Naming Day

We celebrated Naming Day this evening. It felt kind of awkward and not at all celebratory, probably because we were rushed and got out to the barn later than intended. Panama still enjoyed it, though.

Where's Mom going?



To get the goodies, of course!



This was Panama's "cake" — a little bit of extra grain (he'd already had his usual amount for the day, and I didn't want to overdo it), a couple of apples from Aunt Jane, and a peppermint treat smile!

I gave him the goodies first so that we could get some good video footage before it got too dim, as the sun was going behind the houses. Then I groomed him. He was a bit antsy at first — no doubt excited about the change in routine, and wondering if I had more treats up my sleeve — but he finally relaxed and let me do my thing.

I did take some video footage, and I'm planning on making a video commemorating our first celebration of Naming Day — but not tonight, as I'm feeling quite tired right now!

Cause for celebration

A new reader, Jane Augenstein, recently celebrated her horse's birthday. She and I were chatting via email, and she encouraged me to start celebrating Panama's birthday, even though I don't know the exact day.

I thought about it, and decided I would rather celebrate his "Naming Day," the day I first saw him and named him. That was May 27, 2006 — Memorial Day weekend. According to the backyard breeders, he was 11 months at the time, so he'll be four years old in roughly a month.

If they told us the truth, that is, which is why I'd rather celebrate Naming Day than make up a birthday for him. Besides, to me this day holds more importance than a birthday, because it's the day he came into my life — the day I fell in love with him at first sight.

I thought about inviting a few friends, but as the date approached I decided I'd rather spend the day just with Panama (and Michael, if he'll come). It is, after all, our day, and therefore a private celebration seems appropriate.

For those of you who don't already know the story, my husband and I were out of state at the time, visiting his family. While we were at his brother's house, a backyard breeder delivered a pregnant mare and her 11-month-old colt to the next door neighbor. The idiot had loaded them into a trailer with a big hole in the floor, and the mare had fallen through, scraping one of her rear fetlock joints all the way to bone.



My in-laws saw the mare was injured and called the vet, and I sat with the mare while we waited (she was on the ground, poor thing). It quickly became clear that neither the breeder or the neighbor had the money for vet care: Both held the all-too-common view that horses cost nothing to keep, but would make them rich from selling the offspring.

So by default they decided to euthanize the mare, since neither of them could afford the cost of getting her well in time to deliver the baby. I sat with her the entire time, wishing there was something I could do to save her, and feeling completely helpless.

Once she had been euthanized, we turned our attention to her colt, who had been flitting nervously around us this entire time. He'd had no prior contact with people, but because I was sitting with his mom for so long he'd actually approached me a few times. Once he even bumped me on the back of the shoulder with his nose. The breeder said it was the first time he'd ever approached a human before.

I didn't realize at the time how small he was for 11 months, but his back was only about to my waist — and I'm pretty short! He was also so scrawny that his ribs and hips stuck out sadly, despite his big belly (which I now know means he was probably wormy). From what the breeder said that day, I suspect he and his mother had been left out to pasture all winter without hay or grain, and her both nursing and pregnant.



Anyway, it turned out the colt was injured too — though not as badly, the vet needed to take him back to his place, where he could be on stall rest. Even injured and clearly half-starved, though, he was a fiesty little fellow. I'll never forget seeing him throw off the vet's assistant when he tried to catch him. Then he came trotting back by us, head and tail held high, mane blowing off his neck — so proud of himself for getting away. In the end, the vet had to lasso him in order to catch him.

Once the vet had caught him and wrestled him to the ground, he had my brother-in-law hold the rope while he returned to his office for his trailer. I sat in front of him, and he put his head in my lap, so sad and defeated. That's when I named him Panama, and looking back, it feels like this simple act created an irrevocable connection between us.

A little over a week later, my husband announced to me that Panama was mine: Knowing how much I wanted him, Michael had paid the vet bill when (unsurprisingly) both breeder and buyer refused. Panama lived on my brother-in-law's pasture for a little over a year, during which time we visited frequently. Then, in September 2007, we were finally able to transport him to Denver.



Up until then, he'd always remembered me when we would visit my in-laws, but after we brought him to Denver our relationship grew by leaps and bounds. He was almost wild at the time, hated being groomed, and was suspicious of anyone messing with his feet. But over time, he began to trust me.

We helped each other through a lot of firsts...

Training...



Our first ride...



New experiences...



New homes, and new friends...



When I think back on it all, I can't believe how far we've come. Naming Panama was the very first act in a beautiful relationship that just keeps getting closer and more complex the more time that passes.

Thanks for insisting I needed to celebrate something, Jane! You were right!

Who was lucky: Me or my horse?

A discussion thread on another blog made me think about who is the lucky one, me or my horse.

I often have people tell me, when they first hear my story of meeting and rescuing my horse, that I got lucky. In other words, I didn't know anything about his background or how he'd be when he grew up, so I am lucky he's sweet and rideable.

