A Horse Story for Sweet Dreams

My favorite stories as a child were horse stories, because I longed ever so much to have a horse of my own and because they gave me the most wonderful dreams. This is the story of one young girl whose name is Morgan and her Appaloosa horse, Endo. Not only is it a fabulous tale, but even better? It is a true story!

What is an Appaloosa? Well, it is a particular breed of horses, the great-great-many-times-great grandchildren of the horses brought to our country’s Southwest by Spanish explorers and those belonging to Native Americans. They are easily recognized by their patches of white that give their coats a spotted look. They are also known for being both stubborn and smart, curious and with a sense of humor.

And Endo? He has been all those things, plus what he would become . . . a truly brave and totally awesome horse! But in the beginning, Endo was a beautiful little colt in a herd of horses belonging to Morgan’s grandmother.

Morgan didn’t know a lot about horses, even though her grandmother was a horse breeder. Oh, she saw them on TV and at her grandmother’s farm, but she didn’t have any experiences with them. She also hadn’t done any of the kinds of chores required for the care of horses, either. And there are lots of hard and sometimes rather nasty things that are necessary - shoveling horse manure and dirty hay from the stalls into wheelbarrows and dumping it somewhere outside the stables, spreading clean, fresh hay on the stall floors and carrying buckets of feed or water.

Can you imagine Morgan’s surprise when her grandmother told her she could choose one of the new foals for her very own? Wow! Morgan had seen this batch of newborns a couple of months before, had already met the little Appaloosa. And on this day of choosing, as the colt pranced about, a little something of a showoff, Morgan knew. This was the one!

The word endo is a prefix, or the beginning of a much larger word, Morgan found in a medical book that means “within, inner, or containing.” Morgan meant for Endo to be just the first part of his name. She always intended to finish it, to add something more. Little did either Morgan or Endo know what that something more would be.

Here we are in our story: Morgan, a 13-year-old girl who has no experience with horses and Endo, a feisty young colt who has no experience with humans. Let the horse training begin!

Whoa and not so fast! Morgan didn’t even know how to put a halter on Endo. But when your grandmother says, “Pick one and it is yours” and you know horses need training, you’d better figure it out, right? And that is exactly what Morgan did, reading all the articles about how to train a horse she could find, including some that began like this:

“Horse training can be fun, but it also can be quite a challenge. For the beginner, it's probably best to leave starting young horses to more experienced trainers. Youngsters are too unpredictable, and knowledge, timing, and skill are required for success.”

Well, as a 13-yr-old, Morgan qualified as a “youngster,” but Endo wasn’t any more experienced at how he should be trained than Morgan was about training him. With hits and misses, by trial and error, Endo and Morgan learned from each other, and from more encouraging articles. Endo didn’t lose any of the feistiness that first caught Morgan’s attention when she chose him, either. He would wait until she turned her back away from him and then, as if laughing and teasing her, he would take off bucking!

Now, I’m only guessing, but I imagine Morgan’s grandmother was keeping a sly eye on those once-a-week training sessions. She was a horse breeder who knew the need for a well-trained horse. If she had observed anything wrong with how Morgan was working with Endo, she surely would have stepped in. It would appear she was satisfied – a probably proud, too – by Morgan and Endo’s success when Morgan began riding him as a 2-year-old.

Morgan was able to spend more time with Endo after he turned three and was moved to a barn closer to town than her grandmother’s farm. And life was good for them. Endo was a well-trained and well-loved horse; Morgan had grown to become a lovely young woman.

Bedtime stories are meant to assure sweet dreams which means they must always have happily-ever-after endings. However, the best happy endings come about when our heroine and hero win a battle against a dark villain. This story has one – Moon blindness.

Endo was 8-years old when the villain arrived, causing weepy, painful eyes diagnosed as glaucoma and cataracts and a condition fairly common among Appaloosa horses called Equine Recurrent Uvelitis or Moon blindness. Nothing, absolutely nothing Morgan and the vet tried was working for Endo’s eye conditions. Morgan did all she could to keep dust away from his eyes, only took him out at night, and the vet tried all kinds of ointments and medicines.

Morgan felt helpless and frightened for Endo. He was suffering tremendous eye pain; the medicines took away his appetite and it hurt to chew when Morgan tried to coax him to eat. Endo was in real trouble. And then it got worse.

Endo’s right eye had become incredibly painful. After trying absolutely everything, the vet could think of only one way to take away that pain. He would have to remove the eye. That was both good news and bad news. Because none of the treatments were helping, Endo could not live in so much pain and without eating. He would have to be put down. The good news then was that the surgery could save Endo’s life. The bad news was not knowing how Endo would handle losing his eye. That bad news was even worse because it was likely that the other eye would have to be removed, as well. Morgan’s greatest fear must have been for what becoming totally blind would do to Endo’s spirit.

