it is true he has suffered for a very long time, with loneliness, isolation, feeling forgotten, with pain, with the extreme difficulty in just simply standing or walking. i don't think we ever even alleviated his full suffering here although we really did try.
but please understand that pops did find some value in this and his previous life. that simple minded man moved onto a property where there lived an old and abandoned and forgotten horse..i am sure pops' feet were already bad from the neglect he suffered before. this man knew nothing about caring for a horse but he bought him good hay and he bought him senior horse feed that he probably couldn't really afford. and every day he went down to that field and he said hello and he fed him the food that he struggled to buy for this horse who really wasn't even his.
life is full of suffering...all around us. sometimes it is knowingly inflicted and sometimes we just don't know any better. it is easy to focus our anger on something we can see so plainlly...like a sweet and gentle horse who has been crippled because of simple neglect.
but the issue surrounding pops and his suffering is much bigger than that..it is about human wants and needs and basic insatiable human selfishness and greed.
someone bred him, someone...(probably many someones) bought him and sold him and used him for everything they could get and no one stood by him and gave any of this back. pops is no different than most horses out there...they are used until they are no longer of use anymore and then we turn our backs on them.
that last man who tried to care for him was not the monster in this...our entire human race is. at least that simple minded man tried in his limited ability and complete horse care ignorance to feed him and give him friendship, kindness and daily company...that was more than the people who walked away and left pops there did before.
pops is not angry at him...pops is not angry at anyone. in his 30 years plus of living, pops learned one thing...living and being used by humans means...long term suffering.
there are many horses cold and wet, starving in fields around us. there are many, many horses bought and sold and ripped away from their friends and herds, there are thousands of once beautiful and valuable lives now being loaded into slaughter trucks, terrified.
pops is no different than gideon, czar, flicka, dixie, spritely, sparkles, lahanie, and swinger..it is just that his lifelong suffering stands right before our face and we CAN"T look away.
we let this happen every single day...we accept that it happens just like the horses are forced to do because this is what humans bred them for...to be discarded and forgotten after they are done being used.
ditto Mo he was loved by all of us. Isn't this what it is all about (rescue I mean) we find these poor neglected and abused animals and give them a loving home till they have to go, and letting them go is the final gift we give them. Their pain is over --ours is never over because we care.