‘We are small but mighty’

West Fargo rescue gives new hope to abused, abandoned horses and animals

By Tammy Swift | West Fargo Pioneer

Rainey Faulkner had been watching TV when she suddenly came out of her room to talk to her mom Connie Faulkner.

“What’s a slaughter truck?” she asked Connie.

Rainey had heard the term while watching an Animal Planet program. Connie explained to the 7 year old that these trucks brought old or badly injured animals to a place to be destroyed and slaughtered.

That answer did not sit well with Rainey. Crossing her arms across her chest, she looked Connie square in the eye and said,

“Well, then I guess you’re going to buy some property and we’re going to save animals.”

Such a statement would have been brushed aside by parents who didn’t love animals like Connie and Rob Faulkner do. The Faulkners also believed horses could be the ideal therapy for Rainey, who has several special needs which respond well to working with the deeply intuitive creatures.

Two months later, a property northwest of West Fargo went up for sale. It had barns, corrals and some grazing land for horses.

The family moved from their home in

Harwood to that 10-acre farm in 2020. Tucked into a pocket of tree-lined land bordered by the Sheyenne River, the Pride & Joy Rescue is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to rescuing horses from being exported for slaughter.

The animals have typically been surrendered, abandoned or neglected, for reasons ranging from serious injury and age to owners who are moving, financially strapped or simply no longer want them.

“We are small but mighty,” Connie says. “We started back on our horse journey for Rainey to bond and heal with the therapy of horses.”

But the rescue’s capacity grew as they saw the need to provide help to animals who had survived numerous acts of human abandonment, mishandling and cruelty. Like the miniature mule, miniature donkey and three goats who someone kept in a 10- by 12-foot dog kennel. Or the horse whose previous owner disciplined her by shooting her with a BB gun.

Today, Pride & Joy Rescue provides temporary and permanent homes to nearly 20 horses, 17 goats, five dogs, several ponies, many chickens, one very vocal rooster and numerous feral cats and kittens.

“Someone threw a pregnant cat out here so now we have kittens,” Connie says.

Once people figured out they were a rescue, they started sneaking into the driveway at night to drop off their unwanted cats. Now the Faulkners have installed a camera by their road so they can catch the license plates of anyone who attempts these unsolicited drop-offs and will alert the Cass County Sheriff if needed. They already provide food and shelter to feral cats from several area humane societies and only have room and resources for so many animals.

“We have our hands full,” Connie says.

The team that makes it happen

At the center of it all is Connie, a sturdy, no-nonsense woman who seems as willing to open her heart to unwanted horses as she seems exasperated by the callousness of some of their owners. “We’re about family and kids and helping people understand (horses) are not backyard ornaments,” she says.

Her own mother first introduced her to horseback riding at age 5. But when her mom could no longer afford funding the expensive hobby, Connie started selling Girl Scout cookies with a vengeance. She became the No. 1 seller of cookies in Washington state, where they lived. “So then I got to go to an allsummer camp, and I picked the horse camp.”

She returned to the camp each year, working her way up to instructor. When her mother moved them back to North Dakota, her interest in horses had to be put aside for other things.

She met Rob in 2008 while both were working at the USDA — he as a maintenance mechanic, she as a contracting officer for the government. They didn’t become a couple until 2015, when both could share their love of animals.

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Ashlee

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As a teenage “Navy brat,” Rob worked at a stable, where his wards included a retired race horse.

The couple is joined by a small staff of friends and family including Connie’s daughter, Ashlee, a special-ed teacher-in-training who works as their operations coordinator, and Cassie Price, horse trainer and instructor.

Price is a seasoned horse woman who learned about Pride & Joy while working with Rob at the USDA.

Connie was impressed with the young woman, who asked “a ton of questions” about the rescue and wanted to make sure their mission aligned with her values. She helped the Faulkners set up their training program. She’s also working with Connie to develop a program that teaches firsttime horse owners the “head to hoof” basics of caring for a horse.

“She’s not just a trainer anymore, she’s family,” Connie says. “Actually, all of our board members we consider family. When you’re out here and you’re sweating and you’re dying and you’re getting kicked … you kind of just become one.”

It started with a Miracle

The first horse to find sanctuary here was a Morgan mare named Miracle, who was pulled off a slaughter truck.

Connie belongs to a Facebook group of horse women who find homes for horses destined for “kill pens” around the Midwest.

To this day, Connie doesn’t know why Miracle was destined for slaughter. “She’s actually very well-trained,” she says. Her only “flaw” is that she has a slightly swayed back, which some horse enthusiasts find aesthetically unpleasant.

Prince says most of the horses they get can be rehabilitated. “They make wonderful kid horses or wonderful trail horses, but not all of them are going to be barrel horses or jumpers because some of them have minor injuries,” she says.

