Charlie - A True Story

Charlie
A True Story

By Roger Austringer
Reprinted and translated with permission from "Hufschläge", April '05

Charlie was born, by best estimates, sometime during the spring of 1980. In all likelihood, he spent the first two decades of his life on an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, USA.

Cameron was also born, with some precision, in the early spring of that year. Alternately, he spent much of his life on or around his parents' stock farm in rural Southern Ontario, Canada.

Without warning, life set them on paths that would ultimately pair them together and surprise everyone with what a little confidence and a lot of love can do.

First Impressions
In the fall of 2001, Cameron Buttigieg began work at a horse-and-carriage company in the historic Canadian border town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, just a short drive from the world renowned Niagara Falls. In addition to their regular compliment of 15+ animals, the company regularly leased horses from another carriage business across the border in Lewiston, NY, one of which was a somewhat difficult-to-handle Belgian-cross, named Charlie.

"They described his colour as Strawberry Roan", Buttigieg says, "but what he really was was Pink - bright pink! I immediately disliked him."

He wasn't a favourite amongst many of the other drivers, either. In a situation where a portion of a driver's attention is diverted to the tourists in the backseat, a calm reliable horse is a necessity. New drivers began work in an arboretum, driving 15-20 ft long surreys down narrow, winding, 6 ft wide paved paths to learn precision. Going off the path, wooden wheels could sink into 6-inches of mud and getting back up could easily damage them. A good horse trod in the same steps every time around.

To say that Charlie didn't conform to the expectations of the younger drivers would be to engage in careless understatement.

"He was a plowhorse - an Amish plowhorse - the farm was all he had known for two-thirds of his life. You pointed him in one direction and he just went - whether that took you down a road or through a flower bed - it was all the same to him."

But beyond the horse's initial disregard for floral displays, there was an intrinsically wounded aspect to his behaviour. Anyone who spends 8 hrs of nearly every day working with a horse, quickly develops a bond with that animal. Drivers become familiar with the individual personalities and idiosyncrasies of every horse they drive; likewise, the horses learn to rely upon and trust the judgment of particular drivers.

But Charlie, as one driver expressed, was 'cold' - he did the job, but seemed sullen and withdrawn. He had no discernable personality; he trusted no one. When he was frightened - and he was, often, by every conceivable motorized thing - there was little anyone could do to calm him. More than once, he was sent back to the barn by drivers insisting he was not fit as a carriage horse.

Just Strange
It wasn't only humans that he didn't get along with.

"He used to stand on a little hill in the center paddock with the mares and foals and for no apparent reason, he'd just squeal and kick - at nothing - none of the other horses would go near him."

Put into one of the other paddocks with the rest of the geldings, he was invariably the underdog, and unless harassed, would stand for hours in a corner, just staring off into the distance. It was in watching Charlie's saddening demeanour that Cameron began to take a solemn interest in the horse - and feel an odd kinship with him.

"I left high school early because of some family problems, and watched my friends graduate without me and move on to college and university. Meanwhile, I bounced from job to job, not making any real friends, often quite depressed for long periods; I became quite the loner."

In the wild, a lone horse is a dead horse. Even bachelor stallions will band together for safety and it puts an enormous emotional strain on a horse to be separated from the herd. In fact, dominant mares will force unruly horses away temporarily as a form of punishment. While we don't like to think of animals as having emotions, horses are incredibly social. They're strongly driven by fear and comfort, and a subtle, complex range of feeling that governs their daily interactions with each other. Every fibre of a horse's being drives it to seek out others. When a horse doesn't, there's invariably something wrong.

It can be difficult to understand a horse without knowing it's history. Grade-Belgians don't come with passports, but his American owner indicated she had purchased Charlie at auction in Pennsylvania, in an area with a large population of Amish farmers. Judging by his complete unfamiliarity with motorized vehicles and his preference for straight lines, it is likely that he was born to one of these.

The Amish and Old Order Mennonites, who rely strictly upon horses for transportation and agricultural enterprise, are often celebrated - and maligned - for their industrial approach to horsemanship. Belgians are utilized primarily for farm work - plowing and disking - for 15 to 20 yrs until they slow down, and then are sold at auction, generally for meat. Those few that are sold to become carriage and riding horses are known to be stridently well disciplined and hard-working.

"Most people learn to train horses from their fathers and grandfathers, and some great methods and some very awful practices get passed down", Buttigieg says.

