#horses - #House burned down. Dad offered to take horses. Ended up starving them - horses got seized.

House burned down. Dad offered to take horses. Ended up starving them - horses got seized.

I grew up in a pretty bad family/home environment. In 2016 the house I had been living in with my mom and great grandma for around a decade burned down. The horses were kept on the property. One of the two horses was one my parents got "for me" when I was 7-8 years old. I was very, very attached to her.

I chose to leave Texas after the fire as some other friends offered me a place to stay while I got away from my bad family and recovered from the loss of the fire (had been a total loss; fire burned things to complete nothing and great grandma didn't have insurance on the house, and what proceeds they got from selling the property after my mom hoarded; I got out of the burning house with my dogs and basically no belongings and left the state with virtually nothing). My dad had land and offered to take the two horses, my mom and him worked it out and I thought it would be OK. I hadn't had much contact with my dad in several years, but he had a younger son in 4H and the like. I thought it would be OK. I left them an instruction book on their care even.

They ended up starving them. The horses were breaking down the fences and escaping. Someone called animal control and they got seized by them, then transported to a rescue.

Every time I asked my mom how the horses were, said how weird it was that my old mare was now 35 (on her birthday I asked how she was and we discussed how amazing it was she was this old; she'd already been seized by AC), etc. she said they were doing fine. I had very limited contact with her so didn't push for much except a text here and there asking how they were. She continued tellng me they were fine for months after they had been seized by animal control. I only accidentally found out from my sister, who thought my mom had already told me. My mom completely cut contact with me/stopped responding after she learned I knew.

They have already adopted out one of them (the younger one) and while I loved her, I was not as close to her as the one we had since I was 7-8 who was "my horse". I have seen she is now up for adoption on their website and am afraid I will lose her forever, now. I had held onto the hope that I'd get into a good job and make enough money to take them both back from my dad eventually (which is hard--my parents took me out of school when I was very young then didn't actually homeschool me, putting me at a massive disadvantage both educationally and socially). I'm doing a lot better and working my way up in the IT field now and probably on track for a salary of 40-60k within the next 3 years, but still probably not financially well off enough to completely afford the care of an old horse right this very moment.

Also, they are marketing her to be a "peppy, rideable" 19 year old Quarter Horse when the reality is she is a 37 year old Arabian. I sent them an email months ago when I learned they were there with old photos, their registered names, what had happened, their DOBs/ages, health issues, etc. and it was basically ignored.

What can I do?

They are at Habitat for Horses in Southeast Texas.

Submitted February 19, 2018 at 09:57AM by oiq011110
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Horses/comments/7yo2pc/house_burned_down_dad_offered_to_take_horses/?utm_source=ifttt