Homeless Horse

We have this cat who lives on our street. She's adopted a building and its residents a little further up from ours. They feed her and she pretty much hangs out in their garden. She’s a rolly polly little butter ball. Super cute and she just loves to torment dogs on leashes.

Dharma will pull and tug at the end of her leash trying to get at her (more curious than anything because I honestly don’t think she knows what a cat is) and the cat will lay just a paws distance out of reach. She rolls over on her back, stretches, meows, bats her big green eyes and purrs. Once she wrapped herself around my ankles, rubbing and purring while Dharma ran in circles around me trying to get her. I ended up bound like Gulliver and when Dharma had no slack on the leash remaining I had to bend over at the waist, hobbled and hopping about to secure Dharma by the collar and prevent the little seductress from taking a swipe at her nose when she got bored with the game. Love that cat.

Anyway, this morning I was walking Dharma and I stopped to notice that our little feline tramp is looking far more rolly polly than before. Looks like she’s had some busy nights and will soon have a family to feed. When I looked up, I was staring at the very dirty butt of a horse.



Just a random horse. Loose. All alone. On our street. In the middle of a bustling city of a half million residents. Typical Brazilian incongruity.

Poor fellow looks old and very much worse for the wear. Skinny, filthy. I’m guessing that someone dumped him because he’s too old to be useful. He’s been here all day. Wandering up and down, munching on weeds and poking his head through the fencing of the empty lots on our street to get at some sweeter grass.

I took him down a carrot and pet his nose. People looked at me like I was nuts. Even C told me I was crazy and that I should be careful messing around with a "wild" horse. Yeah, he looks like a real killer.

I don’t like to see any creature suffer, but horses are such intelligent, noble animals, its harder to watch. They spend their lives in service and then are just thrown out like garbage. And not at all ironic that it is the sanitation department, the garbage men, who someone will eventually call to come and get him (apparently that’s who handles these types of “situations”) and take him off to be “put down.”

Maybe I’ll bring him some more treats. Just to make his last day a little kinder.