An Opportunity
One morning while waiting to pick up passengers, Charlie was startled by a bus starting up in front of him. Before the driver could react, the horse backed up, jack-knifing the surrey against the curb, and tearing the tire off one wheel. Cameron, who was also driving that day, exchanged horses with his shaken colleague and hooked Charlie up to an alternate vehicle. It was a weekday, and shortly after the September 11^th tragedies, so business was rather slow. He decided to take the horse around without passengers to try and calm him down again. Unfortunately, early morning is the time when the park is most active, with gardening equipment, lawn tractors, and sprinklers.

"Sprinklers are wonderful. They pop up out of the ground, hit you with a stream of water, then disappear. It's like being accosted by a groundhog with a water pistol."

Despite his utter dread of his surroundings, Cameron noticed the horse paid rapt attention to everything he said. His ears flicked to and fro with every unidentified sound, but when the driver spoke, those ears pointed straight back to him, focusing on every word, regardless of distraction. So, Buttigieg began using a trick his own father had taught him. He calmed the horse by singing to him.

By the end of the day, the duo had made a dozen rounds of the park, and Cameron had gone through his entire repertoire of country songs, crooning Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Stompin' Tom Connors. They had also passed several John Deere tractors, weedeaters, lawnmowers, a concrete edger, and a plethora of evil sprinklers - all without incident.

The next day, he arrived early, hooked Charlie to a surrey and made the rounds of the parking lot where several buses sat idling. With each pass, he took him closer and closer, all the while focusing the horse's attention on himself by belting out "A Boy Named Sue" and "City of New Orleans". With the final pass, one of the bus drivers opened his door and offered to take them both to Nashville if he'd just stop singing. Charlie, unphased by the door opening, tried to board the bus!

From that day on, Cameron requested to drive Charlie exclusively - a simple request since no one else wanted to. He took every available shift in order to get the horse used to working around vehicles and machines. As soon as his superiors were convinced that the Belgian was road safe, the pair graduated from the arboretum to the manicured streets of Niagara-on-the-Lake's heritage district.

Drill Drill Drill.
"Horses are very intelligent. Once they understand something is no threat to them, they couldn't care less about it. On a farm, he'd have been hooked up to a couple older horses who'd show him he had nothing to fear", says Buttigieg.

But without another horse by his side to set the example, Cam had to talk him past cement trucks and road graders, backhoes and jackhammers.

"The strangest things can spook a horse", Cameron says, "You'd think that an enormous garbage truck wheeling past would scare him, but we worked on that and he got used to it. It was when the driver stopped and shut down the engine to let us pass - thinking he was doing us a favour - that Charlie would become suspicious and get nervous."

With the horse essentially all to himself, Buttigieg began training him to his own standard. He taught him english voice commands, which the rest of the horses knew, but didn't always obey. One of his principal demands, having worked with amateur reining horses, was that a horse know and immediately obey the command to stop.

"When I say "WHOA!" I mean it", Cameron explains, "I don't mean stop when you feel like it, or once you come to the stop sign, or just before the truck hits you. When I say the word, I want the horse to think that the next step he takes will send him falling off a cliff!"

With Cameron's confident voice, gentle hand, and drill-sergeant-discipline, Charlie stepped up. Everyone was surprised with the pronounced change in the horse. Within three months, he could be driven entirely on voice, turning corners, stopping or speeding up, and standing calmly amidst the raucous clamour of traffic. What had begun as a trial lease of an unproven, notoriously difficult horse, resulted in the company owners buying one of the most resilient animals they had ever owned. Cam noticed a distinct difference in his personality too.

"He began to play like a normal horse does", Cam explains, "If I wasn't giving him enough attention out on the curb, he'd push me over with his nose, then look the other way like he didn't do it. His behaviour in the paddock changed, too. He was finally coming out of his shell."

Change
Working six or seven days a week, occasionally pulling double shifts, Cam made a name for himself as a hard worker and the one to call when the weather was bad. But early into 2002, the company hired on a new manager, a man who butted heads frequently with several of the employees, and took an immediate disliking to Buttigieg. Over the next several months, there would be numerous grievances and arguments, and by June he fired Cameron claiming the driver was making racist remarks to tourists.

As a product of a mixed marriage, growing up dealing with racism himself, the young man found the accusation laughable. But he was still crushed. He walked out to the barn and kissed his horse on the nose one last time. As the Belgian ate his grain, Cam brushed him and pledged he'd return for him, though it felt like a hopelessly empty promise. Before he left, he made the owners an offer to buy the horse, regardless of price, should they ever decide to sell.

"She just looked at me and rolled her eyes, and said she'd keep it in mind."

