I'm back... finally!

The funeral for my uncle was a huge one!!!! There were at least a thousand people attending! He was very involved in our community so most of our little village knew him.

I am still kicking myself in the butt for that poor King. Feel free to stop reading if you think I did the wrong thing, but at least let me explain how I feel first and how this situation had me in a bind all the time.

This summer, starting in May, I brought Dandy to my SO's farm. He has a large property that I now call home... I didn't at the time this happened. But I lived there and I felt that it would be easier to care for Dandy if she was right there. At that time, I was looking for a horse for my SO. I felt like rescuing would be nice. My So had horse experience but needed a refresher... of course a rescue wasn't GREAT for him, but I figured he could ride Dandy while I re-trained the rescue. I found a nice mare online, close to where we live, she was 16 years old and retired from sulky racing. She was already ridden so I thought that it would be a good idea to get a glimpse of her. So we did. Peg was THIN, I felt sorry to try her out, so I only hopped on for about 2 minutes. There was another horse there that was even thinner than Peg... it was Pearl. Pearl was in foal and the guys selling would prefer she would come with Peg since they were bonded. I didn't really want a thin pregnant mare, but we negociated a good price for both and trailered them home the day after.

We immediatly started to care for Pearl and her foal to be, unfortunately we all know how this one ended. In the meantime, a good friend of my SO asked if he could board his four horses for the summer. I wasn't thrilled, but I didn't really have a word to say. He had a thin horse and wanted to put some weight on him. I wasn't prepared for what I saw. What I saw was a thin, neglected horse that could barely stand to his feet. he had two pretty bad saddle sores on his spine and was about a 0.5 on the scale. This horse was being ridden at a galop often enough... probably more often that I would ride my own Dandy. Seeing that all the other horses were good and fat and having a closer look at King provided an answer... his teeth were badly overgrown. So I made the owner aware of the situation and he told me that he would have them floated.

I got more and more frustrated as the summer passed. The kids were unruly and knew nothing about horses, other that horses run fast. That's what they did. All of the horses were untrained and dangerous to be around and these kids would go down the field at a full galop on them. After getting so frustrated and telling my SO to tell his friend (owner) that the horses need to go, without results, I decided to give up and completely ignore everything else that happened after that. But King would still haunt me, so I would tell the owner every time I saw him, to get his teeth done, I even once told him that he wouldn't survive winter if he didn't put on weight. Unfortunately, they thought that by feeding him a lot more would help him...

I closed my eyes on it, because our SPCA is useless even for dog abuse cases, it's obvious that they wouldn't see the condition that King was in and would have done nothing about it. The only thing I could've done is to work out an agreement with the owner that I would take King, treat him and keep him, but he would've never let that happen. If I would've called the SPCA and that they would've actually done something, they would've gave the horse to me, since there were no other horse farms in the area and that King was already on our property. I couldn't care for another horse financially and I was still mourning our loss, I couldn't bare risking another. Unfortunately, this is not the first story of this kind to happen in our area, SPCA is only taking cats and dogs and nobody investigates the cruelty cases... nobody cares! I would've had to conduct my battle alone with no results. There could have been results, but probably too late to save the poor horse.

I spent countless hours with King, but to tell you the truth, I started hating his owners, because they would take my stuff without permission, use my brushes, my first aid kit, my expensive poultices to treat their darn unruly horses and would never replace it or provide any kind of help around the farm. Four horses were free boarded on our property and there was no exchange of services. I truly believe that these people didn't understand one twig of the responsibility that horse ownership encases. We had to look after these horses and handle them most of the time, because none of them could! I got so frustrated that I vowed to stop helping them at all (and still did for the love of the horses...). When it came time to take the horses back home, we were starting to run out of pasture and told the owners that they would need to pick up their horses because food was running scarse. We did not want to feed 8 horses for free!!! We have to buy our hay and we aren't rich either, so I insisted that we wouldn't feed hay. Sounds cruel but if you'd went through all that I did, you would've been frustrated to no end!

So one day, we got the trailer, rounded up his horses and brought two of them, King and the other gelding back to his place. Yes, we trailered for free... but I didn't care as long as I didn't have these people in my things anymore. When we got there... they weren't ready!!!!! He was rebuilding fence and wasn't done! We still dropped the horses after a bit of an argument. At this point I didn't care what they did with them... this might sound cruel, but I had had enough! He asked if we could keep the two mares until tommorow and we told him that we would be there in the morning to drop them off. I had to use, my halters, my leads and none of them would've been reimbursed if their crazy horses would've broke them, that didn't happen. We finally dropped the two mares and that was the happiest day of my life.

Their poor horses are enclosed in a small pen about half an acre in size, there are 4 horses in there and the mares do not tolerate the gueldings. PLUS!!! They wanted to breed their 2 year old lame paint mare to a paint stud!!! This is a disaster, they probably will breed her this year. They know nothing about foal care, or mare care before foaling, they don't even know how long it takes to make a foal!!!! Supplements aren't in their language, although not necessarily needed, their horses would need them... deworming isn't in their vocabulary either, so the foal would probably die of parasite infestation.

I still feel guilty, but I couldn't save him and it happened that way for a reason. Even if they did float his teeth, they would've eventually gotten long and pointy again and the same outcome would've been. They are not people that I know very well and I do not keep an eye on their horses, I have enough of mine, it just so happened that King was with us for the last part of his life and that I cared for him to get back to health. I know the guy that does the SPCA stuff in our area (there is only one) and he couldn't recognize a horse from a donkey, it would've been useless and a warning wouldn't have been respected. I think that a higher power prevented me from taking pictures of King and poking my nose in there for my own sake. Remember, we had thin, neglected horses in rehab at that time too.

This as served me a lesson tough. Next time I see a thin neglected horse, I WILL take pictures and report it to the SPCA (even if I think they are crap!). I will do all that I can to save another life.

On another note... in regards to never trusting a horse. I was trimming Dandy's feet this weekend when my grandpa and uncle drove in our yard. Usually, Dandy is one cool girl and those things NEVER bothered her before. So I got up (I usually sit down to trim because of my incredibly bad back!) to talk to them, they were parked behind Dandy and the truck was still running. After we were done talking, they proceed to slowly move towards the house when Dandy totally lost it. She went flying right, hit the stool I was sitting on, then went flying left, plowed into me and my sister (I was standing with my back to Dandy's thigh), we both went flying forward, pulled my back and now I'm in a brace. We are, to this day, completely stumped as to what could've possibly spooked her THAT much. She is the one who usually runs beside the truck... I'm puzzled. With my back turned, I didn't see what her initial reaction was, I heard things being knocked down and then I went flying... It is pretty funny, except for my back... I have a hard time sitting or standing... I can't sleep because my back gets tired and muscle spasms take over, so I have to turn often and that is no easy task. Fortunately, we got her under control and calmed her down pretty quickly. Pictures of her feet to come!

So really, I am right about not letting children near our horses, even if I know they are calm and cool. These are things that Dandy sees every day, I just don't know what triggered her reaction this time. Thank goodness I wasn't still sitting on my stool or I would've been pancakes today! I don't know why, but something told me to get up in case there would be danger... I must have a gardian angel! Of all things, Dandy didn't even pull on her lead while panicking... I don't usually tie very hard and usually only have a loop around whatever it is she is tied to. I am glad that everyone is ok... well... not my back but I have learned to live with that. I will have pictures tommorow!
Have a great week everyone!