getting up to date (4)...

Day four:

Today was relatively uneventful. I have started working on longing Sabumi to the right. John helped me with this, leading him on the near side at a walk. Sabumi seemed OK with it, but for now I took him off the longe line at the trot.

On to a more important issue. As I mentioned before, the place we are boarding, Osage Stables, is terrible. It is in town, cheap, and the only place we could find with less than a 30 minute drive. The horses are in poor condition and the facility is just as bad. There are overgrown weeds everywhere, piles of junk, rusty sheds, and a tick infestation. John and I had a collective eleven ticks in one day. Sick. The real problems started happening for me when I began talking to Raymond about horse health. I was concerned about his paint stallion who was ill. He hadn't had a vet out. I came out the morning of the 11th and the horse was down. I decided to take Boomer out of his stall so that he didn't have to stare at a dying horse all day. It was then that I started talking to Raymond about deworming horses and vaccinating them. He pretty much told me that you can never know if dewormers work and that he doesn't believe in vaccinations. Add that to his comment about not needing to pull a coggins (already done) on Boomer because he "looks healthy" and I had just about had enough. I let Raymond know that I would be leaving for the afternoon and if anything was going to happen to the down horse, to please move Boomer so that he wouldn't have to witness it. Raymond laughed this off and said he would.

I came back that afternoon to do the night feed and the down horse was gone. Boomer was pacing in his stall, drenched in sweat.

We moved the next day.