Like all the horses and donkeys on the property, Cassidy the quarter horse and an American paint horse named Delight get regular cranial massages to soothe their muscles and their minds. On sunny days, their pink noses are spread with sunscreen. Instead of being confined to stalls, these rescued animals roam sprawling fenced spaces at Allyson and Mike DeCanio’s ranch near Ben Wheeler, about 25 miles west of Tyler. Life wasn’t always so idyllic for these horses, though. Some, like Sky, Jax, and Shelby, were malnourished and left for dead on the land of a neglectful owner in Wood County.
“It was a horrible place of suffering,” Allyson says.
In 2016, she got a
