Since an elderly, sick or very plain horse costs just as much (and sometimes more) to maintain, I wanted something special this time around. I had been heavily involved in the horse world until my child was born, then I walked away (it was not easy!) and concentrated on getting her raised as well as I could. Somewhere in that time period, we bridged the gap from daughter - mom to best friends.
And now she had found the love of her life, and I was losing my dearest, and best friend. I will never lose her completely, and I'm getting a son in the deal (technically son-in-law), but the amount of time we will share together will be less. She needs to grow more like her husband and he needs to grow more like her.
So! I practically wore a hole in Craig's List, looking at horses for sale. Often I could read between the lines, and a picture truly IS worth a thousand words!
I prayed that exactly the right horse would become available at the right price and then one day in June, up popped the ad for Daisy. It's funny how often if you pray, and wait and are open to any option, the right one will land in your lap!
MONDAY
We drove out to see Daisy. She was utterly turned off to people, but she was gentle. And enormous. Sort of the Howard Huge of horses. Dried mud and manure were caked into her hooves. So hard and dry that I could not eve get it out with a sharp hoof pick! She stunk of manure and her coat was dirty. Someone had cut off her lovely tail to above her hocks and had cut her mane pretty short, which left her defenseless to the flies.
It's possible that in the cesspool of mud and manure she had lived in this last winter, that her mane and tail were badly tangled. It was too bad the folks who had her didn't realize that a bit of greasy conditioner rubbed into the hair would have allowed a person to work through the mess and de-tangle it. If the mess isn't impossible looking, conditioner and water work, and sometimes one can even use shampoo and water.
Daisy was purchased on the spot, and then the next hurdle was finding a way to transport her about an hour and a half to get her here. We were blessed to discover a wonderful man north of us on the coast, who advertises as a hauler on Craig's List. Tony was a compassionate and careful hauler. He had a nice three horse trailer and a good pick up truck, and he knew his business "from soup to nuts" as they say.
TUESDAY
Despite Tony's careful handling of Daisy, she arrived at her destination soaked in sweat, and whinnying her head off, She was hysterical because she'd been a pasture "pet" for so many years. She felt claustrophobic and terrified since she'd been "kidnapped" (in her mind) and taken far away from her pasture mate. Poor mare!
Despite her extreme mental distress, she had the presence of mind to back carefully and slowly out of the trailer and step down without hurtint herself or us. Impressive. She stuck her neck up in the air and stared out across the creek at horses grazing on the other side in a pasture. She whinnyed repeatedly at them, but the ignored her. Poor mare: she was speaking pure "horse" and they were half-humanized.
I started to wonder what I'd gotten myself into when Daisy couldn't stand still. When she did stand still, she would swing that big head around and clobber me with it. I was clearly expected to "get out of the way, stupid!" She claimed her space, as an alpha mare in a herd would do. In a herd, the other horses would give her room and basically bow to her dominion.
Daisy was afraid of the dark, narrow aisleway into the barn, so I opened up a paddock gate and went in the back way, to a covered area which adjoined her stall. A 12 x 12 "turn out" area which is covered.
She was afraid of the automatic waterer and afraid of the Rubbermaid garbage can which we dragged into her stall and filled with water. So I brought her a 5 gallon bucket in her covered area and filled THAT up with water.
The sellers had hay, so they said. I asked if I could purchase 10 bales from them, as it was nearly haying season and most of the feed stores were out of any hay at all. They were delighted with my offer and when the hay was brought into the barn, I discovered that most of it was moldy, bleached out, and basically only good as a ground cover. Was THIS what they'd been feeding Daisy? Yikes! Issh, yuck, phewey! No wonder they had been giving her and their other horse a supplement. It's a wonder the horses hadn't had colic from the bad hay. Well, that or else they sold me the worst stuff in the barn. I hope they were dishonest enough to do that, simply so that their remaning horse would not be eating what they sold me. Truly dreadful hay for a horse.
I emailed the sellers to warn them that if they were feeding such hay to their remaning horse, they were courting a bad case of colic and a huge vet bill. I got a headstrong email back, assuring me that ALL the folks around their area fed their horses such hay as that. I doubt it! Most folks know better.
The next morning my daughter went with me to the barn. Daisy was antsy. Nervous and cooped up but she could see other horses at pasture grazing. I could not turn her out, as her pasture has (horse) chest high grass and she was given minimal grazing priviledges at the seller's place.
We brushed Daisy and talked to her, stroking her coat and admiring her. After a while she gave a big sigh and dropped her head to relax. She had been lonesome and scared, but these two humans were giving her a "massage" and obviously had no intentions of annoying her.
The next day I realized that what I had was a Left Brain Extrovert. I'd had the other three "horse-nality" types throughout lvfe, but not this one. A little Googling provided the lifesaving information that most Left Brain Extroverts respond very well to a clicker and little treats. Reward the slightest effort to do as you ask. Nevermind the fine tuning, if they try and fall all over themselves, reward them anyway. Reward them shifting their weight for the porcupine game. Never mind they didn't actually step to the side.
I strapped on a fanny back, grabbed the unused dog's clicker out of the closet, loaded up the pack with small horse treats, and headed to the barn.
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