Skipper's Story Part Two

When my husband went back out to see Skip there were a few things he wanted to know.  The main one being is this pony safe to be around our grandchildren who were young, noisy and very busy.  We can't have anything that would be jumpy or bite or at worst kick them when they are in the barn.  He questioned the men quite extensively and asked them to pick up his feet which they couldn't do as he was scared of them.  With two of them they were able to bully him around and at least try and Skipper never struck out at them only tried to get away from them. 


Next he had them harness him up to see if he indeed did drive and how he acted.  They proceeded to put a harness on him that was less then stellar hooked together with baling twine but it did the job.  He stood perfectly still and when they hooked him to the cart, which by the way was something they had rigged up with car tires for wheels, he was the perfect gentleman.


Now this cart had a strange feature.  Right in front of where you sat there was a high piece of plywood nailed to the cart and you had to lean to the side to see where you were going.  The Hubs asked what that might be for and the man said he had a mare that he was teaching to drive and she kicked a lot with her heels flying high by his head so the plywood was to keep him from getting struck.  Sigh........give me strength........


Skip drove beautifully, doing his turns, stops, backing up and paid no attention to the yapping dogs that were running along beside him.  This was looking good.  The Hubs paid the bill and came home to get me.  At that time we had a rather large trailer with a changing room and hooked it up and headed back out to no man's land.  I noticed the shoes were gone and a bit of blood here and there.  Like I said in part one if we had known they were going to tie him up on the ground to get the shoes off we would have had them leave them on and called our farrier to remove them, live and learn.


I was wondering how loading him on the trailer would go.  As all you horse people know that can either go really well or can be a nightmare.  He walked right on with nary a glance back.  All the way back to our house we kept stopping and checking on him and he rode beautifully chopping away on a nice fat flake of hay. This little 11 hand pony in a great big trailer.  I couldn't wait to get him home, fatten him up and give him the love he deserved but had never had.


We arrived home with all the fanfare of the arrival of a new baby with everyone coming out to see him and bringing him a carrot or apple.  We are fortunate we didn't give him a belly ache that first day!  The barn was still in progess but the carpenters had made a temporary stall for him until the real ones were finished complete with a tarp over the top in case of rain.  It was only a week or so and the stalls were finished and I put a nice big bale of sweet smelling shavings in for him.  He looked pretty small in that big box stall with the large window to put his head out but he settled right in happily.


Speaking of the carpenters.  Of course I had told them the tale of where Skippy came from and the life he had led so they kind of took him over as their honorary helper.  I would look out the window and they would be sawing something and he would be right at their elbow watching.  Most horses would spook at the sound of a saw but it didn't seem to bother him at all.


At lunch time they would be sitting around and right there with them would be Skip, I didn't know it at that time but they were feeding him donuts.  No wonder he was right at their elbow!  Not sure that was the best thing for him to be eating but he sure looked forward to them and if they didn't hide them well enough he would sniff them out and eat what was left! They couldn't even put an empty box in the trash as he would go through the trash and find the box and lick it clean.


Finally the barn was finished and the carpenters were gone, no more donuts but lots of carrots were always readily available.  We decided it was time to harness him up and go for a ride.  This almost didn't happen............


Continued...........