Archives for May 2018

Well, after spending more than a week searching various sites on the internet, the same horse came popping up, a Paso Fino gelding named Smokie. At first, he showed up on craigslist by a woman about two hours east of us. Then I learned that he was coming from a place about an hour east of us, on consignment. A little bit of research and I was able to find an older ad on another website for the same horse, and even though the ad expired, the site manager was able to point me toward the contact information for the same folks on a different ad entirely. Anyway, make a long story short, we headed out this morning, first to a quick doctor's appointment to finally check on Hubby's cataract surgery, and then off to Smokie's farm, where we met his owners, Joe and Connie, and spent some time getting to know the horse. They had said in their ad that Smokie was "about 15 hands", larger than most Pasoes that I know of, but he was actually much smaller, closer to 14.2, which should be perfect for Hubby. He's white with black flecks, not actually dappled, but flecked, and not actually grey, really. It was clear after working with him in the paddock for a while that Smokie had forgotten how to listen to people. He was very disrespectful, crowding my space all the time, though he was very friendly in the way he did it. It took time to get him to just run around in a circle on a lead, he kept trying to face me all the time. Eventually, he got the idea, and it became clear that he was an intelligent animal, he just hadn't had to use the thinking side of his brain for a LONG time. It looks like his gait will be nice and smooth, and even his canter seemed gentle, so in the end, we paid the required price, got him loaded into the trailer (which was accomplished rather easily, he only hesitated for a few moments, then stepped right up,) we got the paperwork on him, and off we went! The sellers agreed to let us have two weeks to make sure he was fit and to see if he gets along well enough with Apollo, so I'll be taking him in for a vet check as soon as I can. When we got back, I started to do some research on him. His registered name is Coloso's Relampago. Coloso is for his sire, Ponderosa Coloso, who apparently was a Grand National Champion in the Paso Fino circuit! Relampago is Spanish for flash of lightninng. On his old Coggins, his previous owner had called him Ghost. We decided we didn't really like Smokie (because he really isn't grey!), and Ghost didn't do anything for us either, so we took a few hours seesawing between Lightning and Flash. In the end, we decided on Flash, because he has a very showy gait that could be described as flashy, and of course, for flash of lightning. It just described him better, we thought. When we got him home, I put up a highline just outside the paddock fence so that he and Apollo could look at each other for a while. There's rain forecast for tomorrow night, so I'm hoping to put them tomorrow evening so that Flash has some shelter in the run-in shed once the rain starts. I hope he and Apollo get along okay! I'm sure it will be an adjustment for him, but he's just going to have to get used to it! Fingers crossed!

Same as yesterday, with the notable addition of finding Dottie a new home. After long and hard thought it had become clear that Dottie is just too much for us. She has chewed up so many things, and I spend so much of my time trying to prevent that, chasing after her when she runs off to the neighbors to chase their chickens (or off to the ranger's station in Wrangler's campground), and just generally trying to keep her in line, I've found myself wasting a lot of valuable time on her, without having anywhere near enough time to actually train her. We had to keep her in a kennel in the bathroom in the trailer, and there really isn't any room in there, but if we let her out, she would inevitably get in trouble and I'd be yelling at her all the time. So, I put an ad on craigslist to re-home her, and within 24 hours, I had a response from a disabled veteran who was looking to replace his service dog. He had spent eight years with the 8th airborne, served in Afghanistan, and wanted a constant companion, which is exactly what Dottie needs! So with some reluctance, but assured that she was going to a better home, to people who would spend a lot of time with her, she moved on with her life, leaving us to move on with ours. Bye Dottie, we'll miss you, but with us, you were the Devil Dog. I trust you'll be a little Angel in your new home!