"To be able to rescue them and to be able to move them on to new lives is the best feeling."
Since being rescued from neglect in a dark and decrepit barn, Magnolia the blind horse has been given a second chance at a beautiful life in warm and sunny pastures. Surrounded by the love of her new human caretakers and her blind best horse friend, Barbie, Magnolia will get to live out her days without fear of experiencing neglect ever again.
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Two decrepit barns, thick with dust and cobwebs, greeted rescuers when they arrived at a rural Ohio property on a cold fall morning. “It really, truly looked abandoned, except there were animals living in there,” says Laura Koivula, director of animal crimes and investigations for our Animal Rescue Team.
In November 2022, the Humane Society of the United States assisted the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office with the rescue of 16 horses, six goats and several cats and dogs from an alleged neglect situation in Ashland, Ohio. The Humane Society of Ashland County, Days End Farm Horse Rescue and Happy Trails Farm Animal Sanctuary also assisted with the rescue.
Rescuers could see the severity of the situation as soon as they entered the first barn, says HSUS Ohio state director Mark Finneran, who was on scene helping our rescue team. Inside, responders found six goats with hooves so overgrown they started to curl upward, resembling elf shoes. A goat with a horn curling into his head attempted to climb the sides of his enclosure. His stall was so filled with waste it took several responders to pry the door open. “It was definitely a wake-up call and a reminder for what I was in for,” Finneran says.
In the second barn, the horses’ overgrown and damaged hooves sunk into several feet of manure. A blind mare with a ruptured eye that had scarred over paced around her pen as responders examined the scene.
The animals seemed scared and overwhelmed at the start of the day, says Finneran. But as responders carefully led them from their enclosures to the transport vehicles, Finneran felt “this sense of relief that permeated all of the animals.”
After the rescue, the animals went to safe locations to receive veterinary care.
