Ace

Last year, The Banner-Tribune ran a story in the Aug. 6 edition titled “Rescue.”
It was about the rescue of a horse, named Red, which had been abandoned by his owner, tied to a post in a field and left to starve.
Through a partnership between St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Cruelty Investigation Task Force, Red was saved, and he was provided a new home with Charita McCullough on her property in Patterson.
McCullough recalled that the first few weeks were touch and go.
Red, who has since been renamed Ace, was so emaciated and neglected at the time he had been given a less than 50 percent chance of survival.
He was taken to All Creatures Veterinary Hospital in New Iberia with severe starvation, dehydration and a condition of the skin known as rain rot.
Despite his condition and prognosis, McCullough recalls Ace, “still had a lot of strength for being as underweight as he was.”
She said his condition remained critical for about a month after she took custody of him, but after that month, his weight began to increase appreciably, a good sign he was out of the proverbial woods.
For three months, Ace was fed a regimen of beet pulp, fattener and vitamins donated by Tractor Supply Company of Houma, wich also donated the fence posts necessary to keep him separated from McCullough’s other horses during the first tenuous days at his new home.
McCullough said she checked on Ace twice a day for the first few days, and she was filling 40-gallon water troughs at each check to keep up with Ace’s own natural rehydration efforts.
She said after about three weeks, her farrier (hoof specialist) told her and her family someone needed to start riding Ace, to build muscle as he put on weight. So, McCullough’s teenage son began to ride the horse, but only at a trot.
As far as exhibiting signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, or any negative psychological effects from his ordeal of neglect, McCullough said she has only noticed that Ace still behaves as though he doesn’t seem to know where his next meal will come from.
She further explained that despite being fed regularly and in proper amounts, Ace still supplements his standard regimen with grass, a behavior he would not exhibit had he not needed to survive on grass alone during last year’s trauma.
Other than that, she says he shows no signs of being anything other than a happy, well-behaved horse.
McCullough also said once introduced to the other horses on the property, Ace became fast friends with them. So much so, that even now, if separated from his elder, Trigger, Ace exhibits signs of separation anxiety; and as McCullough walked him along the perimeter of the horse pen for this interview, Trigger could be seen at the periphery of the abutting tree line, peeking through the scrub, seeming to inquire as to the status of his buddy.
McCullough says Ace is “second in charge” to Trigger.
She thinks he would like to be the alpha among the horses, but added she also doesn’t think Trigger would allow that to happen.
Of the two of them, she says Ace is the most playful.
“It’s almost like he knew Trigger was in charge,” she said. “He’ll just sit back and wait for Trigger to finish his meal and then he goes and gets his scraps,” even though Ace takes his own grain, once a day.
When asked about the permanence of Ace’s living arrangements at the McCullough property, McCullough simply said, “He’s not going anywhere. I think he’s got a long life ahead of him,” for which she said she is grateful to Tractor Supply Company.
It is through the generosity of businesses like TSC, and through private donations, that the CITF and sheriff’s office have been able to effect such rescues as Ace’s, and it is how they continue to do so, even today.
Toney Wade, a volunteer with CITF who initially helped to find the home for Ace, has been keeping up with the horse’s progress since last year. His daughter even learned how to ride on Ace.
Wade recalled that he was on another case, out of parish, when he got the initial call from the SMPSO concerning a horse in jeopardy—Red.
“They sent me some pictures of him,” Wade said, “and I told them, ‘We need to seize.’ So, I worked with the sheriff’s office, we got the horse seized, I lined up transportation and a place to go, and it went smoothly.”
Wade said he has noticed a decrease in the number of rescues in St. Mary Parish since Red’s rescue last August.
“We are still getting quite a few calls in the St. Mary Parish area,” he said. “I have seen them slow down a little bit, but we still have to deal with more than I would like to see us deal with.”
According to Wade, parish-wide, CITF has been called to rescue approximately two horses per month this year.
State-wide is a different story. Wade said CITF sees 60 to 65 cases per month across Louisiana.
To combat the problem of animal cruelty in the parish, Wade offered some advice:
“If you see something, say something,” he advised. “If somebody notices a horse getting to be in pretty bad shape, give us a call early on. Let us know. Don’t wait until the horse is almost dead. If we get in there early enough, we can educate and work with the owner to try and help them.”
Wade also stressed that CITF is not by any means in the business of frivolously targeting animal owners for arrest.
He said his group advocates changing the behavior of the owner first, through education and donations, to provide a chance for the owner to correctly care for their animal.
“If somebody owns an animal, and they’ve fallen on hard times and they can no longer afford to care for the animal, reach out to us,” Wade said. “In the beginning of the process, we can do things to help you and keep you out of trouble, and keep the animal from being neglected.
“We can try several things, and if not, we can get the horse to a better situation, with a good outcome for everybody, and nobody will go to jail.
“We will help anybody in any way we can, but they’ve got to reach out to us in the early stages, and not wait until the animal is in dire need, because it will be too late at that point.”
The story of the journey of a horse called Red, to becoming the horse named Ace, is one that seems to owe its success, in large part, to the amount of fight in the horse. However, not all animals could survive the way Ace did.
Wade stressed that it should not have to get to that point, and he is right.
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To contact Tony Wade of CITF, call 985-253-1436.
To make a donation to CITF, log onto their Facebook page’s donation link at: https://www.facebook.com/LaCITF/?hc_ref=ARRO6WkIjoYedY436Mee3MtiJ8fwWmuG...