"Trish Brown" wrote in message
Once, my sister wrangled a tiny pony from inner-city Newcastle. It had
been tethered to a park fence and left without water and feed. When my
sister found it, the poor little thing was a skeleton and eating sand! It
was very easy for her to simply cut the tether rope and lift the pony into
her Mitsubishi L300 (I *so* admire my sister for doing this!) She left a
note on the fence for the owner and brought the pony home.

We spent the whole afternoon with our kids feeding, washing and fussing
over Buddy, who wasn't an inch over eleven hands. He greedily gobbled up
the hay we gave him and went to lie down in Mum's backyard (which had long
*green* grass - why didn't we twig???). Then we went to have lunch.

During lunch, everyone began to itch and scratch hysterically. *All* of
us, even my elderly Mum, had *lice* from the poor little pony! We had to
wash ourselves (and the pony, of course) in dog-wash to get them off and
it wasn't pleasant at all!

By now, the pony had contracted an awful case of colic, probably from
eating too much green grass on top of his sand diet. My sister and I
walked him around the streets for eighteen hours before he finally passed
the sand. The poor little creature was in agony and I've never seen
another horse as sick as he was. The story has a happy ending, because the
owner rang, irate, from *Sydney*! He'd bought the pony for his kids, who
lived with their Mum in N'cle and who had tired of him after a few weeks.
He threatened to sue my sister, who calmly replied, 'Do, please, go ahead!
You and I have an appointment with the RSPCA. I took photos!' The nice man
then offered to sell the pony to my sister, who peered into her purse and
said 'I've got eleven dollars twenty. Will that do?' She sent him a money
order, he sent a receipt and Buddy became ours!

Buddy was about eighteen months old (ie a *baby*!) and kids had been
riding and abusing him for most of his short life. We were unable to break
him to saddle (owing to having no-one small enough to ride him safely), so
we broke him to harness when he was nearly three. He never grew past
twelve hands, and so he became a champion mini-trotter and went to live
with a lovely couple whose grandchildren were great mini-trots drivers.

What a nice story. I hope the ******* who abused the pony dies in agony.