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Scotchy's eye before treatment
 
Scotchy after eye removal surgery
 
Scotchy is a 5 year old Belgian horse who was hauled off to an illegal slaughterhouse along with 5 other gentle giant relatives who had all worked together plowing fields for the Amish. Upon arrival, the slaughterhouse manager noticed that he was blind in one eye. Over the next 7 months, all of Scotchy's family members were shot with a .22 right in front of him inside the kill lot where he was living. Hence, he developed a horrific fear of all men and of gunshots. Eventually, all of his friends were dying out and only Gentle, his 35 year old grandfather, was left. Scotchy enjoyed following Gentle around the lot, especially because he did not always feel confident turning the corners with only one seeing eye. Gentle always made sure that Scotchy got enough hay (moldy as it was) to eat and protected him from bossy herd members.
But one rainy day, the slaughterhouse manager came into the kill pen with a pink bucket of grain. The man had a rifle under his arm. He began shaking the grain bucket. All the horses who had been there a while knew what that bucket meant ... it was time for another horse to die. Gentle tried his hardest to run away, all along, shadowing his grandson Scotchy so he would not get the bullet. Alas, the two were shoved under an old tree in a line-up of other doomed horses ... the mean man began shooting, execution style ... Scotchy galloped off just in time and hid under the cow shed ... but his beloved grandfather, Gentle, had been shot and all Scotchy could see from the hole in the shed was some Mexicans front-loading his tired old body up and off to the slaughterhouse ... Gentle flinched at times, and Scotchy said "Goodbye" through the hole with his only good eye, shivering and sweating in fear and grief.
Now Scotchy was truly alone. He had no drafty friends left in the lot. Over the next month, he galloped away in horror as the mean slaughterhouse man would shoot more and more horses. He knew his time would come eventually, and he had no joy left because Gentle was dead and there was nothing to look forward to ... until Gentle met a nice girl who took his picture .. and kept coming back and taking more pictures. Finally, there was hope, until one night, when the mean man came tripping into the lot, drunk and crazy. This time he had a baseball bat under his arm. Scotchy ran and ran and ran! He did not want to die! The nice girl had promised she would come back for him. "Come here, come here, Boy!" the man hollered. "Come on, get over here!" But Scotchy kept running ... "Don't you know that I liked you??? I was gonna let you get outa here alive -- but now you're gonna learn a lesson you'll never forget ... never run away from me when I come to you!" And with that the mean man caught him by his long, frazzled mane and batted him and batted him in his seeing eye ...
It was like a bad nightmare. Everything faded out ... It was suddenly pitch black and his eye was killing him ... it was oozing puss and could not open ... Daylight finally came and Scotchy the draft awoke to feel blood trickling down his eye. Everything was so blurry now ... and the pain was unbearable. Days and days passed, and the nice girl came with two other nice people. They took pictures of his eye. The next day a truck came. 4 horses were taken out of the kill pen. Scotchy got scared. He thought they were being taken to the slaughterhouse. He ran and ran and ran. No one could catch him. So the truck left. The next day a bigger truck came. But this time, a team came in and caught him. The nice girl walked him out of the pen and he shivered as he walked past the slaughterhouse. But when he saw the truck with his one blurry eye, he marched up with pride and walked directly into his station. Scotchy was safe at last!!! The truck sailed down the driveway and Scotchy said Goodbye to the 2 pregnant mares who did not make it out of the kill pen. They looked so sad and defeated as they stood before the gate, hanging their heads out, as if to say, "Please, don't forget about us ... Come back for us ... Please, come back!!!"
Late that night Scotchy was unloaded into a huge 8 acre field with a huge run-in shed. It was the Gray Dapple Farm! This place was clean and grassy and safe! The vets came in the morning and examined all the horses ... Scotchy ran the perimeter of the fence ... but was finally caught by the young vet tech. When Dr. England looked into Scotchy's pathetic, infected eye, she determined that he needed to be hospitalized immediately ... he would need emergency surgery on his eye, or the infection could kill him.
Scotchy was hauled off to Mid-Atlantic Equine Medical Center. The generous benefactor named Victoria, who funded his rescue, paid for his surgery. Dr. Doyle was sad to examine his batted eye and determine that it needed to be removed to save his life. The blunt force trauma to the eye was just too great. But that was Scotchy's only good eye ... the other one was blind! Poor Scotchy .. he was dehydrated,anemic, infested with parasites, and would now share King Lear's ominous fate ... Fade Out ... Fade into a dream ... Green hills, magnolias and daffodils, sapphire skies .. and over the veranda he saw Gentle nodding to him.
