In Memoriam: Rodney Dangerfield 1962 - 2008

Yesterday afternoon we lost our oldest inhabitant, Rodney Dangerfield. At 46 years old, it had seemed that he would be with us forever, but of course that could not be. This quiet, unassuming old Morgan horse came to us five years ago after his owner died and the family was going to sell him, two other horses and a mule to a dealer, and an uncertain future. Luckily for them a neighbor interceded, literally walking them off the truck. But Rodney went downhill quickly. Kept in a small paddock and fed hay and grain, he had so few teeth that he couldn’t chew what he was being fed. Another neighbor that we had met on-line on an elder horse group asked if we could take him, and the thin, but sprightly old horse arrived in June of 2003.

With a change in diet, and attention to the few teeth he had left, Rodney thrived. His gentle, affectionate (if sometimes distant) personality endeared him to visitors and volunteers alike, and the decision to retire him was made in August 2004, when he began showing signs of Cushing’s syndrome. That, his lack of teeth and his advanced age, suggested that adopting him to a new home would not be in his best long-term interests. Rodney was to live out the remainder of his life with his White Bird friends and family as a sanctuary horse.

Whilst he was never a “horse’s horse” (he was too far down the pecking order to be entirely comfortable in the herd) he did like having other horses around. But his tendency to be universally picked on earned him the name Rodney Dangerfield - like his namesake "he got no respect". He would tend to go off on his own, but it was never very far from the group. A curmudgeon in every sense of the word, Rodney loved human attention- on his terms, tossing his head impatiently if you went on longer than he felt was necessary. Hardly a vain horse (no Arab there!) he took an unusual delight in a new blanket he was given one winter. Wearing it like Superman’s cloak he paraded it in front of the other horses, daring them to pick on him. He was also highly intelligent, and if anyone could find a way through a latch or a bolt, it was Rodney. He was the ringleader of several notorious break-ins to the hay storage area at Stillwater.

We tried on a number of occasions to find him a special friend, but with little success. In one of our efforts at matchmaking, Rodney spent one day with Folly and Fallon when they were foals, in an attempt to bring out the nurturer in him. Fat chance. We even tried him and Rudy together, thinking that, as a blind horse, Rudy wouldn’t notice any posturing and that Rodney was so submissive he wouldn’t challenge Rudy. Wrong! As soon as Rodney discovered that Rudy wouldn’t push back, he reverted back to boss hoss. Even the lowliest on the pecking order has his day! The closest friend he ever had was Star, an amiable old Arab who never gave up trying to win his friendship, and who learned to stay just far enough away to remain in Rodney’s comfort zone.

Rodney was quite happy in the small paddocks at Stillwater Farm and when we moved to Southside, we were worried that he might not adapt to the new farm. We were also concerned about the 4-hour journey, itself. Well, of course, Rodney excelled himself, coming through the journey unscathed, and he settled into the grassy, open fields of his new home with obvious delight. We are sure that this was horse Heaven for him, with his roomy 12 x 24 foot stall, cushy sawdust bedding and his huge tubs of special recipe senior mush. Did we mention his enormous appetite?

Rodney had a long and good life, living like royalty as the oldest horse any of us had ever seen. He was amazingly free of the arthritis that you’d expect in a horse of that age, though his face had gone nearly white and he had lost most of his hearing. At most stages of his life, he appeared to have been loved and cared for and, in coming to White Bird, he got the retirement he deserved. His last official job was to educate visitors (astounded at his age) about senior horses. He departed this life in the open air of his favorite field, succumbing to cardiac arrest. He will be buried alongside the little copse of trees that was his shelter from any unwanted attention. His spirit has crossed the rainbow bridge and roams free from the cares and worries of this world.

We will miss you Rodney and there will be an empty space in the paddock for a long time to come.