“She was 18 years old, abused, neglected, and nobody wanted her. I was 15, and the world had fallen apart around me. For $200, Tessie became mine. And she saved my life.”
I lost my mother when I was 14. My father left. My brother Tom and I were on our own. In the middle of all that loss, I found Tessie — a horse nobody wanted — and we found each other.
We rode thousands of miles together. I spent countless nights in her stall when the silence of everything else was too loud. She lived to be 39 years old — extraordinarily rare — because she was finally, truly loved.
Years later, I lost my dog Lee Roy. And I know that helpless, desperate not-knowing that comes when a pet goes missing. Sometimes you never find out what happened. That silence is the thing that never heals.
TraceChip is my answer to that silence. Not just for me — but for every family who has ever posted a lost pet photo and waited. For every horse stolen and loaded onto a trailer. For every animal who deserved better.