Save the Whales!

(Click to enlarge)

I don't know what's bugging me the most about this...the free fillies (don't act like you're the one providing some kind of generous gift to the world, we all know from your ad you want to ditch them before you have to hay them this fall), the "potencial" herd sire or the fact that some poor member of the family has apparently been exported to Whales.

Sure hope he can swim!

I stumbled upon a happy ending last night!

I was googling trying to find the phone number for Dr. Sara Perkins, the vet, in Rainier when I found this blog.

http://spencersnewlife.blogspot.com/


I immediately wondered if that was the horse I had posted about here on the blog. A few e-mails and I found out I was right!

Remember the large free horse Craigslist post that we were all livid about? The draft stallion that you could have if you could catch? Well, today we can all give kudos to a wonderful lady named Pat Wagner, because she stepped up and took him in after he was acquired at that point by someone who did not have the right set-up for a big, spoiled draft stallion.


(Which does beg the question: Good grief, what is the right set-up for a big, spoiled draft stallion? Yeesh. My roomies were kind of wanting to save him and I just thought, uh-uh. I could just see him merrily running around the Microsoft campus, trailing streamers of coated wire fencing behind him...)

Unsurprisingly, Spencer came to her with lots of neglect related problem. Witness Spencer's hoof. LOVELY. Jesus H. Christ people, don't HAVE drafts if you're not going to take care of the feet.


Thanks to Pat, Spencer now knows what the vet looks like (bet that was a new experience!), is now a gelding, and is learning to socialize with other horses. His feet are improving. Hooray!

And who, pray tell, was the genius who let Spencer get into this condition, who completely failed to train and socialize a 1900 lb. stallion, who then dumped him to the first taker on Craigslist? Was it some meth-cooking Pierce County bottom-feeder with a mullet, a trailer, and a barbed wire fence?


Nope. It was a DAMN DOCTOR. WTF. He came from Malia Arabians & Warmbloods in Eatonville, Washington, which is owned by Dr. John and Tina Diller. The Dillers are breeding all kinds of silly shit. Of course they are breeding "American Warmbloods," AKA Grade Horses We Gave A Fancy Name To In The Hopes Of Improving Their Value. The Dillers aren't hurting for cash. Their lovely web site is full of professional pictures of their horses. Their facility appears to be clean and well maintained. They have a trainer or some sort of exercise rider - their sale horses are well presented and high priced. The cheapest one is $7500.

The Dillers had NO EXCUSE. NO EXCUSE AT ALL for what they did. They have the money to have had Spencer gelded and trained so that he could have a future if he had not worked out for their breeding program. But they didn't want to do that. They wanted to throw their problem out into the world and make someone else fix it.

Pat is fixing it. But WHY THE FUCK should she have to? You people are disgusting. You ought to be sending Pat the next $7500 you make selling one of your horses for the rehab and training on the one you threw out the door somehow thinking, in this era of the Internet, that this irresponsible act would not be traced back to you. Bzzzzzt, you lose.

You're bragging on your web site about the fact that you've been breeding since 1965. In 43 years, you haven't learned how to breed horses responsibly? Sad. Sad. Sad.

I sound like a broken record because I just keep seeing the same scenarios. I am so damn sick of breeders dumping their "culls" and failed experiments without a thought as to the animal's wellbeing. If that is how you want to operate, GET OUT OF THE LIVE ANIMAL BUSINESS! Manufacture something that doesn't feel pain or hunger or confusion or fear! Then when you F up, you can dump it and no one will care.

