As my husband says, “People are almost always going to outlive their pets.” And while I know he’s right, it never seems to get any easier.
We lost Tank this weekend, one of our quarter horses we bought when Kati was about 9 years old and Nate was just 6. Kati had shown a lamb at the fair the summer before, and caught the bug for horses. Dave found a nice deal in Clarksville where a family (Overholt) was moving and had two horses (Tank and his younger brother, Louie), all the tack and even hay for sale. It was a great way for our young family to get started in horses.
Still living at the house in town, we had to get housing set up including a shelter and pasture fence. In the meantime, we kept them at Dave’s brother’s house just outside of town (keep note of this for later). Their first habitat at our place was some temporary wire fence that led them into the lean-to of the barn. Eventually, we put up a full high tensile pasture and large shelter and they had quite a nice place to live.
This all seemed like a lot of fun until I had to start handling the horses. Dave grew up with horses but living in the city I didn’t have any experience riding so even being around them was intimidating. I remember Dave telling me that if Kati wanted to ride, she and I would have to figure this out on our own. He even made her sign a contract to do the chores and that paper still hangs on our bulletin board. 
Kati and I took pictures and made notes on how to saddle the horses up properly, but we learned and got better at it every time.
For me this was enough. I didn’t have a passion to learn to ride, but I liked taking care of them. I came home from work on my lunch hour when they needed a vet visit and I stopped at the local elevator to buy grain or other things they needed. I liked brushing them and taking care of their saddles. Just petting a horse was satisfaction for me and when one rubbed back with their head I thought I must be doing OK.
It really worked out well living on the edge of Lake O’–the convenience of living in town and on a paved road, yet four acres in back. The pasture had frontage on Huddle so Kati and any friends or cousins could take the horses out and just tool down the dirt road. Between living in town, having a pool and then the little farm in back, our home became quite the destination for family and friends.
The only problem with this arrangement was when the horses, or any of our animals for that matter, got loose! Our dog at the time, Elsi the dalmatian, was the main culprit. She quite often ran around town and ended up at the dog pound or the village police station.
After a while the Lake O’ police would just call me at the bank (I still worked in town then) and tell me they had her–I was always thankful for that. But then they began calling me EVERY time an animal was loose in town (once a large pig on Main Street) but they weren’t always ours.
Then there was the day before Thanksgiving–it was bitter cold and I remember we were swamped at work. The police called and said, “There are two horses running around town and we think they are yours.” Well, sure enough they were. We had something delivered that day for Dave’s new barn and of course the truck backed over part of the wire fence and left a gaping hole. Lucky for me, one of the Beard girls (Amanda I think) was up at Vince’s Auto on Tupper Lake Road and happened to grab some leads and walk them nearby to the auction barn where I could retrieve them later. I had to walk them home in the cold wind in my dress clothes! Horses didn’t seem like such a good idea at the time.
This wasn’t their only jailbreak. In another incident, the horses somehow managed to open the gate (perhaps it wasn’t latched tight) and ran through town again. Every time they were loose they ran toward Dave’s brother’s house at the corner of M-50 and Tupper Lake. Evidently they had good memories and knew that was their first, albeit temporary, home and kept returning there.
We got the call from Lake O’ police (of course–or maybe they knocked on the door) so we got up in the middle of the night to look for them. We arrived at Dennis’ house and there they were in the yard. But to our surprise, all of HIS horses were loose too! Was this just a coincidence or was someone running around town letting horses out?! Or maybe our horses got there and said, “Hey, let’s all play. We’ll open the gate for you.” Who knows but to make it a short night, we locked our horses in with theirs and called it good.
It didn’t take us long to realize that Tank and Louie were a bit too big for Kati and not for a beginner so we added Bizzy to the mix a few months later. She came from the Klynstra family, who we knew well from church. It was a lot of work maintaining a white horse but she was so much fun. Bizzy could do everything from barrel race to jump. Through all the work, bonding with Kati was the best part. We got frustrated but we learned how to hook the trailer to the truck and load. I took her to lessons and we joined a 4H club–we’re still thankful for all we learned from Melinda Pepper. After a few years I even became a 4H leader myself! I guess it’s true that those who can’t do, teach.
Sadly we lost Bizzy a few years ago due to old age and poor health. That was a tough day too.
Nate never did catch the horse bug, but he put everything he had into showing hogs and really loved his dogs too. One year at fair he met a cute gal from Saranac who was showing her horse and said, “Maybe I should ride horses after all?” He decided to stick with pigs…
The stories about our horses go on and on. The memories from crazy escapades, kids trail riding, or going to 4H horse shows and camping at fair are starting to fade away but writing this helps me to remember and to put into perspective what horses really came to mean to our family. Respect, trust, and responsibility were all learned through the love of horses, pigs, dogs and every other animal we’ve ever had.
I’m feeling guilty about old Tank. He was getting thin and frail and I knew the winter would be hard on him. We should have called the vet out sooner, but you never want to let them go. With the kids out of the house no one really rides horses anymore but it doesn’t mean we don’t spend time with them or enjoy them. Maybe it’s selfish on my part but I would really miss looking out our window and not seeing the horses grazing in the pasture.
We’ve had to bury many fury friends over the years; Elsi, Bizzy, Tobi, Dizzy, Daisy, Tanner and even Sassy the cat (Kati made me dig her back up so she could say goodbye). Indeed we will certainly outlive most, if not all, of our pets, and those are really tough times but I don’t have any regrets. There is simply no replacement for the unconditional love and the life lessons learned through the care of animals. Our kids have become compassionate, hard working people and I wouldn’t trade a thing.
Kauffman Family Farm 