Time for a new Post....

Hello every one!!

I do believe that it is time for another post! It has been over a month, stuff has happened! So anyway, I do have some more pictures as well. YAY!!
We also have ALOT of evidence that he is MWF Egzalt. He is a bay, around 9 years of age, and not to mention that the markings on the Arabian Horse DataSource match up... PERFECTLY!! It is truely amazing, and it is just soo sweet. Tomorrow, my mom is getting ink for the printer and we are going to get his marking page filled out, and then that all sent in and we will be on the road into getting his papers. YAY!! Salty's idenity will be back!! I might have to throw him a party.

Here is some updates on his training:

He isn't cinchy anymore, well with the bareback pad he isn't. I haven't been riding him in a bridle, just halter and reins. He does very well with that. We are now walking, trotting, and even cantering! It is lots of fun! The next few times, when I see that he is fit to, we will start a little bit of jumping. Right now I am just leading him over it and he does very well. And he even does the highest part of the jump. He is very proud of himself after he does it.

He is doing very well with his lunging. He will do it both ways now and is knowing the voice command "walk". I am pretty sure he didn't know what it ment but after a few rides he got it.

He is still slowly being introduced to the herd, we haven't put him in there with the other four quite yet. But they do, some of them, come out and eat on the lawn with him. Salty will also talk to Shorty and Pepsi.

Salty got a bath, well a mane and tail bath. He enjoyed the scrubbing and massaging very much. His mane and tail just looked beautiful!! It was flowing in the wind. Beautiful horse.

Anyway, here are a the few pictures. I hope you all enjoy!!

Salty and Shorty

Finally, it happend

Well, on a wonderful Sunday morning around 9:00 am I was woken up because I desided that the night before I was going to ride Salty. And that is exactly what happened. I got him all tacked up, massaged the area where the cinch was going to be. He is still a bit cinchy but he is a lot better now then the first time I did him up. He doesn't move around as much, and he doesn't try to bite me, only when I tighten the saddle. But the western is a bit heavy for him, so my assumtion is that he was trained for English, he also responds more to the english reining, rather than the western. But he did VERY well and I was very surprised on how well he did. He took me and the saddle well, stood there while I got all sorted out and everything. He walks on, turns, whoas, and backs up. He does perfect!! But he was telling me to get off by doing little "bucks" if you want to call them that. But I am looking for a good english saddle that will fit him. Well, the ride was fun and exciting and I hope to get back on him soon. Here are a few pictures of our ride. I would have liked for my heels to be down, but the stirrups were a bit short for me. I have to lengthen them.

Pictures

This is Hank, the Quarter Horse. He is 22 years old.

Shorty, the Percheron, he is over thirty years old.

Pepsi, draft cross, he is four years old. Coco's foal.

Coco, percheron cross, 16 years old. She is the one everyone loves. Though of course, she is the only mare.



More pictures will be added later.

About Time..

It is about time for another post in this blog. Alot has happend in the past little while.
We have started to introduce him to the other horses. He seems to do alright with our Quarter Horse Hank. Though of course, Hank's mare is Coco, so there is a bit of a problem there. But when Coco isn't around they stand by each other, sniff each other, and sleep by each other. If she comes by though, Hank will ditch Salty and follow her, but she is apart of his herd so I can understand that. We have also put Shorty, our 30 year old percheron gelding, in with him. He is a bit more scarier than Hank because he is 17 hands rather than 15.2. Not to mention Salty is 14.3 hands high. But Salty will come up and sniff him.

Our draft cross, Pepsi, will come up and sniff him over the fence. Pepsi is almost 17.2 hands and the boss of the herd. He is also Coco's baby, and he is four years old. Salty is a intimidated by him. Pepsi is a scary fellow, and when his mom is near Salty and Pepsi is out with her, he will charge him over the fence. But Salty stays away from him. Yesterday though, Pepsi can and sniffed Salty (a friendly sniff I think), Salty squealed and Pepsi, unusally moved away from him and started eating. Pepsi doesn't normally do that, he will just make the horse in more discomfort, but who knows maybe he is maturing.

Salty is doing very well, my Grandma gave me her bridle and it fits Salty very well and he takes the bit. But another thing that surpirsed me, but didn't surpirse me at the same time, was that he accepts the saddle. He is only cinchy but I massage his belly and that before I put the do up the cinch. Right now he has a western saddle on him, because I don't have an english one that fits him. But I hope to buy one! I will also have to buy a bridle then as well. But I was going to have him western as well as english if he was trained. So hey, I got the horse I wanted for a long time :D.

I will post pictures in a little bit, of who he is meeting. I also have a camera now so I will get someone to take pictures of him in the saddle and bridle. And hopefully get some of me on him!! I haven't gotten on him yet, I want to get his problem with the cinch a bit better before I do.

Updates

Here are a few updates with pictures!!!

I have pictures of his new halter!! It was hard to get him to stand still long enough to take the couple of pictures because he wanted a wither scratch. Now. But I finally got him to stand still for a couple of seconds just to take a snap!! There is a poll so you can vote if you like it or not.

I also put the bareback pad on his back today!! With no stirrups though.. I don't really use them anyway. He handled it well and only moved just a tad bit when I tightend it to the last hole (which would be normal for a girth and such maybe even a bit looser). Here is a picture of that!!

While I had him in the bareback pad I walked him over some small logs. (which he did very well with and didn't even hit his feet, he hit his feet all the time whenever I did it with him before.. he must have been practicing...) And then I trotted him over them, which he did a little jump. Then, a canter over them and he jumped them! After that I gave him lots of pats and told him he was a good boy and then took off the halter and bareback pad.

