Happy Friday

Happy Friday

Throwback Thursday

Our Throwback Thursday is to 2011 when we offered Dick the Percheron a home. We'd brought Dick home in March after a winter where he'd lost his teammate, Don. His owner's health was ailing so we offered to help them out. 

In fact, I remember seeing Dick and Don when I was younger and our family would head to Sioux Falls. I would drool over the two gray Percherons standing out in the pasture. Little did I know that I would be honored with the care of one of these Percherons for the remainder of his life. It's odd how life puts you in certain places.

Unfortunately, Dick was only with us for a few short months. He was 28 years old and the years had taken its toll on him. With with the loss of his teammate, we ended up having to say goodbye to him in August 2011. He was a sweet gentleman that in his hayday was the pride of his owner. 

Although we only had the honor of caring for him for a few short months, he made an impact on our lives.

Goodbye My Sweet Percheron

Goodbye my sweet Dick. Even though you were only here for less than five months, you will always be a huge part of our lives at Borderlands. We miss you already.

I hope you find your teammate, Don, and enjoy the greener pastures. May we meet again some day.

I am going off line for awhile. I need time for my hurting heart.

Phone Call to the Vet

Summer is here. This weekend was tough to adjust to the summer temps. Looking at the forecast, this weekend is going to be even tougher.

This past weekend we didn’t do much with the horses as we were camping and enjoying some much needed family quality time. We ran back and forth morning and night to check on the horses and make sure the water tanks were full. It was in the 90s all weekend, the poor horses are not adjusting to this heat and neither am I.

I need to keep a close eye on Tommy. He wasn’t acting his normal self this morning. I couldn’t really evaluate him like I wanted. I’m in a bit of pain right now. I managed to sunburn my legs and ankles and any type of shoe bothers. I ran through the gauntlet of foot apparel I could try and ended up with my cowboy boots instead of my steels. Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to walk better to evaluate Tom and make sure everything is ok.

I’m worried about Dick. He’s been losing weight. I pulled him from the road pasture to the back pasture but I don’t think he’s doing any better. I’m afraid he’s at his last few weeks. I had hoped that I could wait until fall sometime as is my normal routine for euthanasia. When I realized I couldn’t wait until fall, I had considered waiting until the end of August just before I go on a small vacation. But now that I see him, I’m wondering if I should just call the vet this week. This heat is really going to bother him and he just can’t seem to keep any weight on. Any grain he eats gives him diarrhea. Senior feed and rolled oats go right through him. His body is no longer processing all of the oats. It’s the same situation we were in a couple years back with my beloved Bob. When we first brought Dick home, he looked a little tough but hid it with his winter coat. Now he looks tough no matter what. It’s really just a matter of me making that dreaded phone call. I’ll be keeping an eye on the weather to see when I should do it. The weatherman is predicting 90+ degree weather for this weekend. I’d like to see if there is any relief in the future. I just hate making this phone call. I had really hoped to wait. He’s such good friends with Rabbit. Makes me sick to even think about it. But rescue/sanctuary life isn’t always about keeping them for years and years but ensuring that they are given a dignified death. This is the part of sanctuary life I dread.

Dick The Percheron

When we picked Dick up from his owner's back in March, a dear friend was there. She snapped a few picturs. I thought you all might enjoy them as much as I did.

Thank you J for sending the pictures to me. I do love looking at horse pics!

Gives you a good perspective of how big Dick is. I'm 5'3".

Dick has the biggest nose I've ever seen. I love petting the velvet on the tip of his nose. Love this big guy!

Panic Mode

Last night we were attacked my mosquitoes. I decided I’d better get some skirt work done and avoided the mosquitoes until it was time for chores. I thought it would be a quick night. As always, I was wrong.

Mike was filling water tanks, and I was getting the ponies ready for bed. We both saw Dick rolling in the mud. We are always worried that when a horse goes down that it might be colic. Mike had watched Dick go down earlier but didn’t think it was colic. We stood and watched to make sure it wasn’t colic. Nope, just mosquitoes.

As we were finishing up chores, we heard a huge commotion. I knew something was wrong. I heard the corral panels banging against the red shed. I actually figured it was Dick rubbing his head or butt on the panels. Nope. For whatever reason, Dick went down right next to the panels and had gotten his feet stuck in between the rungs.

So the major question of the night was, how do you get draft hooves unstuck from a corral panel? Luckily Dick is a calm horse and didn’t panic (and neither did I). I kept the mosquitoes off Dick while Mike went to get a nippers, hammer, and file. He came back with just a file in hopes that filing down his feet would do the trick (and because we’ve somehow lost all the other tools mentioned).

However Dick went down, we’ll never figure out; the same goes for his feet. We’ll never figure out exactly how he got his massive feet stuck.

Mike filed a little bit away on the one hoof and we both heaved and hawed to get Dick’s hoof unstuck. Next was the more difficult foot. Luckily Mike filed quickly and we were able to wiggle Dick’s foot free. I find it odd that he could get his feet stuck but I’ve also come to the realization that you can’t have anything nice with horses (apparently including corral panels).

Luckily Dick was no worse for wear. I gave him a dose of banaimine to make sure he wasn’t colicing (or colic-y after his ordeal). He did seem to not feel well so I wasn’t sure if he was a little colic-y or not but didn’t want to risk losing the old guy just yet.

For whatever reason, I don’t normally panic when it comes to the horses. Oh sure, I used to panic and pretty bad. But over the years and with as many horses as we have, I’ve learned to cool it just a little. For this instance, I figured we had a number of choices so there wasn’t a need to panic. My only concern was keeping Dick quiet so that he wouldn’t hurt himself.

I’m glad to report that this morning, Dick was hanging over the fence, not so patiently waiting to get back out to the pasture.

As I’ve said in the past, it’s never dull at Borderlands.

Dick

I know you're all tired of listening to me rant and rave. Now that we finally have a camera with batteries, a working computer, and the cable to connect both, I thought I would share some picutres. The following are of Dick a few days after we brought him home.

Surprise!

We have another surprise!!! We have another new horse to join the Borderlands herd. No pictures as of yet. But we are welcoming Dick, a 28 year old Percheron gelding. He had a loving owner for the past 18 years but due to age, needed to find him a new home.

Tomorrow is the SD Horse Fair. I'll be there both Friday and Saturday wandering around. I wont' be near a computer so just track me down at the Horse Fair if you want to talk horses!