Having previously signed on with a security company, he had his name put on the active list, though he wouldn't be called up for a few months, and so had to get by until then. Once again, Cam took what he knew and made a living from it. He set up a smithy in the garage and began forging wrought iron. He bought a welder and began building his own horse-drawn vehicles. He also worked as an assistant to a local farress in order to learn the trade. She couldn't pay him much more than gas money, but the lessons he learned were invaluable.

She considered horseshoes unnecessary - pure evil - and trimmed horses to go barefoot. Local farriers thought she was insane but she earned a reputation for making the lamest horses sound again, quite quickly with her methods. Through her, Buttigieg studied cadaver hooves and founder cases, learning in intimate detail the stunningly complex workings of the equine hoof. Though he had no intention of becoming a professional farrier himself, he pursued the training as a means of saving money, as his father had over 20 horses of his own. Unbeknownst to him, this new trade would serve a more important role in the future.

Still, he couldn't shake the thought of having left his friend behind. He worked long hours in his shop, welding and blacksmithing, and when he finally stopped to rest, thoughts of a strawberry roan Belgian would invariably send him back out to work, literally until he dropped. He made it up in his mind that someday, somehow, he would be reunited with his horse.

A Change of Heart
By late fall, Cameron was working as a security guard in Northern Ontario. Before leaving, he had stopped by the company barn to check up on Charlie and received some bittersweet news. Within a month of his leaving, the horse had gone lame, and after months of rest, was still unfit to work. It was disheartening to see him in pain, but with this new complication came the possibility that he might be sold.

When his shift up north came to an end, Cameron visited once again to deliver the company owner a Christmas card. With it came coffee and the invitation to return to work if he wished. As it turned out, the new manager had lost some credibility making accusations against other employees, some of which had promptly quit. Cameron began part-time work in the barn over the winter where he could check on Charlie. Frequently exercising the horse, he could now recognize that his heels were severely contracted, a condition that commonly arises when a horse is shod continuously from an early age. He believed this to be the source of the lameness, which was still a mystery even to the vet, who had done several tests and x-rays and could find no substantial problem.

By spring Cameron was driving again, though Charlie remained at pasture. He was finally considered permanently lame, and the decision was made to sell. When Cam learned of this he went to his boss and asked him for a price.

"He opened his mouth to speak and I said Done! Let me give you a down payment!"

It was hardly more than the current meat price. It was agreed that Charlie could stay out to pasture for the summer while Cameron drove carriages and made payments. By the middle of summer, he was not only about to make his last payment, but was confident he knew how to make the horse sound again. Then on August 15^th, things took a turn for the worse.

Disaster
Driving to work that morning, a defective steel belt caused the rear left tire of his car to blow out at highway speed, tearing the entire wheel assembly from the back axle. The vehicle swerved and rolled several times, destroying itself and battering the driver. After crawling from the wreckage coughing up blood, he was airlifted to Hamilton General Hospital with broken ribs and a collapsed lung.

In relative terms, he had escaped with minor injuries. The highway was shut down for hours as pieces of the vehicle were picked up over hundreds of feet. Police and witnesses were sure he'd been killed. When doctors believed he was stabilized, the staff asked him who they should call on his behalf. In the frantic rush of the ER, he gave them the number for work and said to tell them he'd be a little late. In fact, he was off work for two weeks, lost wages for which his insurance company failed to compensate.

The young man refused to sit still. He limped around the hospital until staff threatened to restrain him. He refused to breathe oxygen persistent in the knowledge that taking deep, albeit painful, breaths would reinflate his damaged lung and prevent the return of pneumonia. He was determined to finish what he'd started. After only 2 days he was discharged from the hospital but it would take weeks for his ribs to heal, the bruising and the pain to fade, and he had sustained a concussion that led to some minor brain damage and memory loss.

Six weeks later, Charlie came home. The promise had been fulfilled.

New Beginnings
It took over a year and a half of restorative trimming and 24 hour access to pasture to make Charlie sound again. His front hooves are still longer than they are wide - misshapen by 20 years of wearing iron shoes. A Belgian's hooves should be as wide as dinner plates , and though it's likely that his will never fully return to natural form, they are still slowly reshaping. He no longer has a limp, and is able to trot long distances over the hardest ground without injury. He helps plow the garden. And he helps bring in firewood. And he is happy.

He roams freely now on a sixteen-hectare farm where Cameron crafts custom and commercial horse-drawn and dog-drawn vehicles. They are both 25 years old. This is his final home. Amidst a herd of 23 Appaloosas, he has surprisingly taken a new mare and her fillies under his wing, creating a separate herd and guarding them like a stallion.

"He still hangs out by himself sometimes, but he never looks lonely. He just eats."