22 horses, donkey recover at rescue site
Marshall County facility takes in animals
“It’s the ‘second chance highway,’” said tree farm owner Ron De Tillo of the route that took 22 at-risk horses and a donkey to the Dark Horse Rescue compound in Marshall County, just east of the DeSoto line.
A stallion paint, proud in bearing despite his 300mile journey from Columbia in Marion County, was the first to be unloaded recently at De Tillo’s 140acre spread near the Warsaw community.
“They have a tendency to be skittish,” said Dark Horse volunteer Nancy Jeffers of Nesbit. “They have the potential to be, well, stallions.”
Eyeing 13 miniature mares emerging from their spacious trailer into another enclosure, Dark Horse director and founder Christy Gross called out to them, “Watch your step!” They did, and soon were happily grazing.
All had behaved well on a long trip that started with the predawn loadup into a caravan of three trailers, said Dark Horse volunteer Brittany French of Collierville, a recent Ole Miss graduate who made the trip with Gross and volunteer Belinda Tigner.
The horses — 16 minis and six full-size horses — and one “cute” donkey were there, at a good place, after a living “a nightmare” of neglect and malnourishment. That’s how Purvisbased Lydia Sattler, Mississippi director of the Humane Society of the United States, described the scene at the property of an extreme “hoarder” in Columbia. On May 29, she and other Humane Society officials and the Marion Sheriff ’s Department were called in to assist rescue and removal of dozens of animals after authorities found them living in filth and suffering from a range of untreated maladies.
Deputies discovered more than 219 living animals “and plenty of dead ones.” The survivors included at least 50 miniature horses, some 30 cats, about a dozen dogs, 12 sheep and mules, full-size horses and goats.
The former owner fac- es felony animal-cruelty charges. Meanwhile, the Humane Society’s Animal Rescue Team removed some animals to a temporary shelter at the Columbia Expo Center, Sattler said. Following care and quarantine there for 30 days, animals now are being dispersed to rescue- adoption agencies such as Dark Horse.
Also making the journey were 14 cattle, off to a farm in Collierville, and nine sheep, going to a Germantown farm.
The Dark Horse director said the future looks bright for the horses and donkey, which will be quarantined on Dark Horse’s south side.
“They’re already on their way to being rehabilitated, so we don’t expect any issues,” said Gross.
For more information on Dark Horse Rescue or to donate time or resources, go to darkhorserescue. org, or call 662-469-9139.