WHITE COUNTY, Ga. -- From time to time, we all ask ourselves who our real friends are -- the ones we can depend on, and also the ones we just enjoy being around. For some of us, they're not even humans.
A woman in northeast Georgia, in White County, has never seen that more clearly than through the eyes of one very devoted friend:
Through the centuries, we humans have relied on no animal more than we've relied on the horse.
The horse has carried us, transported us, from the stone age into civilization.
It's their labor of love -- for us.
And it just may be true that no horse, ever, has so willingly, so enthusiastically, taken on a bigger job for a human than a miniature horse in White County named Angel.
Angel, five years old, has attached herself to a legally-blind, often bed-ridden heart patient, a professional opera singer named Renata di Pietro, guiding Renata out of isolation and back into life.
Every day.
"She's given me a reason to want to live and keep fighting," Renata said.
Every day for three years, now, Angel's always been at Renata's side, faithfully, tirelessly helping her. Everywhere.
Angel is Renata di Pietro's service animal, doing "everything a dog would do... even a big dog is not as strong as a little miniature horse."
Renata has had a series of three service dogs over the years, "and I loved every one of them to the end." They each died of old age.
She expects Angel will outlive her.
Every day the two of them train and practice together inside Renata's home in White County, and outside in the yard.
"She needs to be worked every, single day, constantly."
Angel soaks up the instruction.
"She does amazingly well for what I've been able to give her."
Angel is eager to please Renata, and be what she needs.
"She finds a step [like a curb or an obstruction], she paws at the step to let you know it's there, and she stops... Takes her body and puts it in front of me and says, 'No, you can't go any further, Mom'."
She bought Angel for $3,000. She had saved $4,000 more to go toward a trainer for Angel. She found out she was $6,000 short.
"I just couldn't raise enough money. A dog costs anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000" to train. "So I figured, you know, for $8,000 to $10,000 for a guide horse, for its training," Angel would be ready for anything Renata needed. Instead, she has been working with a couple of trainers as she has the money to pay them, and has been getting some online instruction.
Angel is learning through experience.
And whenever the two of them load up in their minivan and go out with Renata's husband, Carl, as their chauffeur, Angel knows her mission.
"She braces herself and allows me to lean on her when I'm falling. She knows the commands 'forward,' 'back,' 'left,' 'right.' She can find a chair. She can find a door."
Angel is still learning to maneuver safely across a busy street, pull a wheelchair, push down a door handle to open the door, and fetch.
"I've gone to Captain D's here, and I go to Walmart, and I go to Lowe's and Ingles, and Publix, McDonald's.... She's partially potty trained, she's getting there... And actually we've only had accidents three times in three years," no worse than with her guide dogs. Angel wears a plastic bag that works like a diaper.
Angel is a celebrity in White County. People call her the seeing-eye horse, and make her and Renatra stop as the two pass by, so they can take pictures with them.
And Angel is so much more than a novelty to bystanders.
"People are afraid to approach you, sometimes," Renata said, describing the impact that her obvious disabilities have on some people. "Sometimes they really want to approach you, but they don't know how."
Angel is the ice-breaker, and suddenly she and Renata, when they go out, are approached and surrounded by new friends, not strangers.
"She helps me feel more secure with my world around me." Angel helps others look past Renata's disabilities, to see Renata.
"Being an ice-breaker, too, helps me feel like, gosh, I'm still part of the world."
Think of the people in your life -- friends who are work horses and will do anything for you, and friends who are show horses and are just fun to be around.
Renata di Pietro has both in one -- in a horse named Angel, who is one for the centuries.
"I love knowing people are smiling and seeing something good, and that it is possible for a little animal to really change your life."
Links:
http://www.guidehorse.com/
http://www.theminiaturehorse.com/