The numbers just keep growing

When we first moved in back in November, our first "house guest" was the neighbor's horse. He lived alone and once he saw our horses next door he just had to step over the one strand of knee-high barbed wire keeping him in and come over for a visit. He'd sniff noses over the fence, but mostly he just enjoyed the lush green grass of the yard. He was shy at first and was a little nervous about letting us touch him, but eventually he decided that if we gave him treats we were friends worth having. At the time we weren't sure where he was from, but he looked healthy enough and didn't want him tearing up the yard with his running up and down the fence line, so we put him in with ours. It was love at first site for him and Kita! We woke up the next morning to find them lying back to back in the sun and they were never more than a few feet away from each other when grazing. That day we did find out where he belonged and the neighbors came over to get him, but I had to push him up the road because he just didn't want to go!


Now I'm going to bash the owner of this poor horse. This blog is not about bashing other people, but there are some things that I just don't deal well with and one of those is people who neglect their animals. Each of the dozen or so times that this horse has escaped his pasture, we've had to alert the owner. Even if he was here for several days before we said anything, the owner NEVER NOTICED HE WAS GONE!!! Here's the kicker.. she drives by our pasture at least twice a day and goes right past him. There he is, plain as day, can't miss him. But she does. The last time he came over was back in January and we thought that was the last time we'd see him... until yesterday. This time Junior was out in the yard eating breakfast as usual so when appybutt got here there was much fussing and running, snorting and stomping. We eventually got Junior back in the pasture with Mav and put appybutt in the cattle pen.


We had watched worthless owner drive by our place three times by afternoon. After I finished work for the day we went up and knocked on her door, but she didn't answer. We knew she was home as we saw her pull in just shortly before and her car was in the driveway. We gave up, went to town for dinner and groceries, then tried again when we got home. At that point she was gone again and we tried her father's house right next door. He was home, wonderful old man that he is! We hadn't introduced ourselves before now, but wow what a nice guy! He's got to be in his 70's and does not think very highly of his daughter at all. Apparently she lives to be drunk, only works on occasion and expects him to support her when she's not. He feeds her dogs and cats because she spends more time at the bar than at home.


Glenn did catch her home this morning and let her know that her horse was in our cattle pen. She didn't really care, didn't ask if he had done any damage, nor did she apologize for the inconvenience. She just said she come over this evening and get him. At that point Glenn just told her that it would be fine to leave him at our place until she can get some sort of buddy for him. He'll just keep escaping to be with our horses and her pathetic excuse for a fence wasn't going to hold him there. All she said was "ok". That's it. No "oh, thanks for the offer that would be great", or "oh no, I couldn't ask you to do that". Just a simple "ok". Could she not handle any thing more impressive due to her hangover I wonder? Glenn then asked her when was the last time that he was wormed. The answer? "Last year sometime." WHAT?? Horses should be wormed ever 6-8 weeks. It's a simple proven fact. No wonder he looks ribby with a huge tummy. It's not a beer belly and it's not a fuel tank for a love machine. It's worms. NICE.








It's probably been about that long since he's had anything done with his feet too.





















The good news is that he's really cute and a big teddy bear just starved for attention.



Maverick adores him and idolizes him even more than he did Junior. So Junior is back out with his women and the bachelors are hanging out together. Mav doesn't let him get more than a few feet away and once appybutt (his name is King, but I refuse to call him that) gets a tummy full of grass he's more than willing to run and play which is what Mav has been wanting for months.

I just hope that worthless owner decides to keep him here so that everyone can be happy and we can take care of those awful feet and get some wormer into him!