The Knee High Gang

So many horses, so many breeds, so many beautiful colors, so many sizes then there are the dwarfs. 

Are they horses? Yes, dwarf horses. 

We didn't know either until 20+ years ago when we got a call from a lady in Southern Alabama. She had two dwarf miniature horses that were brothers and no veterinarian or farrier would work on them. They told her to euthanize them. She called SaveTheHorses and asked if we could help. We had never seen a dwarf horse either but we knew we wanted to help. Since we had more equine veterinarians in the area, we were sure we would all learn something about dwarfism, while saving their lives. When we saw them, our hearts melted. We fell in love. Their deformities were an issue but we knew we could find a way to help them and not give up. To think of euthanizing them because of they were not 'normal' would be immoral. They only knew life as a dwarf. It was normal to them. We had a few different opinions from different veterinarians and farriers. We tried many things to correct their feet, some with success, some not.

That is how SaveTheHorses dwarf herd began.  There are four types of dwarfism; achondroplasia, brachiocephalic, dystrophic and hypochondrogenesis. Small stature, crooked limbs, large head, mouth too small for all the teeth of a normal sized miniature horse. These are just some of the few hundred characteristics of dwarfism. Because of their tiny size, many were used as breeding stock to downsize their offspring. Now these poor dwarfs have a myriad of health concerns due to their genetic disorder bred into them by unscrupulous breeders and uneducated owners.

Our Knee-High Gang; Gidget, Saucy, Willow, Gizmo, Cowboy, Blaze, Duke and Samson. Every one of them precious and fragile.