Animal Stories

This is my "Animal Stories" page.  The stories you read here are real and are not fiction.  Just some that I would love to share and are not just about horses but about the other little loves in my life.  As I was growing up, I have delt with a lot of different types of animals, not only domestics but wild as well.  My mother used to say "Dianna, I don't know how you managed to get this far in life without winding up with rabies"!  Most people are amazed, God gave me a gift with animals and I just love them.  I would love to read your "Animal Stories" too, so please email me them!!  Don't worry about the length or rattling on!  I would love to know your experiences with animals, both domestic and wild.

 My Soul Horse "Storm"

When I was 21 I met a new friend where we worked at Long John Silvers in Ohio.  She had a horse, I've never owned one but my love for them was great!  One night she asked me to go to the barn with her and help her clean her stall, and boy I could not wait.  I got to meet her appaloosa mare Chelsea and that is where I met my first horse, "Storm".  It was love at first sight with that little blanketed chestnut colt, maybe that went both ways and when she told me she was selling him, I just had to get him.  When I wasn't at work, I was at the barn with him, kids or not.  My children were small at this time and I would take them to the barn with me.  Storm and I formed a great bond, something that is forever and hard to describe except to say he was my soul horse.  Storm and I learned a great deal together and did a lot together too.  He taught me patience, gave me laughter on my down days and gave me a big shoulder to cry on when I needed it.  Sometimes I would go to clean his stall and he would wait til I got the wheel barrow all the way full and then come into the stall and flip it over, run out to the other end of the arena and turn and look at me.  I could tell he was laughing at me and I would mock that I was really upset with him then he would come trotting up to me and I would give him a big hug and laugh.

 The trust that Storm and I had for eachother was something you don't find too often in your life time.  I could be out in the field picking up the bigger stones because I didn't want them to get in his feet and he would be at the other end of the field and come running full speed at me, me on my hands and knees would act like I was ignoring him and just watch him out of the corner of my eye.  I knew he would stop before he ran over me, no doubt in my mind and he would come to a full, on his butt, tail to the ground stop just a couple of feet from me and sniff around as if saying "What are you doing Mom"?  We would chase eachother around the field, running and laughing, at first I would chase him and then turn around and he would come after me.  When I stopped running he stopped and put his head in my chest and I would wrap my arms around that big roaned out neck of his.

People say that animals can't understand you, but Storm and I understood eachother perfectly.  Sometimes we didn't even have to talk, and yes, he talked to me.  Every night I would say, give me a kiss and he would stick his nose out of the feed hole in his stall for me to kiss it.  When I was 8 months pregnant with my 3rd child Grace, I had to move him from the boarding stables to another stable that was closer.  When we got him out of the trailer he was excited, he was a 2 year old colt and there were new mares and other new horses.  He started bunny hopping on the end of the lead, trying to pull me into the barn where the new horses were.  I stopped him in his tracks and looked right in his eye and said "Storm, Mommy doesn't feel good, please, behave".  Storm stopped, walked slow and easy into the barn and right into his stall as if he had lived there forever.  Once he was in the stall and I was out then he tossed his head up, danced around his stall and called to the new horses.

Storm was an Impressive bred Appaloosa/Quarter Horse.  He was my heart and my everything.  When he was merely 3 1/2 years old he passed.  It has been 15 years now and to this day I carry that awful day with me.  I had walked outside to untangle my goat and as usual he called to me, raced to the fence line and followed me around the fence.  We talked as we usually did when I was outside, OK, mostly I did all the talking, he did the listening, he was good at that.  I untangled the goat and went to the fence to visit with him.  Before I went inside again, I kissed his nose and his face, hugged his big neck and said "I love ya Storm boy, see ya at dinner".  About an hour later, I looked out the window and he was flat on the ground!  I ran out to him and tried to pull him up, but he was gone.  My vet said he was gone before he hit the ground.  Most horse people by now know what HYPP is and what it does is attack the muscles.  The heart is also a muscle, something we don't think about when considering this.  My vet said that he either had an anyurism or he had a heartattack.  I just tell people that Storm's heart was so big and full of love it just exploded.  Run the fields Storm Boy, and wait for me at the end of that rainbow!!  I love ya big boy!