Spencer is very lucky that he's safe but it's no thanks to you, Dr. John and Tina Diller of Eatonville. Again, an innocent person who didn't create the expensive and hard-to-handle mess is cleaning it up. There aren't enough of us to clean up after you irresponsible folks, and we don't have enough money. JUST STOP BREEDING.

~~~~~~~
Updated to add a note from Pat, his owner, about how she came to acquire him:

Thanks Guys! I'm blushing. But Spencer sort of found me. A customer happened upon the CL about needing a farrier for a draft. I was on my way home from a full day of trimming hooves and picked up my Blackberry and see this email about a farrier needed. Clicked on the number and arranged to drive right past my home to the home of the gal who spend 3 hours trying to catch him before she finally did. And she has a baby about 4 months before that. Determined Gal! It wasn't long before her family suggest she find a new home for him and she called me. I had actually expressed an interest in him because of his awful hooves.

The picture of his hoof is one I took right after I arrived. She had just taken a soaking boot off his hoof (all his hooves were/are filled with abscesses - not just one, but many) so she was trying to do the right thing.

So his hooves are bad, but that picture makes it look actually worse than it is. That's matted hair at the top of the hoof. Not hoof. Still, when I got him home the abscess rupture site was bleeding from all the activity. Keep up with his progress at Spencersnewlife.blogspot.com.

Best places in the U.S. to live with horses?

This came up in the comments and I thought we should discuss it! The real estate market is, as most of you know, in the toilet. The next year is going to be a great time to buy a horse property if you've got the funds and credit to do it.

Now, the question is, where? Most of us want good enough pasture that the ponies can live off the land at least in the summertime and reduce those terrible hay bills. Where can someone find a horse farm with great pasture at a reasonable price and commuting distance from a big city with jobs (assuming most of us are not independently wealthy and need to work to pay for all of this)?



I once bought 5 acres with a two story, 1100 sq. foot house for $69,000. I had killer pasture. It was old alfalfa field, not seeded in many years but still rich enough that those 5 acres kept five Thoroughbreds fat and show-ring-shiny all summer. I had a flat piece of land next to the house where I made a faux arena (you know, the one that you make with step-in posts and hot tape, to kinda sorta convince the horse he is in a ring) and it worked out great. The flaw was that it was located outside Green Bay, Wisconsin, which is a place I quickly determined I did not want to live. (Got dragged up there by ex-husband, LOL) Green Bay is miserably hot all summer and miserably cold and icy all winter. It has two good months: April and October.


While I don't miss the climate or the city in general, I definitely miss having a horse farm with a $600 a month payment! Currently I just rent, and of course I pay more than that. Where are today's bargains? Where do you live? Do you like it? Are you planning a move to get a better horse property? If you're in real estate, give us your two cents - where are the best values and where do you think they are going to be?

Holy chit, you people scare me!

TRUST TRAINING (horse training) WITH A VEY HARD COURCE

Reply to: sale-703809758@craigslist.org

Date: 2008-06-01, 4:19PM

I will put on VERY INTENSE hours on your horse not just before you pick up your horse like other TRAINERS do !!http://www.tommyszooandstables.com/ I will take you on a trail ride after 30 days then you let me known if you want more training but i doubt it you will BUT THIS IS NOT YOUR AVERAGE HORSE ACAMEDY no pampering (but well fed grain and hay) I PERSONALLY RIDE THE CHIT OUT OF THEM. RODE VERY HARD!!!!!!!!!1 AND PUT AWAY WET !! SO THEY SAY I'M NOT A SO TO SAY TREAT THEM LIKE A PUPPY !! THEY ARE HORSES, AND I'M NOT A OLD FANSION COWBOY!! BUT I WILL TAKE ON AND RIDE THE CHIT OUT OF THEM AND MAKE THEM OBEY LIKE THEY SHOULD AND BE A GREAT TRAIL COMPANION TOMMY 612-964-4111

Location: ramsey

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Original URL: http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/grd/703809758.html

~~~~~~~~

So I went to the web site and apparently this dude's name is Tommy Guyer, and he will teach your horse to jump into the bed of your pickup. Awesome. My only REAL question after viewing the web site is what the other trainer, Lynn Swanson, is doing sharing space with this neanderthal. She appears to be normal and competent. Honey, I don't care how good of a deal you're getting, it's not good enough! Ever heard of guilt by association? I'd hate to see you get confused with Tommy who rides the chit out of them.

Of course, Tommy is standing a fugly paint stallion too, described only as "Chex." Because bloodlines don't matter (nor apparently does any sort of decent looking hip or legs or neck or shoulder) - "we breed for brains."

Good thing you're trying to put some on the horses - perhaps it will help balance out the human deficit thereof.

Thor doesn't need $10,000. Thor needs better owners!

I received this in my e-mail and it just rubbed me all sorts of the wrong way, so of course I have to share.

