When we lost blind Tonto after his colic surgery back in August, his best friend and pasture buddy of many years, blind Scout, became forlorn. He kept looking for Tonto, pacing in circles and whinnying for him. Scout was waiting for Tonto to come back, and every time he’d hear hoofsteps approach, he’d get excited and start nickering a greeting, thinking it was his friend. It was, in a word, heartbreaking.
Not too long before Tonto died, we had an old, sighted mule named Roy arrive. Roy was a physical mess — his hooves hadn’t been trimmed correctly in years, his joints were inflamed, and he looked like he was in pain when he walked. Our equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor, took X-rays of his joints and declared Roy to be a "walking arthritic nightmare." Erin injected his joints with cortisone, and our farrier trimmed Roy’s hooves and put shoes on him. The next thing we knew, we had an old mule who could walk comfortably with a normal gait. It was an amazing difference.
Roy was finishing up his two-week quarantine in an isolation corral (standard procedure for new arrivals) when Tonto died. We watched dear old Scout keep whinnying off into the distance for Tonto, and we thought … well, what about Roy? They were both ancient, both gentle, both needed lots of equine senior to keep weight on. Why not pair them up? So one evening I led Roy out of his corral and took him over to Scout’s corral. Scout heard us coming and began nickering … he just knew it was Tonto!
I opened the gate and led Roy through. Scout eagerly walked up to greet his friend, and was shocked to find out it wasn’t Tonto at all. Worse, it wasn’t even a horse. It was a mule! Horses look down on mules and consider them second-class citizens of the equine world, so Scout’s dismay was compounded by this discovery. Scout sniffed, he flattened his ears, threw his head up in the air, and backed away.
The body language clearly said, "You can’t fool me, I know this is a mule and I don’t like this idea at all!"
Roy, for his part, has spent much of his life getting beaten up by horses, so his first thought at seeing Scout’s pinned ears was that this horse was going to strike him. He shied away, his ears back. Roy didn’t know Scout can’t see, and he didn’t know Scout would never kick or strike, so he had every reason to expect the worst. Roy retreated to a safe distance.
Not an auspicious beginning to a new relationship, I thought.
I left the two of them in the corral that night, each in their respective corners.
The next morning, when Alayne and I got up and looked out the living room window, we could see Scout and Roy in the corral. In the same corner. Side by side. We don’t know what happened overnight, but they have been inseparable ever since. I took these photos of them this afternoon.
If we take Scout out to pasture first, Roy hee-haws and hee-haws until we come back and take him to Scout. If Roy goes out first, Scout whinnies and whinnies for his friend. Now that it’s getting colder, I take them into stalls at Beauty’s Barn every night, a ritual both of these old gentlemen relish. They get another helping of equine senior grain, fresh wood shavings for bedding, and a warm barn to spend the night in. I always take in Roy first, and he looks out the stall window to keep an eye on his friend until I bring Scout in. As we walk by Roy’s stall on our way to the stall next door, Scout nickers at his buddy. You’d think they’d been together their whole lives.
Two old guys, one new bond.
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