Dinky: The Nurse Mare's Foal
By: Marta Moran Bishop / Narrated By: Tom Sleeker
Length: 4 hrs and 10 mins
Starts rough but turns into a heart tugging journey
As Life would have it, I actually have two versions of Dinky tho’ only the narration by Tom Sleeker is still available over on Audible. So THAT’S the one I’m gonna review (Sorry, Don Colasurd Jr.).
I have to admit that I was initially turned off by both Sleeker’s narration and by the fact that the story is coming from Dinky’s eyes. I mostly shudder when authors attempt to write the thoughts and feelings of an animal as usually a history/bio of the animal is more than sufficient to break my heart (Tho’ of course there are the unutterably fantastic The Call of the Wild and The Art of Racing in the Rain).
But soon I got used to Sleeker’s oddly smooth tones (Such smoothness, minus a good amount of inflection, is usually enough to make me doze off… Awright, awright—so I DID doze off first listen…!). Sleeker somewhere along the way began varying his tones as action and emotion warranted, and I started getting into Dinky’s story—cuz it’s not a happy one.
Dinky’s story begins with being pulled from his mother within hours of his birth. Then he’s sent in a trailer that smells of fear and death to a place where he and other horses are viewed for tanners, for flesh. He meets up and bonds with another young horse named Lucky, and they are soon taken to yet another questionable place. Were they rescued, or are they simply suffering a bit less mistreatment? Nowhere along the way are they loved or viewed as individuals, and Dinky learns to trust nothing, to trust no one.
It winds up being an engaging listen as WE learn how to be a horse right along with Dinky, who’s never been part of a herd. The story is absolutely based on true events as told by the woman who adopted Dinky and who worked with him extensively as he overcame malnutrition, illness, emotional scarring.
Seriously! I thought I wouldn’t like the book, and I wound up with a lump in my throat a time here, a time there. And not every horse in the story has the Happily Ever After that you’re led to believe they will have. Though there’s THAT, and all the mistreatment, I still think this would be an okay book for younger listeners as well as the adult who wants to know just what is going on in the world around him.
A good story with a kinda abrupt ending, but do stay tuned for Marta’s afterword. It rather makes you feel even more for the troubled little foal who did indeed find love and somebody committed to him.
And please do listen to Dinky’s take on Christmas—sooo sweet! It’s always a pleasure when I hear other people are as spastic about including their animals in festivities as I am!
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