I promised to introduce you to the animals some time ago, today seemed like a good day. Several years ago, NinjaPonyMom and I went to a horse rescue in the Black Forest area (near Colorado Springs/Larkspur) to talk to four sisters that had started bringing young horses in from terribly cruel and inhumane circumstances. We went there to show our support, give them some money, and be on our way.
A young (6 mos) Percheron Stallion came out of one of the stalls as we pulled up and it was "love at first sight" I had never seen a young Percheron before and this lad was stunning. He followed me around one of the pens, I was smitten. At about the same time NPM came over to me and said "look how that little filly looks at me"....well, the rest is history, as they say....that was Saturday, we bought a horse trailer on Tuesday, borrowed a truck the following Saturday and took "our"horses to "our" trainer. After returning the truck, I traded my Subaru for a nice big diesel truck. We owned horses.
NPM has been around horses most of her life, I have not. As a matter of f
act, I am a horse owner, but not a horseman, I don't ride well, don't know more about horses than I do know. But I promised that Percheron that he would have a good home, and a name, too. His name is Jupiter.He is absolutely beautiful, gentle, funny....and if there's food around, predictable.
The little filly with the eyes on NPM is called Molly. Molly (as far as we know) is a Morgan, and the smartest animal I have ever known. She is attracted to tools , machines, and has literally inspected everything I've built on a couple of places. She is also a fireball, has swirls in her fur on her face and head indicating her fireball-ness. She is also athletic and finely coordinated, I love to watch her run, you can get an idea by looking at her that she loves to move, and show you her moves.
Next is Ava, NPM rescued Ava from a situation where the owner of this beautiful quarter horse was allowing stangers to ride her with cruel bits and hardware that pretty much ruined this animal. NPM doesn't stand for that sort of thing and stepped in, rescued this beauty and has worked with her diligently to get her back to being a well-adjusted horse, she still has small temper tantrums (Ava) but no longer does she throw her head at you or bite. It seems horses have a way of telling you that they don't like to be treated poorly. Ava fell in love with Jupiter and they are ALWAYS together, I'm not sure Jupiter has a clue, but he likes hanging out with her!
And last but not least (of the horses) is Henry, the Ninja Pony. Henry came to us after we had met a rancher while boarding our horses in Hygiene, Henry's loving owner had died and her sons just let the horses go......they wandered around a 150 acre place in Lyons for the entire winter trying to stay alive. there were seven horses. One was blind and 33 yrs old, one was 32, the others were younger but in bad shape, their hooves looked like Alladin slippers, their fur mangy and dull, two of them had foundered, they didn't come to us we had to walk them down. After the rancher introduced us to the bunch he said to NPM,"which ones don't you want" and she wrote a check for the whole bunch. Through word of mouth and her friends all the animals went to good homes. The old ones were euthanized in the most humane way. We discovered that no one wanted this Shetland Pony, we didn't want a pony either, he was ill tempered, kinda rude, and who wants
a pony? So we put he word out that we wanted to sell him and a couple came by to look at him, the dad placed his daughter on Henry's back without asking anyone, Henry turned and bit him. That's when I started to like Henry. No Sale. NPM worked with Henry for a long time, until he started to trust us. Apparently he had been mistreated by someone along the way, as he was really sensitive around his face and ears. As his personality started to emerge for us we discovered this wonderful intelligent little guy that is fiercely loyal to his horse friends, loves NPM, and has no idea that he is a pony. He is a fierce and handsome stallion in every sense, and is such a part of this crew that everyone whinnies when he goes for a walk with one of us.Next.......The Dogs!
NPD