Subject: THOR NEEDS LIFE-SAVING OPERATION AT TEXAS A&M

To all of our friends, THOR IS IN A LIFE OR DEATH SITUATION

We are sending this URGENT message to our friends to let you know that THOR (The World's Tallest Living Horse) is critically ill and has been taken to Texas A & M University Large Animal Clinic in College Station, Texas. Suffering pain, anemia, severe weight loss and other symptoms, Thor was seen by our regular team of local vets who all agreed that he needed to be sent to A & M at once. Texas A & M is one of the top veterinary teaching hospitals in the world and has the state of the art facilities and top vets needed to diagnose and treat animals of Thor’s size. Upon his arrival there, it was discovered that his symptoms were being caused by about 200 pounds of hardened sand trapped in one area of his lower intestine that has to come out or he will not survive. It is normal for horses to ingest and pass sand because they are herbivores, eat naturally off the ground and always ingest some earth along with the grass they consume. The great amount of sand inside of Thor, however, has> mysteriously accumulated over an undetermined period of time and not revealed itself up to now because of his super-sized anatomy. Horses of normal proportion could not survive this much intestinal blockage, commonly called “sand colic”. Their ability to digest food would cease, they would go into shock and die. The doctors at A & M feel that Thor is near this point, and have been feverishly trying to remove the sand medically (with massive quantities of psyllium) for the past week. There has been no noticeable improvement, but they want to continue this method for another seven days to> give it every possible chance to work. There is a very slim hope that this will treatment will have some effect, but should it not, then Thor will need to have immediate surgery to save his life. If we give the go-ahead to operate and all goes well, then his prognosis for recovery is excellent.

THE PROBLEM IS THAT A & M SURGEONS MAY NOT PERFORM THIS LIFE-SAVING OPERATION ON THOR. WHY? First, because Thor’s regular medical insurance will not cover this surgery and recuperative treatment he will need. We must, therefore, absorb the cost of Thor's treatment at Texas A & M on our own without insurance and have no way to cover it alone. We have already paid $5,000 in diagnostic testing, and have been advised to expect at least an additional $10,000 veterinary bill from the University to cover his surgery and recovery time. This includes the discount normally extended to us by the University. Unlike a human hospital, A & M will not perform the life-saving operation if they do not have a guarantee of immediate payment in full. Secondly, A & M does not have a payment plan. They require half of the surgery cost up front before they will operate and the other half after the procedure. We must raise the funds for this operation now or the doctors will not perform the surgery and Thor will not live. In fact, if they cannot operate, then they will want to euthanize him for humanitarian reasons. One might ask why don’t we don’t move him to another facility that has a payment plan. The reason is because most animal hospitals don’t have one, and A & M is the only facility in this part of the world that can conduct this type of operation on a horse this size and be able to deal with any emergency that may arise during surgery.

WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT As you know, Thor is a very special horse who is known and loved by many people. If just 100 of his friends would pull together and give $100 each toward his A & M veterinary care within a week, then we can give payment assurance to the University, approve the surgery, and give him the best possible chance to recover. Can you join this emergency effort? Do you know others who would? If so, then please let them know quickly and put them in touch with us. We will need to render a decision by this time next week. Anything will help. Your tax deductible donations can be provided as follows:

1. By credit card (fastest). You may make a designated, secure credit card donation for Thor through PAYPAL. Simply go to our website http://www.knightlife.net/, select the Donations For Thor tab, click on the “Help Thor/Donate” button on the right side of this page and you will be directed to PAYPAL to be led through a quick,safe and easy process

2. By check. Send a check made out to The Knights of The Guild, and include a note that indicates "Help Thor". Mail to Knights of The Guild, P.O. Box 1190, Spring Branch, TX 78070. If you opt for this method, then please email us at randall.parr@mac.com to let us know that your help is on the way. We have worked with horses for a long time, and are not alarmists. This is truly a life or death situation with a deadline and we can only ask once. We sincerely appreciate anything you can do to help Thor at your earliest possible convenience. If you cannot give financially, then please offer a prayer for him. We will keep you regularly posted on this situation through our web page.