The strength of bonding . . . trust, confidence and yes, love, between a horse and his human is one of the most unique in the animal world. Horses need family, and Morgan was all he had. Horses can feel the emotions of their humans and respond to them. They also see their human’s emotions on their faces, recognize them from how they stand or move about. As a blind horse, Endo would lose that connection.

Morgan’s challenge was huge! The vet had full confidence that Morgan wouldn’t let Endo down; she could and would take care of him. Other than his vote of confidence, she was on her own. There was no one else to support her determination to get Endo past being a useless, blind, disabled horse.

Endo showed how much he trusted Morgan when her presence calmed him during the first night after his one eye removal surgery. Shaking with fear in his stall, he settled down as she stroked and spoke to him.

Three things helped Morgan prepare Endo for that next surgery:

• Morgan, herself, and her determination to give full effort to the challenges.
• Endo’s natural “go and grit,” his strength of heart.
• The companionship of a rescued miniature horse, Cinnamon.

Morgan’s first step to prepare Endo was a blindfold. Already spooky about having lost part of his sight, the blindfold was downright scary! Morgan used her voice and soothing touch to calm Endo so he began to trust her while wearing the blindfold. Oh, there were lots of frustrations for them both, causing Morgan to seriously wonder if there was any chance of success. But then came that break through moment - YES! Endo gained the confidence to leave the security of the barn, stepping outside into the big, wide world again. Score one for Morgan! All was going well with the blindfold until . . . Endo figured out how to get the darned thing off. The score in this challenge was Morgan = 1, Endo = 1.

Over the next six months, as Morgan and Endo worked through their mutual frustrations to get him ready for that major next step of removing the other eye, Morgan decided a companion would be a good idea. She couldn’t be with Endo every hour of every day, after all. And that is how little Cinnamon came to be rescued from bad conditions, to move into Endo’s stall and pasture. Together, they were a bonded herd of two, outside for pasture romps and inside where Cinnamon sleeps with her head at Endo’s chest.

And then came Endo’s second surgery. He was totally blind.

All of Morgan’s work was paying off when Endo handled that final surgery well and recovered with more confidence than Morgan could have hoped. Together they had instilled the basics for Endo to use his senses for his surroundings – walls, fences and obstacles. The challenges weren’t yet over, but every new experience Morgan put before him was met with success. Morgan’s use of verbal cues rather than visual for Liberty Work exercises and routines, sometimes called “Liberty Dancing,” allowed Endo the freedom of movement in an open arena, furthering his confidence and trust in Morgan.

Now we can have our happily ever after ending! The dark and scary villain, Moon blindness, has been defeated! Endo has come through the tragedy of becoming totally blind and shows all the characteristics we humans love and admire about this magnificent creature, the horse: a huge heart full of courage, a unique communication without words, confidence, trust and companionship.

Thanks to Morgan’s love and commitment to Endo, he is about as normal as any sighted horse can be. Alongside sighted horses, however, it is Endo’s blindness that makes him unique, an inspiration and a dynamic crowd pleaser. Morgan and Endo travel and perform at Expos and shows across the USA and Canada where they maneuver complex obstacle courses and demonstrate Liberty Work.

Oh, remember how Morgan always intended to finish Endo’s prefix name with something that would add beauty and power to the meaning? All of this fabulous creature’s characteristics of courage, strength, determination are in there: His full name is Endo the Blind.

What does Morgan say about what has made her friendship and partnership with Endo the Blind so remarkable? Don’t give up. Hard work and the strength of love pay off.

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This bedtime story, starring Morgan and Endo the Blind, may have ended, but their story goes on. Born in 2000, Endo the Blind is 21 years old now. He has a Facebook page with 285,153 followers: https://www.facebook.com/endotheblind/?ref=page_internal and a website: http://www.endotheblind.com/

The disease Moon Blindness was named more than 400 years ago, during the 1600s, because people believed the recurring attacks were related to phases of the moon. “There are medical historians who think that moon blindness is the oldest recorded disease, older even than recorded human disease. It’s an old, old disease, but only in the last 10 years or so have we begun to understand what its causes are.” (www.chronofhorse.com/article/new-hope-moon-blindness)

Moon Blindness affects up to 12 percent of horses worldwide and about 25 percent of Appaloosas. New treatments are becoming available, but sadly, many victims are still losing their sight.