Saving an Amputee Pony Named Faith

An abandoned, abused pony seems destined for the slaughterhouse, until one couple goes above and beyond to arrange a groundbreaking treatment—and a second chance at life.

Illustration by Lena Chandok

In the baking heat of summer 2010, in the dusty yard of a Spanish farmhouse, a neglected pony is favoring her deeply wounded right foreleg, while a woman on the phone engages in heated conversation.

The woman, newly arrived to this quiet Spanish town, found the brown pony abandoned in the yard next door, entangled in a rope used to tie her to a tree. A wide red gash cuts deep across the pony’s lower foreleg, evidence that she has remained cruelly ensnared for days. The woman makes a call for advice on how to treat the gaping wound. On the other end of the line are Sue and Rod Weeding, British expats who moved to Spain in 2001, then gave up their sunshine-and-relaxation retirement seven years later to launch a horse rescue shelter. They hand over the number to their trusted vet, Dorothea Dudli von Dewitz.

“Dorothea goes there and starts rubbing and scrubbing and basically all the flesh just falls away from the leg,” Sue Weeding says. “It literally just falls a…