Indeed, Miracle has stayed at the farm, where she’s being leased by a little girl to use for 4-H. “That’s why she hasn’t been adopted,” Connie says.

Another horse, a Welsh pony named Spicy, was owned by a boy who shot her in the face with a BB gun whenever she did something he didn’t like. The horse is now terrified of all men.

But almost from the first day she arrived at the farm, little Rainey was the only member of the family who could approach her.

“She is very spicy,” says Rainey, leading horses around the corral with the authority of a lifelong cow hand. “She’s a red-headed mare.”

Connie hand-fed the pony for months until the horse trusted her enough to touch her face. Rainey and Cassie work with her daily, although she remains skittish. “It’s a fight or flight instinct with her,” Connie says. “She still has it extremely strong, because of that trauma. Horses hold onto their trauma quite a while.”

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Other horses are here for physical injuries. Willie is a quarter horse who was pulled from a kill pen. “If I were to pull his bloodlines, he’s probably paper to Secretariat,” Connie says. “He’s beautiful but technically he’s worthless.”

Willie has navicular, a type of bone degeneration in the hoof which can cause disabling lameness and pain. Today, his pain is kept at bay with special shoes, steroid shots and an antiinflammatory drug.

He’s available for adoption, but only as a “pasture pet,” Connie says. “There’s no point in putting that (riding) stress on him.”

“We want to give as many homes as we can, either full-time residence care or find suitable loving families,” she says.

Adoptions are highly vetted

Once a horse is ready for adoption, the Faulkners do all they can to make sure it goes to a good home.

Interested parties fill out an application and undergo a background check. They must supply references from a vet and a farrier. Someone from Pride & Joy will inspect their property to make sure there is shelter, adequate hay and water, Connie says.

It’s just one way they protect the animals who come here. Upon arrival, the horses are given a 30-day quarantine and time to “decompress,” during which they will be vet-checked and seen by a farrier.

After that, they’ll be assessed and trained for “ground manners,” and checked for injuries or muscle issues. They receive regular pampering, such as magnesium oil massages to deal with any problems.

It’s expensive to run an operation like this. Connie estimates that she and Rob put $50,000 into Pride & Joy last year. Most of that came from their own pockets.

They’ve also held fundraisers like Beer for my Horses with the help of Junkyard Brewing company in Moorhead.

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“We put everything into these guys,” Connie says. “Donations would be nice.”

Is it worth the price?

Someone who views horses mainly as beasts of burden — animals whose existence needs to be justified by their ability to work, race or serve a practical function — are sometimes critical of their rescue work.

But Connie nearly bristles at the suggestion that a horse isn’t worth saving unless it’s useful. She sees them as beautiful, highly perceptive creatures whose very presence benefits humans. She points to the many equine therapy programs out there as well as to Rainey, who has blossomed simply by being in the presence of horses.

“They’re so in tune with every part of a human that they just calm you down,” she says. “They’re extremely sensitive animals. They can hear your heartbeat from feet away and then they try to mimic your heartbeat. They don’t judge and once you gain their trust, you have it. And once you break that trust, they don’t forget.”

Even so, Connie says she will not save an animal if it will have a poor quality of life.

Connie tells of a very old horse named Forty who arrived at their farm 700 pounds underweight and suffering from bouts of colic.

The Pride & Joy crew worked for months to help heal the horse’s severe gastrointestinal problems, wetting his feed because he was missing so many teeth and mixing up veggie and fruit smoothies to boost his nutrition and his weight. Connie wrote his weight gains on the feed board in their tack room and they posted hopeful updates on his progress on Pride & Joy’s Facebook page.

As the horse started feeling better, his sweet personality emerged. Everyone in the family grew to love the old horse and rallied for his improvement.

In December, he had another colic episode. Connie had made it clear to the Casselton vet that if the animal would be in constant pain, they had to let her know.

The vet told her Forty wasn’t in good shape so Connie gave him consent to euthanize. She laid on the floor next to the horse on his bed of straw and hugged him. She said the entire barn was quiet, as if the other horses and the goats and even the chickens knew something serious was happening.

After Forty passed, “it took me 2 ½ hours for my staff to get me off the barn floor,” she recalls.

Afterward, she ordered an autopsy at North Dakota State University to find the source of his stomach problems. They learned he’d probably been kept with cattle where he was fed off the ground in the sand lot. “So he actually had four to six pounds of sand in his lower intestine,” she says. “So no matter what I would have done for him, he would have passed away. So the vet said he got six great months of being spoiled rotten.”

Today, the numbers marking Forty’s weight gains remain on the feed board in the tack room; Connie can’t erase them.

She posted a Facebook tribute to the horse which captured her passion for saving other horses who are neglected or forgotten.

“What I do know is this,” she wrote. “I will not quit. I will push harder, love harder, because of the love and time I had with you. See you at the bridge.”