Animal rescue is a calling to many who follow their hearts. But it is never an easy road to follow. It is filled with much heartache and anguish yet the rewards of saving an innocent and voiceless animal's life are beyond explanation. It is the driving force that keeps rescuers going when the hard times seem to outweigh the good times. And sometimes it is sprinkled with little miracles along the way.

Kelly Smith, the director of Omega Horse Rescue in Peach Bottom Township, near York, Pennsylvania was fully aware of the hard times as there is never enough money or room when you rescue horses that will be sent to slaughter. She was a frequent visitor to the horse auctions where kill buyers flocked to buy up unwanted horses. They then were sold for slaughter and shipped mostly to Mexico for a brutal and terrifying death only to be turned into horsemeat for other foreign country's consumption.

To the kill buyers these frightened and often neglected horses were just another dollar sign to line their pockets with. But to Kelly, they were all precious souls that sadly she could not all help. At the end of the day at one such auction, she was walking past a pen holding horses that had already been sold for slaughter. It was then that she noticed a brown bay mare with blood running down her leg.

Kelly and another rescuer tried to stop the bleeding and enlisted the help of a veterinarian to stitch up the leg. By this time, there was no way that Kelly could leave the horse to be sent to slaughter so she purchased her from the kill buyer for $350.00. Then like so many times before, she took photos and uploaded them onto Facebook to show her followers what she was doing and the newly rescued horses.

Nothing unusual about that but here was when a little miracle began to take place. Hours later and hundreds of miles away in Harwich, Mass., Brittany Wallace, 16, was on the computer doing research. It was early in morning on Nov. 13 and she had spent the night on the couch to be near the family dog, Kona, who was very sick. Kona had died at 6 that morning. Brittany was sadly thinking about her childhood, of growing up with Kona and her horse, Scribbles.


Scribbles and Kona had joined the Wallace family during the same week when Brittany was only 9 years old. Brittany had even taught Scribbles how to "bow" by putting her muzzle down on her leg and putting her hoof out. No one else could make their horse bow like Scribbles could. But as she grew older at age 13, her family made the decision to sell Scribbles to a good home. Even still Brittany visited Scribbles for 3 summers but eventually she lost touch with her. But Brittany still loved horses and over the last summer, she used her own money to rescue a horse.

That fateful morning, Brittany, a high school junior, decided to work on a paper about horse slaughter for her English 101 class to try and take her mind off the death of her beloved dog. It was during this time when she decided to go on Facebook for a minute. Brittany was never online that early in the morning but that day was very different.


As she scrolled down the page, she saw a photo of a tired and thin looking horse with a bloodcovered leg that had been shared by a friend of hers on her newsfeed. She was feeling sorry for the horse when she saw another picture of the same horse and instantly knew that it was her old horse, Scribbles. Brittany and her family then contacted Kelly from the horse rescue who was a bit skeptical since there are so many bay horses in the world. But when Brittany told her of a distinctive scar under Scribble's tail and it was there, the doubt was completely removed.


The decision was immediately made by the Wallace family to bring Scribbles home. Through word of mouth and Facebook, the Cape Cod community lent their support to the family. The $400 it cost to adopt Scribbles and money for vet bills were all covered by donations. Scribbles stayed at the rescue for a month to recover and then came the day for Brittany to come and get her.

Although Brittany was very nervous at seeing Scribbles again, she began to pet Scribbles, touching her leg. It was then, in the midst of this improbable reunion, that something amazing happened. Unprompted, Scribbles began to bow. She was going home again.