Never discard an unwanted pet

Say what you will about the emotional priorities of humans, but there are few things that touch us as deeply as seeing animals in distress. Especially when they're put in that position by humans.

So it'll be no surprise that today's Page 1 story about Mac the horse will get your tears flowing - or at least your dander up.

Mac, as his caretaker has named him, is a horse found wandering in a field in the rural Kane County community of Pingree Grove 10 days ago. He had no distinguishing marks - no tattoos, no microchip to ID him - just his beautiful brown and white coat and his bad eye.

The Hampshire woman with many horses of her own who has been housing and feeding him since police were able to lasso him has tried every trick in her book to locate Mac's owner. She's placed ads on Craigslist, posted fliers around town, contacted other police departments, sent out mass e-mails and even called the Pinto Horse Association of America. No bites.

Which leads Pingree Grove Police Chief Carol Lussky, the owner of two horses herself, to think Mac was abandoned.

"Maybe somebody just can't afford him," she said. "If it's a situation like that, it's a terrible way to go about doing things."

If, indeed, "Mac" was abandoned because of economics, it simply didn't need to be that way.

People's seemingly boundless desire to care for animals has spawned animal rescue organizations of all stripes in the suburbs. And, yes, there are organizations that specifically shelter unwanted horses.

But Sue Balla, president of the Field of Dreams Horse Rescue and Adoption in Elburn, said it's not as easy as deciding one day to get rid of your horse. "We're full to the gills," she said, with eight rescue horses in her stable and another 10 horses on the waiting list to be taken in by her group.

"Most of them are in financial trouble," she said. "They call up and say they're desperate. But you don't just look at the check book one day and realize you're out (of money.) You have to plan for this. It's a real rock and a hard place for us ... and them. And it's always the animal that suffers."

A horse set free is not like an unwanted pet frog to be loosed in a swamp. Horses, like dogs and cats, cannot survive on their own in this environment. They're conditioned to require human caring. Horses are not as likely to become a coyote's lunch as other discarded pets surely would be, but they couldn't survive too long on their own.

So if you're down on your luck, and your kids are all you can feed, please plan ahead and seek out someone who will care for that animal when you can't - or won't - anymore.

If, on the flip side, you're in the market for a pet and serious about taking care of it, consider saving a life someone couldn't care for anymore.

Local shelters are brimming with potential pets for you. Every pet that's adopted from a no-kill shelter saves two animals - the one that gets a new home and the one that gets to take its place.