Hi, most of you know me better as Nic, and a lot of local folks know this little gelding as Kio, the horse that was seen wrongfully sold through the loose pen sale on March 6th at the Kalona, Iowa livestock auction (then turned up again at an auction in Missouri earlier tonight, having changed hands at least twice since entering Kalona).

For those of you unfamiliar with his backstory, and how we got to this spot we're in today:

I owned Kio for years, up until February 12, 2022 when a financial crisis forced me to part with him. He was my heart and soul, my favorite furry face to greet me at the gate, my adventure buddy, and my best friend...I only let him go because I couldn't allow him to starve, and my situation being what it was then, it was a very real danger at the time.

Despite my best efforts to screen potential new owners, despite having a return agreement with them, where he was supposed to be returned to me if they changed their minds about keeping him, somehow he ended up in the loose pen sale, which was one of my biggest fears for him. Kio has an old shoulder injury that makes him at best light riding sound when he's medicated & properly taken care of. He's lame when not taken care of properly, as a result, which is his fatal flaw; people are spending huge amounts of money on him at auction because he's friendly and "pretty", not realizing he's chronically lame, getting him home, finding out he's lame, then sending him off to the next auction over and over again.

What they also don't realize, is that Kio also has a severe esophageal stricture, a dangerous narrowing of his "food pipe" that is life threatening for him if fed incorrectly. With his continual cycle of being auctioned from one place to the next, this is even more dangerous for him because it's all too easy for the new buyer to not know this and unintentionally cause him to choke. His throat is so scarred from previous choke episodes (before I bought him originally) that tubing him to relieve the choke blockage is extremely difficult and painful, if it even can be successful at this point. He endured over 3 months of extremely painful and expensive - but life-saving - treatment early in my days of owning him due to a laundry list of complications of the stricture and choke episode, including esophageal pressure necrosis and the resulting infections.

I don't want him to ever have to go through that again. I don't want him to be run through another auction with his future uncertain and his life hanging in the balance. I don't want him scared or ridden until he's in pain, only to be sold again and again.

I want to bring him home, where he's safe and can get the care he needs. Where it doesn't matter if he's sound or not, where he can eat safely and just be himself with the people he loves.

His latest buyer wants that, too. He even said he's too nice of a horse to continue this cycle with these risks. But like always, money plays into it, admittedly a lot. Every time he's sold, there's a price to be paid and it's never cheap. So the cycle keeps continuing on and on, with him paying the price each time.

Truthfully, I don't know if it can be raised, I know it's an awful lot to ask for...but I have to try. It's the only shot I have to get him out of this mess...so here we are. I'd pay it all myself in a heartbeat if I had it; I just started a new job after an equipment fire caused an extended layoff at my old job that became permanent. Starting that new job makes me ineligible for a loan through my bank for 90 days...by then, who knows where Kio would be or if he'd even still be alive.

So this is my last ditch effort to try to get him home, out of the auctions where he can get the care he needs to be comfortable and happy. To not have strangers rough handling him & waving whips in his face in the loose rings & strange horses biting and kicking him in the pens. I don't have long to try, his current buyer said he'd give me a week and see where we're at... 2 weeks he could end up at yet another auction, who knows where.

It's gotta be all our nothing on this. If I can't at least get close enough to cover re-purchasing him, he's going to get sent back to auction (by his current buyer) and donations will be returned... If we can raise his bail - and I know, I know it's a lot - he gets to come home, to safety. He means the world to me... I gotta try. And hopefully there's enough of you out there who care about this little lame grulla horse to help him get out of this auction cycle.

From the bottom of my heart, I truly thank you for your support.