Our girl has overcome more in her short life than anyone should and she has done so with a level of grace and openness that is humbling.
I look to her as inspiration to overcome my own personal problems when they arise: if she can learn to move forward without looking back, to trust despite having been betrayed, to love unconditionally with no expectations, to let her heart boldly lead the way, to embrace life with joy and silliness, then I believe so can I no matter what issues I might face.
Chloe's Story
(Note: I do not dwell on Chloe's past but I feel a sense of responsibility to share her story in order to educate people about what is happening to millions of unwanted, neglected, and abused horses. I hope all of our rescued animals' stories help inspire our friends and readers to adopt an unwanted dog, cat, horse, donkey, or any critter and to give them loving and forever homes).
A Wild Mustang at Heart
Chloe is literally a wild mustang: she was born in the wild in the Sand Wash Basin near Craig Colorado in 2003. I recently ran across a wonderful blog by a woman who photographs and helps protect the Sand Wash Basin herd. I found this picture of a palomino paint mare named Cheyenne who looks like she could be Chloe's mother. And I could easily see the stallion Corona aka Fabio being her father. This is a picture from 2010 of Corona, Cheyenne, and Whisper (a foal who has an injured foot). What a gorgeous group of horses. (If I get permission from the blog owner I will post those pictures here because they are stunning).
First Betrayal at the hands of Humans...
In 2005 Chloe was captured by the BLM in what continues to be a cruel practice of "gathering" or rounding up mustangs off of public lands - often injuring or killing them in the process. (For more information about wild horse round ups please visit The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign to learn more about the issue and what you can do to help.)
The picture above is of a helicopter chasing a herd of mustangs during one such round up-I cannot imagine how terrifying this must be for them.
Her Second Betrayal...
Chloe spent about a year in a BLM holding facility before she was adopted by a crazy woman who supposedly ran a rescue. I am purposely choosing not to mention more details about this case because I do not want her to know where these horses are. In December of 2007 several wonderful people convinced the county sheriff to seize 27 of her horses who were being starved to death. Two other Flowery herd members, Daisy and Lily, were also rescued from that horrible place. The picture above is of Chloe in a safe haven before she was transported to the next "rescue." Sigh...she looks like a little sweet teenage girl, doesn't she? 
Strike 3: The Third Betrayal
A friend helped me place Chloe into what she thought was a great home: The 3 Strikes Ranch in Nebraska. This place was supposedly heaven on earth for mustangs who had failed at other adoptions boasting thousands of acres of prairie for Chloe to run on with hundreds of other mustangs. Unfortunately, that placement would come back to haunt us just 9 months later. More than 75 mustangs were found dumped in a ditch, dead from starvation, and another 200+, also starved, were rescued. Chloe was in the worst shape of all of them.
In a cruel twist of fate Chloe broke her pelvis and injured a rear fetlock during the rescue when she panicked and fell while she was being vaccinated in a cattle chute. Sadly this is the reality of moving large numbers of unhandlable wild horses.
In a cruel twist of fate Chloe broke her pelvis and injured a rear fetlock during the rescue when she panicked and fell while she was being vaccinated in a cattle chute. Sadly this is the reality of moving large numbers of unhandlable wild horses.
This is Chloe after her rescue. The little weanling is not Snapdragon-it is another mustang who was rescued from 3 Strikes Ranch.
I knew right there and then that we had to adopt Chloe or she would be put down. A dear friend drove her to CSU's Equine Hopsital - Chloe's odds were not good: starved, parasite ridden, unable to put weight on a rear leg, broken pelvis, and pregnant. She weighed 680lbs when she arrived at CSU - and that's before giving birth.
Safe at last...
Chloe succesfully gave birth to a baby bouncing Snapdragon and they both came home after spending 2 weeks at the hospital. Within a few months Chloe was once again able to bear weight on her rear hind fetlock and eventually all signs of that injury disappeared. She still has a dropped hip but as you can see from the videos I continually post she has complete range of motion and gallops, leaps, bucks, rears, and rolls with abandon like the wild mustang she is :)
It has almost been 2 years since she arrived at Dream Valley Ranch and she has become a sweet and affectionate girl and we adore her. She loves attention more than any of the other Flowers or the King :)
Betrayed by her own body...
Unfortunately, the amount of starvation she endured seems to have caused some organ damage and last fall she battled Acute Renal Failure. She stopped eating her hay and grain, began drinking vast quantities of water and plainly just didn't feel good.
Blood tests revealed that her kidneys were failing so we did what we could to give her every chance at surviving including 2 weeks of large quantities of IV fluids. She and I had come a long way by then and I spent 4-5 hours at a time with her getting her 40-60 liters of IV fluids warmed up in the freezing temperatures, sedating her, hooking up the IV line to her jugular catheter, and then spending time with her, just talking and singing and snuggling, while the life saving fluids poured into her veins. And it worked! For a while anyway.
This is a video I made after she made it through the worst of her illness - I posted it on our introductory blog post but it is worth reposting.
Since then she has somehow managed to find a way to compensate and live with Chronic Kidney Failure. During the past 4 months she has kept her kidneys happy by drinking 2-3 times more water than normal and by slurping on her salt block as if her life depended on it (which I suppose it did!)
Sadly I am not sure what changed in the past few weeks but suddenly her water intake has dropped to normal levels. This would be a wonderful sign if everything else was normal but she has also decreased her food intake dramatically. My horses normally each eat about 15-18 lbs of grass hay per day during the winter (that's 1.5-2% of their body weight). Chloe is eating significantly less than 10 lbs/grass hay per day.
And the lessons continue: embrace every moment...
We do not know what is going on but we are concerned. My vet is consulting with specialists and we are watching her closely. The most important thing is that our girl is happy, loving, and playful so we are doing our best to hold onto that. This video was taken 2 weeks ago, just a few days after I noticed the sudden decrease in water intake. She looks pretty happy and silly, don't you think? Heck...maybe she's decided to eat less because bikini weather is around the corner :) See? I'm trying to focus on the moment...just like my sweet mustang taught me!
Mustang Dreams
Chloe is one of the most human-centric animals I have ever known-she stares longingly up as us from her paddock, hoping we will come down and hang out with her. Usually she wants mr smrp or I to scritch her in all of her itchy spots. But sometimes she just wants to be near us. She loves to go on walks and last weekend our trainer took her on a long hand walk down our driveway and up the trails into the woods. My trainer came back in awe: "it was like walking a golden retriever!" she exclaimed. And I am not the least surprised :)
I chuckled as I realized how well that description fit our wiiiiiild mustang. If there is one dream that I can imagine my sweet spotted mustang having it is of coming into the house and hanging out as if she was one of the Guppies, or joining us on a nice afternoon hike, or snuggling on the sofa begging for a taste of my soy latte.
We may not be able to bring her inside but we sure can do our best to spoil her in every way possible so that she knows that every bit of her is loved so very dearly.
I hope so much that this will truly be The Year of The Mustang for my girl - that all of her dreams come true and that she will continue to be with us long enough to enjoy them for years to come. Regardless of what happens she is a hero in my eyes and in my heart. I have never known such a brave soul and I feel so lucky to be able to be a part of her life.
Thank you for reading Chloe's story and thank you for any love you can send her way as we fight this latest battle together.
xoxox