The Pigeon at the Beach

It was a really warm day and I had been working in the barn all morning trying to get stalls put up, my 3 kids and my oldest daughter's boyfriend were helping me.  They all decided they wanted to go to the beach and go swimming.  I said OK we can do that, so we went to the lake to go swimming.  I came back up to the beach to sit down for a while and I had seen this grey pigeon walking around, following people, but not going up to them and if they tried to get him he would walk away.  Kids were coming around trying to catch him and he would just walk away from them or fly but not too high.  I thought maybe he was hurt so I just sat there on my towel watching him.  My oldest daughter and her boyfriend came over to join me on the towels and Sara had picked up one towel and shook it out to spread it to sit on.  My son Jessie came over and asked if I had seen his silver dollar shell that he had found.  It was one of those that you find in the ocean, but we were at a lake.  It was the size of the top of a pencil he said so I got on my hands and knees and started helping to look for it.  All of a sudden I felt pecking at my toes and bottoms of my feet.  I turned around and the pigeon I had been watching walking and running away from people had come up to me.  I ignored him and continued looking for the silver dollar shell for my son.  The pigeon apparently didn't like that I was ignoring him because he then came around to my hands and was pecking at my fingers.  They weren't hard pecks, they weren't biting pecks.  So I sat up and started talking to him.  He came over and hoped on my lap, but when I tried to pet him he would jump off and go about a foot away from me then come back up to me and peck on my hands or feet some more.  He eventually let me pick him up and we went home with him.  He sat on the top of the front seat watching out the window as we drove home, he didn't try to fly off the seat, he didn't go balistic in the truck, he just sat there as if he had been in this truck before, no fear.

We got him home and named him Pidgey and Pidgey settled into the home life as if he had been there every day of his little life.  He slept in a cage for parakeets but during the day I would let him outside on the porch.  It was not fenced or screened and he could come and go as he wished.  He got used to the routine and in the mornings I would open the door and he would fly out and sit on the banister of the porch.  He would fly around the yard, go on the roof of the house, the barn, where ever he wanted.  In the evenings I would open the front door and call him and he would fly back in the house.  For some reason he stayed, his wings were not clipped, he could fly, he was given the opportunity to leave, but he chose to stay with us.  He would follow me around the house flying from one room to the next, sometimes when I went to the barn I would come out and he would be there waiting for me in the driveway, he would sit on the back of the couch and watch TV with me or on my shoulder or lap.  At night he would go to his cage and get in, settle down and go to sleep.  He stayed with us for about 6 months then one day I guess he found him a girlfriend because he didn't come back home.

I've never understood why he chose me to be with out of all the people at the beach, or to stay, but he did and it was my pleasure having him as a guest in my home.  It was an experience to have him around and though our time together was short, he had worked his way into my heart forever to remain.

A Racoon at the Fishing Hole

I had gone fishing with a friend of mine.  It was me, him, his son, my youngest daughter and my son.  We had decided to go fishing because the kids wanted to.  So we packed up our poles, bait and a lunch and set off for the lake.  As we were getting the kid's poles set up a racoon decided to come wandering into our little "camp" and investigate.  He immediately noticed my dog Daisy Duke and decided to be safe and watch from the tree branches.  I, the animal lover that I am, decided to go "talk" to the little guy.  As I was talking to him he kept reaching out to me with his little "hands" and chattering to me in coon talk.  I put my hand up to his little one and he put his in mine and started rubbing my hand, then he leaned over and put both his little hands in mine and pretended to "wash his hands" in mine.  I went to the car and got him a cheeto to see if he wanted it.  I grabbed a couple and held them up to him.  He smelled them then began to wash his hands in mine again, knocking out the cheetos.  When I would walk away from him he would chatter louder.  I put both my hands up to him and he put one of his in each and put his nose into my hand and was licking my hands!  His little tongue tickled.  My arms were getting tired from holding them over my head and I had to take a break from him.  He sat up in the tree and watched me as I was talking to him, as if he could understand anything I said.

I went and fished for a while and that little racoon stayed up in that tree the whole time.  From time to time I would stop, go back to him and put my hands up there for him and he would do the washing of the hands or he would just put his nose in them and give them a lick.  I talked to him and he chattered back as if we were having a real conversation.  It is amazing at times at the trust of an animal to a human that is 100 times it's size.  There are friends in everyone, big or small, animal or human.  Sometimes we just have to listen to the animals and show a little trust.

There are more stories to come.  Keep checking back!