His name was Damien

Damien arrived into our hearts whilst being chased into an auction ring for the sale of his flesh by the pound. Around us sat hungry meat buyers, eyeing up his robust shape hungrily licking their lips at the money to be made from his slaughter. He waited patiently for the bidding to start, his weight was registered on the bright red board above his head, it read 1850. A majestic, senior Belgian draft horse who had presumably worked his entire life serving his human owner - ploughing fields, pulling wagons, feeding families.

Thankfully Dog Tales was at the auction as well, ready to save as many at risk horses as we could, we saw a scared and confused beautiful horse that needed a home. It was unthinkable to us that he was being discarded like an old tire to the highest bidder. To our delight, we won the bid and took Damien home that night.

Damien, like many of the horses we rescued that night was terrified. We wanted so badly to pat him and let him know that he was safe, he did not trust us yet. Over the next 21 days we brought in the Veterinarian to tend to his health, the farrier to his feet, the dentist to his teeth, the nutritionist to his diet and finally he was coming around.

One night, in his stall Damien was in a full sweat with an extremely high heart rate, after calling the Veterinarian we took him to the Ontario Veterinary College. The next day, Damiens heart stopped working appropriately and he was rapidly declining. We exhausted all of our options and had to unfortunately make the difficult decision to end his suffering.

He died of a broken heart. Damien, we are sorry that we did not meet you sooner in your life. We are sorry that you were made to work so hard for so long that your body gave up. You touched our hearts in a way that we will cherish always. May your soul rest in peace, we are fighting for you everyday and will not stop until we achieve our goal.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.