superted1989
Well-Known Member
Sadly, today, we lost our beautiful Staffy, Della. She was 5 days off her 14th birthday and has been the most perfect family dog. Her back legs had 'gone' earlier in the summer but, despite medication, she was starting to be in pain and was falling a lot. We'll miss her a lot 
Rant - (will try to keep it short).
Whilst at the vets, a good friend of mine brought her dog in for his meds check up (he's young but epileptic and blind!). I haven't seen her for a couple of weeks, poorly dog, school holidays, showing etc etc. She's due to give birth next Wednesday and has only just started maternity leave.
Anyway, she has 2 horses, mare is 11, and had a well earned reputation of being a bit nuts, and the mare's 4 year old daughter. When she first found out she was pregnant (been trying for a loooooooooong time) the sensible thing was to stop riding and try to loan out the mares from her own yard (her own place, 7 acres, sand school, rubber matted stables, central for hacking and travel and she was happy to provide transport for shows). 4 year old was dead easy, an old, mutual friend appeared, prior to advertising looking for a bit of project to play with as her horse has to slow right down and semi-retire. She's quite happily taken on the 4 year old, done really well over the summer and, in the meantime, bought herself a nice 2 year old for the future. All nicely sorted, except she works shifts so any yard help over the winter will be hit or miss. However, the older mare, with her reputation, proved much harder. We advertised her honestly, but without anybody being able to 'positively' identify her! She's still a challenge, but not dangerous like she used to be (competes a lot, novice dressage, up to 1m jumping and, mostly, okay XC up to about 90cm). She's the type of mare you HAVE to negotiate with.
We had loads of calls from numpties (nice horse, totally free!), but only a few from people with less numpti-ness. Finally whittled it down to 3 who, on paper, had the right experience to come out and try her. Out of those, only one could rise to the trot and steer at the same time, grrrrrrrrrrrr! She was willing to try, so I gave her some lessons, and it started to go well. She was much better at stable management type stuff so things would have been good for this side of Christmas when baby is tiny.
Then, my friend's friend offered to take the mare to her yard (livery on the mainland) whilst her horse is out of action recovering from surgery. Sounded like a win win situation, mare gets looked after, gets to go to much bigger competitions, helps both friends out!
Yesterday, mare was returned home! My friend's mate has been asked to leave her yard! So, she's back home 10 days before the baby is due and my friend is back worse than square one. So angry that's it's all fallen apart at exactly the most awkward moment and winter fast approaching. I doubt that her friend did it on purpose, but, if it was me, I would have tried my damnedest to keep hold of the mare until at least the baby was into some form of routine (friend was paying some of costs too).
Thanks for reading, not really anything anybody can do or say, just a bad day and felt like typing!
Rant - (will try to keep it short).
Whilst at the vets, a good friend of mine brought her dog in for his meds check up (he's young but epileptic and blind!). I haven't seen her for a couple of weeks, poorly dog, school holidays, showing etc etc. She's due to give birth next Wednesday and has only just started maternity leave.
Anyway, she has 2 horses, mare is 11, and had a well earned reputation of being a bit nuts, and the mare's 4 year old daughter. When she first found out she was pregnant (been trying for a loooooooooong time) the sensible thing was to stop riding and try to loan out the mares from her own yard (her own place, 7 acres, sand school, rubber matted stables, central for hacking and travel and she was happy to provide transport for shows). 4 year old was dead easy, an old, mutual friend appeared, prior to advertising looking for a bit of project to play with as her horse has to slow right down and semi-retire. She's quite happily taken on the 4 year old, done really well over the summer and, in the meantime, bought herself a nice 2 year old for the future. All nicely sorted, except she works shifts so any yard help over the winter will be hit or miss. However, the older mare, with her reputation, proved much harder. We advertised her honestly, but without anybody being able to 'positively' identify her! She's still a challenge, but not dangerous like she used to be (competes a lot, novice dressage, up to 1m jumping and, mostly, okay XC up to about 90cm). She's the type of mare you HAVE to negotiate with.
We had loads of calls from numpties (nice horse, totally free!), but only a few from people with less numpti-ness. Finally whittled it down to 3 who, on paper, had the right experience to come out and try her. Out of those, only one could rise to the trot and steer at the same time, grrrrrrrrrrrr! She was willing to try, so I gave her some lessons, and it started to go well. She was much better at stable management type stuff so things would have been good for this side of Christmas when baby is tiny.
Then, my friend's friend offered to take the mare to her yard (livery on the mainland) whilst her horse is out of action recovering from surgery. Sounded like a win win situation, mare gets looked after, gets to go to much bigger competitions, helps both friends out!
Yesterday, mare was returned home! My friend's mate has been asked to leave her yard! So, she's back home 10 days before the baby is due and my friend is back worse than square one. So angry that's it's all fallen apart at exactly the most awkward moment and winter fast approaching. I doubt that her friend did it on purpose, but, if it was me, I would have tried my damnedest to keep hold of the mare until at least the baby was into some form of routine (friend was paying some of costs too).
Thanks for reading, not really anything anybody can do or say, just a bad day and felt like typing!
