My 2-year-old daughter loved playing with the neighbors’ horse and could spend hours with it – but one day we found out something terrible about this horse 
My daughter was only two years old when she first became fascinated. Our neighbors kept a real horse at their home. For a little girl, it was like a miracle: she could spend hours next to this big, calm animal.
She hugged its neck, pressed her cheek against the soft mane, and patted its warm back with her tiny hands. Sometimes they played together in the hay, and it even happened that my daughter fell asleep right there in the straw, beside the horse – as if it were her best friend.
We laughed while watching them, but deep inside we sometimes worried — after all, a horse is a large animal. Yet from the very first meeting it was clear: the horse was incredibly intelligent and gentle, almost as if it understood that it had a child before it, one who needed special tenderness.
This went on for months. Our daughter became more and more attached to the horse, and the neighbor’s beloved pet returned her affection. But one day, our neighbor knocked on our door. He looked unusually serious.
— “We need to talk,” he said as soon as he came in.
— “Did something happen? Did my daughter do something wrong?” I asked anxiously.
— “No,” he shook his head. “But this is about your daughter. You must absolutely take her to a doctor.”
My heart tightened.
— “Why? Is something wrong?”
And then I learned something terrible 
Continued in the first comment 
The neighbor explained that his horse, which had been tamed and trained to sense changes in human health, had been behaving strangely around our daughter in recent days.
It no longer played calmly, often sniffed her nervously as if trying to understand something, and sometimes even placed itself between her and others, as if to protect her.
At first, we thought it was just the animal’s whims, but his words made us pay attention.
So we went to the doctor. After the examination, we received a dreadful diagnosis: our two-year-old daughter was found to have cancer. But because the illness was detected at a very early stage, the doctors were able to act immediately.
Today, our daughter is alive and healthy. She still loves to play with the neighbors’ horse, and we look at that animal with immense gratitude. For it was the very first to show us that we needed to pay attention to our child’s health.
