Remind me why I own animals??

Its been one of those days..

I was awoken early by the sound of "bang bang bang bang"  silence...  "bang bang bang"..  If I had a gun handy I woulda shot Willie!   Periodically over the past few months, we hear him out kicking the stall.  His stall is next to Oakley's and apparently, he is not an Oakley fan!  He doesnt care much for Edgar either, clearly my horse is not gay!  So instead of each horse minding their own business, no they both stand next to their adjoining wall, peering at eachother through the gaps in the boards (remind me to tell you why there are gaps) and Oakley antagonizes, while Willie stands there and bucks/kicks the wall...  This morning it was out of control..  Just Bang Bang Bang, non stop almost..   So out of bed I flew to rearrange horses and goats, isolating Willie to the other side of the barn which I had wanted to avoid doing.  I didnt want to displace the goats but I had to put Willie in the goats stall that used to be Edgars...  See Edgar will share the stall, but Wille will NOT!  ;)

So back to the gaps in the boards.. apparently Oakley is bored!  He's chewing the barn, the tree in his paddock, anything his little mouth can reach...  He's chewed a 2x6 in half and many others are on their way to being destroyed completely.

So my morning continues...  When I walked back into the house and headed to feed the dogs, I see something wrong in the kitchen!  One of the dogs (most likely Ellie) decided that last night was a good night to chew on the linoleum floor and create a "spot" that sticks up and now is going to drive me crazy!  See, we have determined that Derek is allergic to the dogs.. not just a minor thing, but he breaks out in big hives, itching and such.  Doctors say you can be breed specific with allergies so apparently Jack Russells are not a breed he is allergic to.  I think it is mostly Cooper, but it is likely to be Ellie as well.  Russell and Ellie sleep in the bedroom in a crate together, Cooper sleeps outside the bedroom.  Last night we decided that Ellie no longer gets to sleep in the bedroom to help alleviate dog dander and my guess is that decision really pissed her off and she decided to make it known she was not happy!

I was so frustrated with animals this morning that I had a lump in my throat and was on the verge of crying..  I'm glad I had to focus on getting to work because I was so angry at them all that I could hardly stand to look at them.  Poor Russell, although I didnt yell at him, the other 2 got a stern talking to and looked guilty as shit..  Blind old Russell just stood there waiting for love and I was in no mood. 

My fear is that today when Derek gets home he will find a kitchen floor torn up..  I have been anxious all day about it. 

I dont really want Willie on the opposite side of the barn, I want either Oakley or Edgar over there because those 2 horses will share that stall with the goats and its the best stall for the goats...  So I want Willie stalled next to another horse, but I dont want Willie kicking, so I've come up with a solution!!   I'm going to buy/create some kick chains..  Each back leg will have a chain attached to it and if he wants to kick, he will hurt himself!  I not only want him to stop because he is going to hurt himself and destroy my barn walls, I want him to learn it is NOT OK to kick.. period!!   I'm hoping this solution will work.. If not the next step will be to attach a shock collar to him..  no joke!  They now make them for horses for issues like this..  We have a friend with a dog collar so I would borrow his collar and hook Willie up to it.  The only reason that is not my #1 option to try is that I have to be around to punish him, whereas the kick chains are self-punishing whether I'm home or not.

The thought has crossed my mind as the year draws near that Willie had til the end of this year to prove to me he was worthy of keeping..  And if I didnt enjoy riding him, he would be for sale.. let me tell ya, I had to calm myself before doing anything rash this morning as I wanted to put his ass up for sale immediately.  I'm a little suprised the neighbors have not complained yet..  BUT I do like him.. he is a sweet horse and loves people, and he's a pretty solid ride.  He's not 100% perfect for darn sure with riding, he's still a bit of a project and maybe thats why I like him so much as a riding horse, I've always been drawn to project horses.. 

Hunting, speeding and 4H..

Once again, it appears I have been slacking in my responsibilities to my readers.. haha

Edgar is doing really great!  He looks good and is now being leased by the neighbor girl Suzi..  She became a bit attached to him in his rehab-state so her parents are going to help cover some of his feed costs so that we can keep him for her to use this coming year as her 4H project! 

I hauled him down to the fairgrounds this past weekend for a training day, it was a great experience for them both.  Suzi is the one in pink.  She is still learning to ride, I've taken her out to Shannon (my trainer friend) for a lesson and I haul Edgar down to another arena on Friday nights so she can get more ride time in on him.  She is improving, as is he..  He will be a great walk/trot project for her this year.  We are excited (well I know I am anyways).. it is fun watching them together, gives me warm fuzzies inside!  :)

We've discovered that Oakley is incredibly frightened by the smell of duck!!  I think I told the story about my brother sitting on Oakley earlier this summer and Derek held a duck up to Oakley's nose.. and Oakley FREAKED OUT!  And I mean panicked..  He jumped, skipped, humped up, bucked, reared and bolted at the smell...  Well Derek went out to the barn the other day and had his hunting gear on and Oakley again panicked and wouldnt let Derek anywhere near him..  Last night, in his regular work clothes, Oakley still is very spooked by Derek and doesnt want him touching him.  So I think we have created a problem and Oakley has a very negative association with Derek and suprisingly, it is going to take a bit of effort for Derek to get Oakley calmed down around him!  :(  Very odd...

Willie has been up/down lately when I've ridden him.  He HATES to be ridden in his paddock, he's a complete shit..  He will buck and rear, do anything to not have me ride him in his environment.. But then I hauled him out to Shannons and in her arena, he is as good as can be expected...  Suzi was with me when he was being really good out at Shannons and when we got back home, she said "I think something is wrong with Willie".. I was concerned and said "is he acting weird in his stall, what do you see?"  She said "He was being good!"  LOL   

This is Cooper (in orange) with his litter-mate Mace!  Derek and Jim (the breeder) were able to take the boys out together a couple weeks ago, on the hunt for some pheasant down south of Eatonville.  Unfortunately they did not get anything, but the 2-legged and 4-legged boys all had a great time together.  Derek has been taking Cooper out for upland birds in our area, but nothing shot yet.  They went out again this morning, so maybe they will bring home some dinner!! 

Derek & Eric were able to get out together last week and shot quite a few!  There are 11 ducks and 1 snow goose on that truck..  Cooper retrieved all but 3 of those birds.  He still shows reluctancy, but hopefully with more birds over the winter, he will finally get over that BS!  He LOVES to get out though... 

Derek's work has been a bit slow the past few weeks, so he's been taking one day off each week and getting out to hunt.. Its not really by choice, but we figure he had a few vacation days saved up so might as well use them to go hunting since he was asked to take the days off anyways. 

My birthday came and went, fairly uneventful..  :)   Got myself a 2nd speeding ticket this year, the other day!  I was really mad at myself.. because I've been really good about sticking close to the limits, but that day, I saw a beautiful sunrise through the trees and wanted to get past the trees to see it come up, so I was consciously speeding.. the one damn day I purposely speed is the day the police are waiting for idiots like me...  so now I drive with my cruise control on.

We have not progressed any on the adoption issue.  We are a bit in a lull about the whole thing, trying to re-evaluate if this foster-to-adopt route is the way we really want to go..  Not really is our conclusion.  But to avoid paying a really high price to adopt, it might be our only option.  So for now, we are just moving along with life until we feel the pull one direction or another to do something about it.  We are just waiting for that family member or friend of the family type person to magically come along and provide a door for us to walk through on the adoption issue.  ;)