Okay, who reading this, who has horses in Texas, does not know that you give them psyllium one week a month to prevent this from happening in the first place? You know, a $35 tub of Sand Clear. If you fail to do this, well, hell YES your horses will have sand colic. If you live in a sandy climate, psyllium is not negotiable. This is not something you do only AFTER the horse has his gut stuffed up tighter than the Holland Tunnel during rush hour!

And WTF, this is a non-profit thing why? How? This is not a rescue horse. Why are we supporting this horse? From everything I can find, this is a personally owned horse that this so-called "nonprofit" owns and uses to promote themselves at various events. Why is his vet bill the world's problem?

Sorry, I have NO sympathy here except for the poor horse who is suffering. Why should the world cough up $10,000 because you folks who OWN Thor failed to buy a $35 tub of psyllium and prevent this preventable condition? I had horses in Los Angeles and I know a lot of folks with horses in California, Arizona and Texas. The ones who feed psyllium don't have sand colics - period. It's preventable. I don't care how many people allegedly love this horse, he has owners. They need to find the money if they want to pay this vet bill that they created. Some suggestions: Home equity loan, sell a car, sell jewelry, sell furniture. Bet you folks have $10,000 worth of crap in your home - most people do. And yet here y'all are, begging begging begging. I'm so sick of all the Internet panhandling. This isn't even a rescue horse!

And this e-mail paints Texas A&M as the bad guys. Um, most people want to get paid. They aren't asshats for wanting you to pay your fucking vet bill and not for "trusting" you and not wanting 50% up front. They are realists who have mortgages too. They can't clean up your expensive mess either.

*sigh* And 4,000 has already been donated. Do you know how many sweet, kind slaughter-bound horses I could rescue and rehab for $4,000? Horses who don't have anything wrong with them? Sheesh people. Stop throwing your money at these ridiculous situations. These people are no worse than welfare witches - they're just milking a different system, kind hearted, gullible people on the Internet.

P.S. I don't want to hear one word about my use of the WW term. You all know to whom it refers - it's not ABOUT people who wind up on assistance short term due to health or a death. It's about people who milk the system for life and if that's you, yeah, you deserve the term.

Non horsey products for horses?

Happy Friday!

Today, let's discuss ways that we've found to use non-horsey products around the barn to save money and keep the horses happy and healthy. I was thinking about something along these lines after finding out about this great tip from a friend. My friend took a foam water "noodle" that cost her a whopping $2 and split it down the middle. When she is ready to load or unload a horse, she just puts it up on the top inside edge of the horse trailer and - voila - head protection! If a horse pops their head upon loading or unloading, the noodle cushions them from an injury. How smart is that? And it cost TWO DOLLARS!!!

I know she's not the only one with great ideas like this. I mean, I think we all know that a great cure for rainrot and assorted other skin conditions is a mix of dollar store baby shampoo and iodine, that muck buckets are $4 - $7 at Wal-Mart which is way cheaper than you can buy them for in the feed store, and that you can make a handy-dandy bit warmer for your cold climate tackroom by installing a tin can with the ends taken off around a light bulb. But how about some more obscure uses of products not originally designed for horses? What have you found at the dollar store that you're using around the barn? We all know we can't get cheap hay, so we've got to save money wherever we can. What have you come up with?


Today's Friday Featured Rescue caught my eye immediately. His name is Denali and he's a ranch bred Quarter Horse available for adoption at Falcon Ridge Equine Rescue in Valley Center, California. While he needs an experienced rider, I'd say this guy is well worth the effort of a bit more training. They feel he has received some rough handling and needs someone kind and consistent to regain his trust. His adoption fee is a reasonable $500 and he is only approximately 6 years old so he would be a great project for a good rider who wants a super flashy horse to chase some cows on. They have many others available, including some that come with papers and have show potential. Check them out if you're in Southern California!




P.S. FHOTD now has staff. Yes, it's true. I've realized I will never catch up on e-mail without help and have recruited a few snarky and knowledgeable friends to help out with e-mails. That means you'll be receiving responses far more promptly than in the past and hopefully I can get to the more urgent stories more efficiently. I appreciate your patience - as most of you know, I've been doing the two jobs thing to support the herd on top of several training horses, and it's just been impossible to keep up. Please know that I appreciate all of the e-mails and am never ignoring you deliberately - it's just been an expensive year (as everybody else out there buying hay knows!)

