Yesterday I wrote about a small joy but today I need to tell you about a serious and darker side of ranch life that many here might not understand. What follows is a true, and graphic account of one of the down sides of ranch life complete with pictures. Please be warned; some of these pictures are graphic and bloody in nature and if you are bothered by things like that, please pass this by.

Yesterday, about an hour after posting my entry about one of my small joys, I had a knock at my door. I opened the door to find my neighbor and friend, Ray standing in front of me almost in tears. Before I could ask him what was wrong, he blurted out: "We have trouble, David. Get your shoes on and come with me....quick!"

I took his arm and pulled him in the house. "What's the trouble, Ray?" I knew it must be serious because, like me, Ray is a veteran who doesn't get shook by much.

He ran a hand shakily over his face and then said: "It's the colt....something got her."

Without another word, Mel and I threw on our shoes and followed Ray out to the pasture.

Our four month old filly, Skipper with her mother, Lucy.

We made our way quickly to the pasture next to Ray's house, a pasture we share use with him on. There is a small run-in shelter for the horses there and that is as far as Skipper made it. All the other horses were gathered around the fallen colt who was still alive but unable to rise. It soon became apparent why she couldn't. She had been attacked by a large predator and was severely mauled. One look at the massive wounds told me what had attacked her, it was a cougar. It had leaped onto her back, hooked on massive claw on her throat and bitten down on her neck. Two of her legs had been mauled badly, probably when the cat tried to get her on the ground. I could only surmise that the grown horses had chased the cat off the colt before he could finish the kill and the filly had struggled to make it home. She almost made it.

This is a shot of the claw wounds where the cat griped her. When the conservation officer came to see the filly we did an on-site autopsy of sorts. He peeled away the hide on her neck to examine the wounds closer and found all three so deep we could insert our fingers up to the knuckle in them. 

 This is a shot of her neck. Her shoulder is in the bottom-right of the picture with her neck extending up to the top right. What is hard to see in this picture is the depth of these wounds, tendons and muscles were all exposed.

There were other wounds and other pictures but I think this is enough to give you some idea of the horror we found. What was amazing and heartbreaking is the fact that, when we got to her, she was still alive. She was beyond help so I was left with the most disturbing job of all.....ending her suffering. I did this with a quick rifle shot to the brain.

This is part of the story and to tell it as it should be told I  must make it into more than one installment. More to come tomorrow and I promise....no more grisly pictures.