Follow up ... About a week ago I made a post regarding an older horse that we had sold to a family who had asked if we had something suitable for children. We had had an older mare, that we used for kids and non riders whenever visitors came to the farm ... I figured they could get use of her and I would not have to feed her all winter. A win win as far as I was concerned. A few weeks after taking possession of the mare, the guy called up and told me she was acting dangerous crazy ... He explained that she kicked at them, and was totally unmanageable ... I could not believe this as we had owned her for 8 years and she never displayed one bit of temper and was totally trustworthy with anyone. Anyway, I offered the guy to take her back, because I did not want to see his children hurt (or anyone). After a day or two he called up and declined the offer. I deleted the post because many well meaning individuals were passionately advising me to commit horse theft and just go take her Okay ... Now we are at yesterday evening. The guy calls me and says nothing is improving, and he decided he wanted to get rid of her. I told him that we just spent 10K on a new septic system, and I currently dont have any horse buying cash, so I personally could no longer buy her back (He wanted his feed expenses back and what I had charged him to haul her) .... He then told me that he is going to get rid of her even if he has to ... In his words ... Take her out to my back ditch, shoot her, and cover her with the backhoe ... Ummm .... NOT! I asked him not to shoot her, which was kind of an irrational action, and told him that I was on my way to his place. My wife, our neighbor (who is very familiar with the mare) and myself drove over to his farm in the next county. What followed was quite extraordinary ... When we turned into his lane the mares head came up and she looked at my wifes car and whinnied and ran over to the fence ... She then followed us along the fence to the gate, and stood with her head over the gate nickering at us. I went into the small copse she was in and she put her head against me and just held it there ... We examined her ... No halter ... No rope ... And she stood quietly as we checked her over. I noticed that her left foot seemed to be at a slight outward angle, so I ran my finger along the left side of her croup and she flinched as I did this ... I asked him if she had been injured and he informed me that he had put her in with his draft mules and that the mules ran her around and kicked her as horses will do to a newbie on the place ... Establishing pecking order. Anyway ... I put my shoulder into her left flank and gave it a sudden hard thrust and I heard her hip pop ... She immediately stood with her foot straight again, did not flinch when I tested her croup ... I stood behind her and gave her tail a few straight, backwards tugs for good measure. The guy asked me what I was doing, and I explained that the mare had something out of place in her hip ... Likely the result of being kicked, and that I had just done a little equine chiropractic therapy on her to fix the problem. I will mention that the mare has probably lost nearly 75 pounds from stress ... This isnt a big problem as she was about 150 pounds over weight ... She actually looks good now. He was amazed at the change in this mare as we were handling her ... She was totally calm and totally trusting of anything I did to her. When he approached she walked around to the other side of me away from him. I think she plain old didnt like the guy. At this point he said to me to just take her back ... He didnt care about the money, he was just worried about the safety of his children, and he wanted her off the place. We had not taken the truck and trailer, and as we drove back home she ran along the fence whinnying at us ... I swear that mare would have gotten in the back seat of the car if she could have. The story ends with my having picked her up this morning and bringing her back home ... I guess she will stay here until she decides its time to go ... I have always kind of looked at horses as livestock, and have never gotten emotionally attached to them much ... But I have to admit when she ran that fence following the car I felt like I was abandoning a pet dog or something .... Ill dig up the extra feed money somehow ... We always do Oh yeah ... My wife and my neighbor congratulated me for not popping the guy in the jaw over his threats to shoot the old girl ....
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 19:41:45 +0000
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