I came home today, after a few days away with Hubby, to find the far fences in Annie/pony pasture – totally wrecked.

??

Three of the 16′ top rails were totally busted to bupkus.  The wire was bent down and the pasture  around this area was totally torn up.

Hmmmmmm.

What happened here?

And when?

SLEUTHING…

First of all, this is the fence that is separated by 6 feet of  ‘open space’ from the new neighbor’s fence.  It is like an alley between the two ranches.

The top rails on my fence received the most damage… the neighbor fence was pristine.

Hmmmm.

I saw some manure piles behind the neighbor side fence, but no signs of a struggle.

Hmmmm.

One thing was clear… really only one horse in this pasture had the height and the access to wreak such havoc:  Annie.

But what happened?  Why?

Annie has lived with the neighbor horses for as long as she has lived here.  So, I cannot imagine that there was some sort of sudden discord that would send her into a fence killing rampage.

Something got  her going… but by the looks of it, the culprit was not a neighbor horse…

CULPRIT?

I looked all around and didn’t see any signs of returned fire on the neighbor’s fence.  If Annie was fighting with the neighbor horses, they weren’t fighting with her.

Clearly, on my side of the fence, not only were the rails down and the wire a mess, but there was ripped up ground all over.  It looked like all 4 of them (Annie, Norma, Slick and Dodger) had been fussing and dancing about.  There were grass/dirt divots, skid marks and sliding stops everywhere.

Why?  They tend to not do that kind of reckless stuff on soft, wet (skidding) ground.

I then decided to look over my broken fence, and down…

When I looked down, I saw a trail.  An animal trail.

Normally, I would say that these were deer tracks because I do usually put my leftover veggies slightly north of this area for the deer to eat.

But, these tracks were different – and furious.  You could tell that this (these) animals stopped and did a little dance (or something) on the other side of the fence right by the pulled down wire…
Hmmmm, again.

I began to think in a new way.  How would Sherlock Holmes solve this?  I give you a quote to ponder.

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

BUT WHAT WOULD UPSET ANNIE?

As I continued to ponder, I thought about Annie.

Annie is absolutely the most laid back horse here.  What would upset her so?

I thought about the storms last week.  She hates thunder.  But, why would she take her fear of thunder out on the fence?

That didn’t make any sense to me.

And then I thought about Shiva…

We lost Shiva last week.  And we aren’t sure how… We found his undamaged body and figured he had a heart attack during the thunder.  But, we didn’t know what happened.  His collar was gone and he was simply laying where we found him.

Scouty was beside herself and didn’t eat for 2 days.  She seemed a bit hysterical.  She had an odd cut on her lip and scrapes on her throat.  I remember thinking that her behavior reminded me of when we lost Atticus.  I had a feeling that she had witnessed something traumatic that she couldn’t control.  Scouty was a mess.

None of it made sense, really, but… if we thought about it – Shiva was almost 13 years old and VERY afraid of loud noises so we figured he scared himself to death.

ANIMAL COMMUNICATOR

Last week, after we lost Shiva, I contacted an animal communicator to (hopefully) help understand what happened.

She told me that Shiva was attacked by ‘wild dogs’ on the property.  She said Shiva said that these wild dogs played with him like he was a mouse with cats.  They punted him and batted him and hit him.  He said he departed his body almost immediately after the first ‘hit’ – he made that choice on purpose – and he passed from internal injuries.  Scouty did her best to save him but the wild dogs were a well rehearsed team and instead Shiva told Scouty to run.  He said the ponies came but it was too late for him.

Well, at the time, this story seemed impossible and outlandish to me.  Our place is fully fenced.  There are no wild dogs.  No dog has ever come onto our property.

So, I figured we’d just never know the truth about how Shiva passed.

THE LAST TIDBIT

And just now, as I’m writing this, I remembered receiving an email – at the same time we lost Shiva – from a neighbor saying that there were two, loose marauding dogs in the neighborhood who had attacked another neighbor’s dog – inside of his own property and hurt this dog badly.

Click.

…I wondered if maybe, just maybe, the animal communicator had it right…  Had Scouty been so upset because dogs had come onto her property and killed her friend – while she could do nothing but escape?   Had Annie and the pones (and of course, Norma, who hates dogs…) come to the rescue?  Had the horses made such a fuss and ruined the pasture because they were stomping/kicking at wild dogs?  Are the fences down because Annie has been defending our place?

Could the implausible tale of wild dogs inside of our property – be true?

We will never know for sure.

All I do know is that there is evidence of a large disturbance… and a nudge/hunch from beyond.

ONLY A FEW MORE DAYS to donate to the lovely, elder mares who need a bit more love and care at this age… Can we help THE GOLDEN CARROT rescue with their care in the memory of my old mare, Mama Tess?!  Click here for their story!