Green Acres ain't the life for me!

Many of us here on the blog remember that old TV series where the businessman decides he wants to be a farmer and drags his wife, Eva Gabor, the human equivalent of a miniature poodle, off to live on a ramshackle farm. Of course she does her best to citify things out there and it's all very funny.

It's not so funny in real life when city folks move to the country. They have a raft of reasons why they want to do that. It's cleaner! It's healthier! They want to keep the kids away from drugs and gangs. They want some land and room to roam. What they don't want, invariably, are all of the things that have been in the country since time immemorial...namely, livestock and the aromas that go with them. It never occurred to them, you see, that those picturesque cows grazing in the green field smell like, um, cow shit. So they start bitching. And putting in new zoning and new regulations. And arguing that somehow it's a health hazard, all of this livestock, and it's contaminating the water supply, and blah blah blah, until they have turned the country into a (gag) suburb and run off all of the people who had been enjoying it for the past 50 years.

That's what we've got going on in the little town of Hickman, Nebraska. Here's a clue. When you move to a place called Hickman, it's going to be a little different than living in someplace called, let's say, Fairlawn. You are going to have all kinds of things there you may not care for, like trailer parks and dive bars and livestock. If you don't like that, live somewhere else. But, no, in the past 20 years the lemminglike march of the suburbanites have led them to Hickman and now they want to get rid of Peter Rabbit.


Peter is not a rabbit. He is a 32 year old Morgan/QH cross who was born in the field he lives in and has had the same owner all of his life. He looks wonderful and is a damn lucky horse. His owner is 76 years old, a guy named Harley Scott, who clearly knows how to take care of an old horse and has a lovely place for him to reside. Observe the picture at left. This is hardly some old broken down horse living behind two strands of barbed wire behind someone's trailer home. He has a great place to live (four acres), he's shiny and happy and is receiving proper care. He's totally picturesque.

The shallow, soulless asshats on the Hickman City Council have decided old Peter has to go. They don't want a horse living in the city so they've decided to harrass a 76 year old man and his 32 year old horse. Yeah. You guys are awesome. News story. In short: "With houses having sprung up around Peter Rabbit's pasture, Mayor Jim Hrouda and five of the six City Council members are determined to enforce the livestock ban. Shortly after a council meeting Tuesday, the horse's owner, 76-year-old Harley Scott, was served an eviction notice that orders the animal off the land. Scott said he has no intention of complying with the Sept. 15 deadline. He faces the prospect of being fined up to $100 a day if he's convicted of violating the ordinance."

Oh my God! Don't you asshats have anything more pressing to deal with in Hickman, Nebraska than to try to make it financially impossible for an old retired man to keep his lifetime pet? What the fuck were you all thinking? One horse on four acres couldn't possible constitute any kind of sanitation hazard. I doubt he's breaking through the fences at night and running wild in the streets at age 32.

They KNOW they are asshats, too! They disabled the contact form on their web site! But hey, you can still call them and write them and we found an e-mail for the city manager, too. Now remember, you get a lot further being polite but you can still politely tell them that their order to get rid of the horse is inhumane to both the horse and the human. In my opinion, it constitutes elder abuse and I hope a smart elder abuse attorney will jump on this!

City Office & City Council: 115 Locust P.O. Box 127 Hickman, Nebraska 68372

(402) 792-2212

Email - citymanager@ckt.net

Let's talk about this in general, too. Do you have city folk encroaching on the areas where your horses live? Have you had problems with them? What do you think we need to do in order to keep from losing places we can keep our horses to new regulations caused by newcomers who like the look of the country but not its smell? Have you been able to take certain steps to stay on good terms with even the fussiest new neighbors and keep the horses welcome? Have you actually had to go to court or fight with the city to maintain your right to keep livestock on your land? Please mention where you are when you post - I think it's an interesting topic to see what parts of the country are suffering from this kind of problem the most.

And just since we were talking about old not equalling skinny yesterday, I snapped a pic of my 35 year old toothless wonder, Clover. She isn't really eating that hay but she does like to play with it! She gets hay pellet mush twice a day with Clovite and corn oil. When I got her, she looked like this - that was January 2007 when I got her free off of Craigslist and this is how she has maintained ever since I got her back up to weight.