Madison and Bridger the blind horses
Madison and Bridger came from completely different backgrounds, but once they met here at the ranch, it was love at first sight (so to speak). They've been inseparable ever since.
Madison came to us from the Idaho Humane Society
in Boise, which rescued her from a large-scale animal neglect
case. She was found in a corral so deep in manure they had
to dig her out. The Humane Society folks took her to their
rescue ranch for rehabilitation. A few months later they
e-mailed and asked if she could join the other blind horses
at the sanctuary.
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Just a week after she arrived, Bridger came to the sanctuary. He belonged to a Missoula outfitter who couldn't use him once he went blind, but didn't want to send him to slaughter. It turned out that we and the outfitter use the same equine vet in Missoula, and one day when we both happened to be at the clinic, the outfitter came up and asked if we could possibly take his blind horse.
Once Madison and Bridger finished their quarantine periods here at the ranch, we put these two blind horses together in a corral. Then we stepped back to see what would happen. Usually when two horses get together for the first time, there's a lot of squealing, pawing and other ‘getting-to-know-you' theatrics that make sense only to horses.
Not with these two. They immediately nickered as if they were childhood sweethearts finding each other again after years apart. Even bumping into each other was cause for another nicker, not a swish of the tail or squealing. “Oh, there you are, dear!” they seemed to say.
The initial greeting and nickering over, they settled down to enjoy a pile of hay together, heads side-by-side, munching away.
And they've been that way ever since, side-by-side, like a pair of lovebirds. Madison is the brown (or dun colored) one, Bridger is the big handsome Appaloosa.
Madison and Bridger do have something else in common: They both got new names after they arrived here. Madison was named Radar, and we just couldn't see going out to pasture and calling “Radar! Radar!” Bridger was named Scout, but we already had a blind Appaloosa named Scout. (Now that was confusing.) We held a contest on our Web site for a new name, and Bridger won. None of this matters to them. They're in love.