"Oh Gentle," he cried out. "I thought I'd never see you again ... but now you're here ... Oh, life is wonderful!"
Gentle smiled in a giraffian way. "Scotchy, my grandson," he said in a soft, low voice, " You may see me now but I am in the next world. You will see again when you go there. But when you descend back to the world that real horses live in, you will not see me again ... in fact, you will not see again at all."
"What do you mean, what do you mean??? It can't be true, it can't!" he cried, sobbing in self-pity.
"I'm afraid it is true, my little draft pony ... but now even though you will live in darkness you will see things that no one else can see ... you will open up a whole new chapter in your life ... and you will help others who cannot see the important things in life."
Drafty awoke clouds later in a sterile, hospital stall. Women stood around him, whispering and fading in and out of the blur of white medical coats. He noticed that he was wearing a huge, thick mask over his eye and face. "Thank the Equine Lord," he thought to himself. "I knew that was just a dream ... I can't see right now because there's a bandage covering my eye. They obviously did surgery to correct my vision and save my eye. I will see again when the bandage comes off ... I will!!!"
A day later the nice girl came to visit him. She came with a little girl who hugged him and braided his forelock. All at once, he was loaded in a luxury show can by another nice lady. Everyone got in the pickup truck that was carrying his trailer. Later they arrived back at the Gray Dapple Farm again. This time he was led into a huge foaling stall. Scotchy loved it! It was full of fresh wood shavings and hay. A kid came to the window and fed him peppermints. His mask was still on.
Days passed, and the Scotchy's world of darkness became the safest place he ever knew. He was on a dependable schedule. He got fed consistently 3 times a day. There was always fresh hay and water in his stall. He learned to navigate around the stall, all along knowing that soon the bandage would be removed and that he would see again. The girl who rescued him from the kill pen was always around him. Sometimes she would sit down next to him on the stall floor while he took naps on his pillow of pine shavings. He would get brushed and braided and primped. Nothing could get any better ...
Until one morning, the girl came to Scotchy's stall and began cutting off the bandage around his face with a scissors. Snip snip snip ... and suddenly, the gauzy thickness had been ripped off his eye ... but his eye ... was not there ... in fact his eye socket was sewn shut!!
"Where am I?" he neighed. "I am in a world of darkness. I will never see again -- Gentle was right ... First I was blind in one eye and then the mean man took a baseball bat to my only good eye! How evil this world is! How mean and unfair and very dark, so very dark ..." ... And then there was just silence. Scotchy endured a silent scream -- he panicked -- bumping into every stall wall, hitting every bar on his window, falling to the ground in defeat."
For 2 days Scotchy did not smile when the girl came and he refused peppermints and other good for nothing treats. The farrier, a man similar in stature to the mean man from the slaughter plant, scared him half to death just by being there and trimming his hooves. Scotchy worked himself up into a sweat and trembled, terrified. He was all alone. Gentle had left him by himself. Maybe this was the mean man and a bullet would soon hit his face ...
The next day the nice girl came to his stall and played a beautiful music piece for him from a stereo system that was placed outside his stall. It was called "The Swan," by Camille Saint-Saens. Another girl came to the stall door. The door slid open. His colorful draft halter was put on. Scotchy was led down the barn corridors, up the driveway, and out in the big back yard. He was hand-grazed by one girl while the other girl took his picture. He smelled the sweet, joyful smell of green grass ... And when he sunk his head down and started munching away, he could almost taste the color green. The girl smelled like fruity shampoo and suddenly it felt good to be alive!
Scotchy lifted his head for a pose and then trotted in a vibrant circle in front of the swing set. Life was good again ...the girls were giggling and braiding his mane again and he heard some nearby puppies yelping. He kicked at the auburn leaves and whinnied out of sheer joy. Later, as he could feel it getting darker, the girls accompanied him back to the barn. They brought him by the stall of Beauty, a beautiful off-track thoroughbred who was recovering from laminitis. Wow, this was one sweet dame he would like to get to know better! He marched triumphantly to his stall. Grain topped with apple bits awaited him in his bucket. He trotted over to his 2 water buckets and took a long drink. Tonight the girl played Samuel Barber's piano concerto written for John Browning. That was one horse of a piece of music!!!
Scotchy's life had changed completely. It would never be the same again. But even in darkness, it would be a whole lot better! Scotchy could see again ... the beauty of being loved ... and in return, he was able to love back.
Scotchy in his jumbo stall at the Gray Dapple Farm
Scotchy and his horse groupies!
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