After all of this I gave him his scratches. And boy did he love them. Here is the new looks of satisfaction...

But there comes a time when you have to stop... here is the "look" I get when I stop.

I love how his tail is on his back.. its like he is saying, "How dare you not be there for me to hit you. Just.. how dare you."

Week Three.

Sorry I missed last week on an update, I was at horse camp. But I am back, still alive, and ready to post what has happened!
While I was gone he discovered how big of an area he was in. He got away from his corner and in the middle of the corral and started to run and buck everywhere. Looks to me that he is a very happy boy! He has an odd relationship with one of the dogs as well. He also isn’t that fond of the rain either, and that we got A LOT of in the past week.
The day after I got back from my camp we went to the city and I got him a brand new halter. It is a navy colour with leather sides on it. There will be a poll and you can see the picture of it and tell me if you like it or not.
He loves his halter and doesn’t try to take it off now. This is a good thing.
He loves to run and will race up and down the fence. Maybe when the ground isn’t as wet I will set up my small jumps (which is two tree branches on top of each other, not that big of a deal) just to see what he does.

During the course of the week my mom let out my mare, Coco, just to let Salty and her get used to each other right now, and to see how his testosterone levels are. She is very gentle despite her large size. It was going well and he didn’t do a lot of the stud stuff that he did the very first day he came and we let them sniff each other. Last night though they called to each other the whole night.
Today was the big test; we let Coco in with him in the corral. They sniffed each other at first and he squealed a few times but didn’t really kick out, she didn’t either.
He jumped on her a few times but the got frustrated because he couldn’t reach her (she is a 16.3 Percheron cross mare and he is a 14.1-.3 Arabian) and then gave for a little while. He went over to the other end of the corral while she took over his hay. But once he would walk/trot around she would follow him. Which kind of freaked him out a little bit so he went faster and then only to find that she would keep the same pace as him.
Right now though they seem to be used to each other and he is allowing himself to stay with her. Even though this was probably all to confusing for him, he seems to be ok with it.A lot can happen in three weeks!

One Week.

It has been a week sense we have had Salty! Well a week sense yesterday. But he has come along so far in these eight days. He nickers to us when ever we are near or when he thinks we are upset or in trouble. He is just one cute boy! He is also starting to ignore the other horses and doesn’t call to them any more. He will just look at them and then go back on to his business of eating some hay or grass. He is just one special boy.

We started to braid his forelock back off of his face, just to give it some air. He enjoys it because now he can see what is going on! He still loves to flick his head around and toss his mane around when ever we come near him as if to say “Look at me, I am beautiful” or “I’m so pretty, oh so pretty!”. I love him to bits!!

He surprises me all the time though! He does well with the haltering and leading and standing tied (as Susan said), but he also does extremely well when being sprayed down with the bug spray. I can’t even get my mare, Coco, to stand and let me spray it on her and I have had her for 4 years now! I am just wondering if he will accept a saddle or anything like that. He already blows me away but if he accepts that stuff?? Well then, I am going to be way past blown away!

Salty likes to be let of the corral every once and a while (more like everyday in his schedule) and when I do let him out he likes to go around the property and check things out before he eats. That doesn’t take him very long with his brisk walk. But once he is all settled in, he goes and begins to graze peacefully and doesn’t even look up to Coco as she nickers to him.

He is having such a peaceful life here, and I can’t wait for the day when he can go and be with the others and have a normal herd life. Thank you again, Rescue 100 for making this happen.

It started here.

This all started with a news story. I became so emotionally involved. It is all I thought about. I religiously checking out pictures and updates. I was so excited with those first pictures that came out, checking each one over and over again. Falling in love with individuals. The first one that I fell in love with was a little gray one laying down (in its picture) with a symbolic (to me) tangle in its hair. We waited anxiously for news about availibitly and when they can be adopted. Then it happend. Applications were made available. I could have peed my pants. Then a picture came out of a certain boy with the longest and most beautiful forelock I have ever seen. And that was it. Love at first site.

We called down and asked specifically if he was going to be gelded could we be considered for his adoption. We waited anxiously. And low and behold out of the blue the call came. We thought we were approved for a different one. And we were happy just to take one.

I got up at 5:11 in the morning Monday morning. I was to excited too sleep as I was going to go down and pick up my boy. I had slept five hours that night and didn't see the need to stay a sleep any longer. The trip was uneventful (it seemed to take forever). But we finally arrived.

We backed the trailor up to the barn and I met Susan and Donna. They told me that he was in the first stall. I walk over there, expecting this different boy and to my amazment it was Salty! I was so surprised and excited that it was hard to say anything. I went into his stall and pat him for a little while until the paper was done.

Once it was done I was allowed to put my halter on him and lead him out. He was a perfect gentleman. He loaded like a dream (stupid laws wouldn't let me ride in the trailor, not fair at all). He had a good ride home, all three hours of it. But we got home.

He heat was oppressive but he handled it like a trooper. When in the corral he started to run around flicking his tail. Then he settled down and started to eat. That is when the others started to call him (he is still a bit studdy). He ignored them for a while but then he started to call them back (boy he is loud, haha). We let him settle in for the night. He got a wiff of our mare who suddenly went into heat. Any hopes of settling in for the night was over (did I mention he is still a bit studdy?). He called and called all night. We felt bad for him. But it will be over soon, and he will be with the herd.

When we go out side now he will call to us. He loves to get brushed, especually on the neck. He is very food modivated. He is very hungry, but he is not subtle about showing his itchy spots or having me scratch them.

The decision about gelding him must have been very hard. We are a firm no breeding family and he will have a happy life being apart of a herd (family).