There?s a stallion pony named Sultan, a donkey with a bad attitude, cats, chickens and ducks and two dogs. All are rescues, except Sultan who has been companion to her elder son for 12 years.

Her cats are neutered but still multiply every year. People dump them at her farm gate and strays find their way to her barn. Then she has to pay to get the new ones fixed so more aren?t added ?in house?.

Brenda doesn?t actively seek out horses, although she is well aware of how many need a good home. She?s done this work for 14 years and is exhausted. But she made a vow to her horses that she would look after them for their whole lives. Sometimes you go out there and see a new head poking out from a stall. A horse with a story that Brenda couldn?t refuse. ?We?ll see how it goes,? she says.

Their lives may end now. If she can?t stay on her farm or find another farm at a rent she can afford, they will go to the Kitchener livestock auction. These are not riding horses or pets. They are damaged horses who need special care. They trust only Brenda and her sons. Some have sponsors them and have developed a relationship with those people. But the ones who muck out stalls, rub on liniments, walk them all night when they have colic are Brenda and her elder son.

The City of Toronto owns the farm. A few years ago, the City bought the landfill site at the end of the road for excess Toronto garbage. They also bought all the nearby properties and rented them out. As tenants moved, the City left the houses empty. Brenda?s is the last inhabited farm. You can see why the City bought the properties. The smell from the dump is overwhelming at times. Dump trucks and transports rumble up and down the road all day, every day. Debris falls off trucks, making road hazards and taking out windshields.

But it was ideal for Brenda: a small split-level bungalow and a large steel barn, affordable and long term. Then over a year ago, spring rains caused water to back up into the house. The lower level, where the boys? bedrooms were, flooded. That was bad, but when sewerage backed into the house, it was intolerable. Dead mice floated in the brown water. Black mould crawled up the drywall.

Brenda moved her family out and stayed with friends. She came back every day to tend the animals. Eventually, after publicity and legal action, Toronto repaired the house and the leaking barn roof.

Brenda had to throw out all their clothes and furniture, including the children?s beds. Everything had to be replaced at considerable cost. To my knowledge, she has not been compensated for that, let alone the hardship of 10 months of displacement from their home. And repairs to the actual problem, the drainage bed, were not done. So it was going to happen again. Legal proceedings continued, then last week she was told to be out by January 2nd.

Kind people have said they could find room for a horse or two. But unfortunately, that?s not the answer. Those horses and the donkey need to stay with her. She and her kids are the only people they will ever truly trust. She needs to stay where she is.

Source: http://stthomasdogblog.stdoa.ca/2012/12/26/christmas-for-horses/

big east tournament 2012 solar storm solar flares spanx aurora borealis gcb mary j blige