Something wonderful happened on this past Sunday. I gave my heart to someone...
She is just over 14HH, a petite and smart little tri-colour grulla paint named Story. She joined my horse family as a 2 year old in May of 2012...a project horse.
Friends bid against the meat buyer at the auction to bring this little one home. She had been in their radar at a previous auction but went to another home that time.
She was brought back to the auction a few months later and this time they decided to bid on her especially in light of who they were bidding against. She seemed quiet and easy to handle and so would be an easy project...or maybe not.
A few days after they brought her home, she decided that being caught was no longer an option. Due to circumstances, they were unable to keep her and put her up for sale with a very honest and well worded ad. My girlfriend saw the ad on Kijiji and forwarded it to me with a note saying, "This is a perfect project for you." Oh boy!
I needed another horse like I needed another hole in my head but she was a pretty little thing and the whole challenge of getting through to her appealed to my persistent and stubborn nature. So I sent an email to the seller and received a response from the new owner, who it turns out was a wonderful lady that I knew. She had a number of people interested in her so she said if none of the prospects panned out she would let me know.
Well, it turns out that fate decided that she was supposed to come into my world, so with a couple of partners, we bought her and she was delivered to us. For the first day or so, she was quiet and nice to handle and then she decided that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with any of us.
Almost two months passed and I had absolutely no success. She was shut down. She wasn't interested in people or other horses. I realized that the poor little one had been shuffled around so many times in her short life that she didn't want to bond to anyone because in her experience thus far she would be separated from them anyhow. I had a standardbred with similar issues and she ended up being one of the best horses that I have ever owned but it took lots of time and patience.
I knew she wasn't abused and somebody had actually done some great ground work with her so she was a bit different than anyone that I had ever dealt with before. I realized that she was going to need lots and lots of time to build trust. I spent hours and hours in her pen hanging out and talking to her, making her feet move and still she wouldn't turn and face me no matter what I did. She turned her rump to me and acted like she wanted to jump out of the pen. Never once did she kick out at me or even try to.
In a torrential rainstorm, I put her hay in her shelter and stood inside hoping her hunger would be stronger than her aversion to me. Wrong! She absolutely refused to come in to eat. I spent hours out there, soaked to the skin and covered in manure, hoping just hoping that she would finally cave in but she didn't. I finally gave up and went in for the evening, discouraged and frustrated but not ready to give up on her.
Two days after that episode, one of the boarders at the barn phoned me to say that she was sick and throwing herself down in the mud and rolling repeatedly. My gut was doing flip flops - it sounded like colic to me so I started phoning vets. I was in down town Calgary and couldn't get there quickly so relied on the help of my daughter and some fantastic friends who really stepped up and banded together to help her. A vet came out and tried the standard tubing and mineral oil treatment and she wasn't responding, so another friend trailered her to a nearby vet clinic.
At first assessment they felt that she would be a surgical case to the tune of $5-25,000. I told them surgery was not an option and that we would be letting her go if that was the case. I am not a believer in colic surgery as I haven't heard of many success stories. It seemed like such a tragic waste to lose this little horse. It just didn't seem right. Her life was just beginning and why did she come to us if she was just going to pack it in? I told them to try tubing her and medicating her again and do everything they could in that respect.
I rushed to the clinic to see her and when I got there, she was calmly walking around in the stall looking all bright and happy. The staff were working on cleaning some of the mud off of her and they told me when she came in, they didn't realize that she was a paint. Even the insides of her ears were full of mud. Needless to say, she stayed overnight at the clinic and we picked her up and brought her home the next day.
I spent 4 hours cleaning her up and kept her in the barn for about a week. I spent lots of time doing groundwork and grooming her and realized that she was probably the smartest and most sensitive horse that I have ever owned.
In the following days the challenges continued. Although I could catch her quite easily, she would turn tail and run, dragging me along behind her. I had to put two lead ropes on her and my friends kindly assisted me in bringing her in so she couldn't drag me around. It took lots of time and patience but I knew where she was coming from. Eventually she settled down and became a nice, compliant little horse.
The following year I didn't do a whole lot with her as I decided that I wasn't going to start her myself and because she was so small I wanted her to have some time to just hang out with the herd and grow. I wanted her to go to a trainer who could recognize and bring out the potential that I knew was in her. She would still play the catching game with me at times but would eventually give in. The lightest of signals on the ground such as the flick of a finger could get her to change direction. She would stand and face me, eyes wide and ears going back and forth so much that I began to call her "Radar".
I found a fantastic horse trainer who had been successful in starting some very difficult rescue horses that I knew and I felt that he would be perfect for Story.
We sent her off as a long three year old and he put approximately 12 rides on her. I was worried about how sending her away was going to affect her trust issues. I went and rode with him after she had been with him for around a month and was amazed to see my little horse loping out in the open, calm as could be under saddle. He told me he had only put about 12 rides on her at that point and I was so pleased to see her progress.
She had developed some nasty cinch sores so the trainer suggested that I take her home to heal and bring her back in a few months to resume her training. When I went to visit her, I noticed that she didn't want anything to do with me. I loaded her in the trailer and brought her home, tied her up in the barn and said, "See, I told you I wasn't going to abandon you."
I groomed her and treated her wounds and then played with her in the indoor arena. Next thing I knew, she came up behind me and was gently touching my shoulder with her lips. That was absolutely the first time she had ever made any sort of affectionate move toward me. I was thrilled but still somehow held back a part of my heart from her.
We sent her back to finish her training and she was gone for February and March. Because of the bitterly cold weather, I didn't go and see her until it was time to pick her up. I went out there and again, she was completely standoffish with me for which I felt bad as I knew I had left her for a long time. The trainer handed her reins to me and I started talking to her. She finally stretched her nose out to touch my hand and greeted me. I think she realized that I wasn't abandoning her. I rode her and wow! She is light, soft, and oh so catty! She has tremendous potential and I am absolutely thrilled with the job he did with her.
He brought her home two days later and I have been riding her almost every day. She is an amazing little horse!
For the first time since we bought her, she whinnies when she sees me. When I do ground work with her, she does this funny little crab walk to position herself behind my right shoulder and gently touches me with her lips. I don't normally let horses get this much in my space but she is not being pushy and it is like she is looking to me for reassurance.
She has finally given me her heart and I have given her mine. I adore this little horse and all of those hours spent trying to gain her trust have been more than worth it. She just needed time and someone to believe in her.
Everybody deserves to have someone who loves and believes in them. Someone who won't write them off.
