Finally... Pictures!

There, I've gatthered all of the pictures from my moms computer... she was keeping the first pics of Dandy.

Ok, here's the horse I bought... This is on her first day at home... She looks quite lethargic compared to today... also, this was in May, she was wooly, she looked awkward and the previous owners had cut her forelocks, mane and tail with scisors... **Yeah, I was pissed...** I freak out when I see this, she has no muscle tone whatsoever, she looks sad and I think she was a bit wormy. She's 2 years and 2 months in this picture. She was in desperate need of minerals and vitamins, after this was taken care of, her coat became true black and shiny. No wonder I was questionning my buy... for 2 weeks, I didn't know what I had done! She looked like this, plus, she was a real brat, probably used to getting away with everything at her old home. Took a good 6 months or more of groundwork to get her to respect people and their space.

We don't see her feet, unfortunately in the picture above, but the were bad... I think I purposely left them out to spare anyone the horror... it's bad enough that she looks like this! Just to compare... here's Dandy this summer. This is taken in May 2009, she still has a bit of winter hair (I'm in Canada, so this takes a while to shed!!) This picture is taken on my boyfriend's farm after a two hour ride to move her there (yeah I rode her there) so spare me the mean looks, we just got there and I didn't have her brushes and stuff there yet.

And this is Dandy in August 2009. She is growing quickly and putting on nice weight. I've measured Dandy a few weeks ago and she is a bit over 15 hands and over 1 000 pounds at 3.5 years old.

Now, here are Dandy's feet (pictures are of left fore) AFTER her first ever trim (*ever*)... Her feet were about 6 inches overgrown (maybe more in spots). You can see that her heels are still about 1.5 to 2 inches too long, but I couldn't lower them more than that at first.

To compare her feet... here is a picture of the same foot less than a year later. This is in May after our 2.5 hour ride. There is still a bit of work to do, but this is way better than the first pic! Round happy feet are the best!!!

Let me know what you think in the comments!

My first horse

I worked with the lady's horses for about a year before I finally found my mare Dandy. She was my first horse, my very own. I still work with the horses, but much less often.

Dandy was owned by a co worker of my mom's. They bought Dandy's dam when she was in foal and then Dandy came along. They could no longer keep Dandy, they needed space to keep heifers for the summer and Dandy was occupying that field. They are very successful cattle farmers and horses weren't really in their blood.

Dandy was 2 years old and was untrained. You could easily plop a halter on her, but otherwise, she couldn't lead without running on your heels, could not pick up her feet and had absolutely NO respect for humans. When I heard about her, she was headed to a cattle sale... obviously, she would've been the only horse there, not trained, she was headed for the dog food plant. My mom advised me that one of her co workers had a filly fo sale. My mom does not know anything about horses, she knew I loved them and that I was interested in buying one soon. I saw Dandy and I immediatly fell in love with her! She was pure black, dead quiet, they had put a saddle on her a few times, no more. I was a bit rushed into a visit since she was heading to auction on saturday and it was Tuesday! So I headed to see her on Wednesday.

When I got there, Dandy was nothing like the pictures... her hair was matted, she was thin-ish, shivering in the cold spring rain. I felt horrible! I asked to go in the pasture with her and the first thing she did was show me her back feet... up close... yep, she kicked at me!!! I thought I would not buy her, she was too crazy... but she was well put together (enough) and had straight legs. I would have a lot of work to do... she was already two... her feet had never been done, never been handled... I am a barefoot trimmer, so I had to think of all that!

I made an offer, rather on the low side for that time and it was accepted. I gave a deposit and I would pick up my horse in the weekend. What had I done?