Well, for one thing I think they're missing the point. I didn't rescue Panama because I wanted a riding horse. I hadn't ridden for years, and I had no plans to ride a horse anytime soon — let alone to own a horse. I rescued him because I felt a connection and wanted to save him from abusive and neglectful backyard breeders, not to mention from a likelihood of ending up at the slaughter house.

But for another thing, I'm not so sure that I did necessarily just "get lucky" that Panama is such a good horse. Sure, there are things that are out of my control, such as his size — and granted, he is only just barely big enough for me to ride. But since my best times with him are when I've got both feet on the ground, I don't think it would have mattered much to me if I was unlucky in that respect.

The other thing people often mean when they say I got lucky, is what a good-natured horse Panama turned out to be. This idea just makes me laugh. Panama is a good horse not because he was born that way, but because of the time and love I've put into our relationship. He was shaping up to be a hellion when he was younger: virtually no human contact the first year of his life, very little the year he spent with my in-laws, and a whole string of bad experiences. He was stubborn, standoffish, and difficult when I transported him to Denver at age 2, but over the past year and a half he has become affectionate, well-mannered, and eager to please.

I suppose in a way I was lucky, because I gained a companion and a best friend. But I think Panama was the luckier one, not only because his very existence was at stake, but also because there's a lot of people, even among horse people, who wouldn't have bothered.

My first memories of my horse

In honor of Memorial Day weekend, I've been thinking a lot about when I first met my horse.

I remember the breeder's surprise when Panama (though that wasn't his name yet) came up behind me while I sat with his injured mother, and gently bumped me on the back of my right shoulder with his nose. I turned to look and he took off, only to venture back again moments later. "He likes you," the breeder said. Panama had had little human interaction at this point, and had never approached a person on his own.

That is the first memory of Panama that has stuck in my mind.

The next memory is more powerful. It was after Panama's mother had been euthanized, and the vet realized that Panama was injured too. We were trying to catch him so that the vet could take a look at his injuries. There were maybe 6 or 8 of us out there, and we all surrounded the confused yearling, holding our arms out to keep him inside the circle.

As we got closer and his space got smaller, Panama made a break for it, right past the vet's son, who had just recently finished vet school and was helping his dad for the summer. The vet's son threw his arms around Panama's scrawny neck. "That's it, hang on, hang on!" the vet yelled, as Panama struggled to canter with a full-grown man hanging onto his neck.

Panama may have been stunted and half-starved, but a man was still no match for him. The vet's son dropped to the ground and then stood up, brushing himself off. Panama, meanwhile, turned and trotted back through our disappointed little group, head held high and mane and tail flying.

That's the image that will stick in my mind forever when I think of how Panama first appeared to me — not as a malnourished yearling who had just lost his mother, but as the colt proudly showing off that he had (temporarily at least) prevailed over an entire group of humans.

Transporting my horse to Denver

In early September 2007, we finally brought my horse, Panama, to Denver. It had been 16 months since Panama's trailer accident and horse rescue, and a month since his recent leg injury.

Figuring out transportation was actually easier than I thought it would be. We went with a horse transport company based out of Colorado Springs. They picked Panama up at about 2am, and delivered him to his new home about 13 hours later. It only cost $495.

Unfortunately, the driver and my in-laws had a hard time getting Panama to load up into the trailer. For one thing, he had had an extremely traumatic experience with a trailer as a baby. He also had to go up a ramp into this particular trailer, which most horses don't like. The fact that the driver had left the truck (which was a semi) running while trying to load Panama probably also didn't help.

It took about an hour to get Panama to load up into the trailer. At one point Michael's mom called him, and said they didn't think they'd be able to do it — Panama was rearing up on the ramp, and they were afraid he'd go over backwards. At one point, he even broke away and ran right through a wire fence trying to get back into the pasture.

Of course, they did eventually get him loaded. When he arrived in Denver, he was pretty jumpy. He was also extremely protective of his injured leg, and threatened to kick if you so much as looked at it. Eventually I knew he would need training — a lot of training — but for the moment, the main goal was to get him settled in.



(Look closely at his nose and his lower rear left leg in the above picture. You can see his injuries!)

Gelding and a leg injury: Panama's big summer

I blogged earlier about my horse's pasture days with the in-laws. That lasted for about 16 months, from June of 2006 until September of 2007.

At the beginning of last summer, we decided it was time to bring Panama to Denver. So far I was only able to see him when we visited my husband's family every few months. It wasn't enough — Panama had become quite wild, and was rather a handful for my poor in-laws sometimes.

Part of it was that he hadn't been gelded yet. We had him gelded in the summer of 2007, at about 2 years old. We also had his vaccinations updated and a Coggins test run in preparation for transporting him to Denver.

