By Susan DeFord
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 27, 2008

It was pretty clear yesterday from the cameras pointed in her direction and the spectators smiling and waving that Tinkerbell was a crowd favorite.

Her brown coat flecked with gray and groomed to a soft sheen, the curvy mare pulled at her turquoise bridle and neighed as she paraded through the rural western Howard County community of Lisbon on her way to a new home at the Days End Farm Horse Rescue.

Six months ago, the horse was a rack of bones so emaciated she didn't have the strength to stand. She had been locked away for weeks without food in a shed in Allegany County. Then she came under the care of Days End, an organization that specializes in rehabilitating neglected and abused horses.

Yesterday, Tinkerbell moved with Days End to its new home, a 58-acre spread that will give one of Maryland's best-known animal rescue outfits more room for the throwaway horses it takes in.

"We don't pick the horses that come to us, but every one of them deserves a chance," said Kathleen Schwartz-Howe, who co-founded the organization with her former husband nearly 19 years ago.

Maryland's animal control officers turn to Days End when they seize neglected and abused horses from around the state. They take horses that have been found tied to a tree in a swamp, running loose down a road, abandoned in stalls. Days End staff members document the condition of the animals when they arrive, assisting in the prosecution of animal neglect and cruelty charges. The rescue operation also helps train animal control officers and emergency personnel and conducts horsemanship classes for the public.

The organization has acquired a national reputation, with its staff traveling out of state to assist with complicated rescues, such as in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Days End workers recently went abroad to lead seminars for Finnish emergency workers on animal rescues.

But the first priority, said Terri Littlejohn, deputy chief of the Prince George's County Animal Management Division, is that the Days End staff "does what they need to do to rehabilitate these animals and place them in the best possible situation."

When Days End program director Brooke Vrany first examined Tinkerbell, she was half her body weight of about 900 pounds and infested with intestinal parasites. Yet, Vrany said, the 20-year-old mare "still had a lot of life in her eyes."

Workers used ropes to pull Tinkerbell onto a sled and into a building, where they hoisted the horse upright in a sling, the kind that was used to help champion thoroughbred Barbaro after his racing injury. Then staff began round-the-clock care, sleeping in the horse's stall and feeding her handfuls of food every three hours. They dubbed her Tinkerbell because she seemed to fly in her sling. After a month of intensive care, she came out of the sling for good.

"We do it time after time," Schwartz-Howe said.

The nonprofit organization, with a paid staff of 16 and a $1 million budget, gets a little help with its mission. It calls on 1,200 volunteers -- lawyers, nurses, schoolchildren, business executives -- to muck stalls, groom horses, build fences and do whatever needs to be done.

Jeanne Leone and her husband, Rege Dvorsky, moved to nearby Woodbine north of Lisbon two years ago, took a tour of Days End Farm and became volunteers. They built a barn at their home to adopt three of Days End's rescued horses.

"We're trying to do a good thing and help horses that need a home," Dvorsky said.

With 50 to 70 horses under its care daily, Days End was cramped at the 20-acre farm it leased in Lisbon along Frederick Road.

"We were beyond bursting at the seams," said Susan Mitchell, the organization's director of development. Officials began the hunt for a new farm in 2003 and looked at dozens of properties around the region. Suitable farms proved scarce or too expensive until a nearby farmer, James Ferguson, talked to Schwartz-Howe about leasing his former cattle farm with the option to buy in seven years. Now Days End will work to raise the estimated $1.3 million it needs to buy the farm.

But yesterday, much of the attention was focused on Tinkerbell. She arrived at her new home and was greeted with cheers from a crowd of 100 gathered under towering trees in the front yard. She seemed to miss the hubbub as she was led into her new stall, and she pawed at the gate as it closed. A bit of a diva, Tinkerbell relented when Days End workers arrived to check her feed bucket, freshen her water and give her a sponge bath.