Starving mare is taken to the South Florida SPCA rescue ranch

 April 25^th was just another pleasant Sunday afternoon in South Florida when the call came from Miami-Dade police that an abandoned horse had been found at SW 202^nd Avenue and SW 136^th Street in the area known as the east Everglades.   

As they have countless times in the past, volunteers from the South Florida Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SFSPCA) quickly put aside personal plans in order to respond to an animal in need.  Volunteers Dio Benitez and Amy Cepero were dispatched to make the pick up by executive director, Laurie Waggoner. 

 Although neither volunteer is easily shaken when confronted with abuse and neglect, what they found when they arrived shocked them.  They found a gentle, heartbreakingly beautiful white mare, blind and near starvation. 

"Someone apparently decided that she was no longer useful to them and decided to dump her", stated Laurie. No horse, especially a blind one, will survive being abandoned in South Florida.  They will die slowly from starvation and dehydration or quickly by accident or predation, but they will not survive. 

On a positive note, the society's veterinarian examined Blanca, as she is now called, and found the 20-year-old mare to be in good health.  Although blind, Blanca could live many years enjoying an excellent quality of life. According to Waggoner, It's amazing how blind horses are able to compensate by using their other senses to get around.  Blanca is just such a horse. 

Because she has special needs, the society will not put Blanca up for adoption.  Instead, when she has regained her strength, she will be sent to a retirement home for horses in Alachua, FL, where she will spend the rest of her life being cared for by people experienced in dealing with special needs horses.  "Blanca will be properly cared for and she'll even have company.  She will pasture with other horses who are also blind", stated Waggoner. 

The South Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a 501C3 non-profit, all-volunteer organization.  During the past three years, the society has rescued over 500 animals, 200 of them horses.