Unfortunately, Panama was badly injured in early August, requiring that we push the transport date back a month. He got his rear left leg wrapped up in a wire fence sometime during the night; by the time he was discovered in the morning, the wire had sliced his leg open almost all the way around.

This was the leg that had been injured the worst in the trailer accident, and he had never gotten over his foot-trust issues. That made cleaning the wound difficult. As a result, it didn't get cleaned frequently enough, and became infected.

In the end, the fence incident cost us three vet trips, a ton of antibiotics, and a month of worry. The wound was still open, though in considerably better shape, when he arrived in Denver in early September. Here is a picture that was taken in early September:



As you can see, the wound spiraled up his leg and caused a lot of swelling. It was pretty bad on the other side too.

Healing was slow, but by early October there was only a small (in comparison) scab left on each side:




In retrospect, I think we were probably pretty lucky that Panama wasn't lamed by this wound!

Pictures of the trailer

I was looking through my pictures, and realized I had some photos that we took after Panama's trailer accident.

The hole in the floor of the horse trailer was obviously an old one, because most of the edges of the hole were dark (indicating that the break was an old one). I suspect the lighter-colored splinters were probably from Panama's and his mother's hooves as they struggled to stay out of the hole.

Life on the in-laws' pasture

I already wrote about Panama's traumatic trailer accident and how we rescued him. However, that was almost two years ago, so I still have some gaps to fill!

Panama lived with my brother-in-law's horses for almost a year and a half, from June of 2006 until September of 2007. His herd consisted of:

Outlaw, a 7-year-old Tennessee Walker,
Saber, a 22-year-old Arabian mix,
Sundance, a draft colt who was about a year younger than Panama, and whom they got in the fall of 2006, and
Cuervo, a Castilian donkey who is about the same age as Panama.

Panama and Cuervo became fast friends; in fact, the two of them are pictured playing in the header of my new blog template, which should be up soon. The two of them loved to play together. In fact, the hardest thing about bringing him to Denver was knowing I'd have to separate the two of them — but I also knew that I had to have Panama with me.

Here is a picture of Panama at about a year old, about a month after we rescued him. As you can see, he was underdeveloped and rather skinny:



Here is one of my favorite pictures of Panama and Cuervo together:



And here is a picture of him in March of 2007. He was about 20 months in this picture. See how much healthier he looks than when we first got him!

My horse rescue story: Part 2

My last post was about how I first met and named my horse, Panama. This post is about how we rescued him from the backyard breeder and lowlife buyer.

After the vet took Panama back to his place, he was on my mind quite a bit. I even had a vision that night, as I was drifting off to sleep, of his mother (who I'd sat with until they euthanized her) running through a field.

Before my husband, Michael, and I left to return home, we visited Panama at the country vet's place.

I remember standing right next to him, and how little he was: The lowest point on his back was only hip-high to me. (Now full grown, he is only about 14 hands tall, and so is a fairly small horse.) I also remember how skinny and malnurished he was (you could stand back and count his ribs, they protruded so much) and how tense and frightened he was about me standing so close to him.

A little over a week later, my husband asked me one evening to check my phone. He had sent me a picture of Panama grazing.

"He's yours," Michael said, smiling.

Of course, I was shocked and delighted, but once I stopped screaming and jumping and thanking him, I found out what had happened: Evidently no one would pay the colt's (or his mother's) vet bill, so Michael called the vet and arranged to pay it, in exchange for Panama.

And that's how I first got Panama. He lived on my brother-in-law's pasture until September of 2007, when we finally brought him to the Denver area and had him stabled nearby.

This blog is not only the story of a very lucky rescue horse, but also about the day-to-day life of owning a horse.

My horse rescue story: Part 1

This blog is about horses in general, but mostly about my own horse rescue story.

Panama's story starts — at least for me — on Memorial Day weekend of 2005. While my husband and I were visiting his family in the country, my brother-in-law's neighbor had two new horses delivered: a 10-month pregnant mare and her 11-month-old colt. The neighbor was trading one of his other mares for the pregnant one, and had paid some money for the colt.

Unfortunately, the backyard breeder from whom he was getting the horses had loaded them into a trailer with a large hole in the floor, and the mare was badly injured as a result. To make a long story short, neither the seller nor the buyer were willing to pay $1,000 (cheap compared to what an urban vet would charge) to save her and her unborn foal. I sat with her the entire time, keeping her calm while they argued over her and while we waited for the vet.

Once the mare had been euthanized, we realized her yearling was injured, too. Since the neighbor didn't have a stall to keep him in while he healed, the vet would have to take him back to his place. But before we could do anything, we would have to catch him — this wild colt who had never been handled by humans.

In the end, the vet had to lasso the colt in order to catch him, and then my brother-in-law held him down while the vet went back to his office to get his trailer. I went and sat cross-legged in front of the colt, and he just hung his head in my lap.

It was at that moment that I decided to name him Panama.