ShinyGreenApple
10-10-2007, 12:25 AM
First, a bit of backstory:
This past February, we purchased a lovely paint/Tennessee Walking Horse colt for rather cheap. Cheap because a) he was nearly two years old and had almost literally never been touched by human hands, though he was kept in a round pen and fed twice daily. And b) because of reason a), he has no negative Coggins test, and no shots. Was this a bit foolish of us? Yes, but we've done it before, and he's been a very sound animal.
We did manage to find a horse trainer that was willing to coax him into her trailer and haul him the short distance to our home. She wasn't happy when she found out that he didn't have his negative Coggins certificate, but did it anyways. When she unloaded the horse, whom we dubbed Walker (yes, after the Chuck Norris character), she went on and on about how stupid his previous owners were and how yes, we got him for a good price, but for a few hundred more, we could have gotten one trained and all it's shots from the organization she's with. It seemed like she couldn't go on enough about her superior knowledge and the thing's she's done. I don't have anything against those who train horses professionally, but this girl was full of herself.
Which means of course that my Dad was instantly enamored and in awe of her. :rolleyes:
Anywho, she drove away. Thanks for your help, but good riddance, ya know?
Fast forward two weeks, and I have gotten Walker, AKA Mr. Elusive (my special nickname for him), to let me put a halter on him, and he would stand still and let us brush him. Not bad, I thought, considering I couldn't get within ten feet when we first got him. However, Dad still thinks he's too skittish and that we should have progressed farther with him by now, despite the fact I told him that you can't really say "X horse will have X number of skills/ground manners within X time limit". He keeps calling the trainer back, whom we shall refer to as Tracy.
"Tracy says this, and Tracy says that", and frankly, me, my brother, and my Mom were all quite sick of hearing about the infinite wisdom of Tracy. Now, since I've been employed with the Beef People, I haven't had a whole lot of time to work with Walker like I used to, but on my days off, I got him used to the idea of picking his feet up for me. He'll even let me toss a blanket over his back without so much as a second thought, and if he's close to the railing on his pen, you can actually climb the fence and lean over so that you're lying across his back.
Dad still thinks we haven't gotten far enough with him. So he starts going on about the wonderful Tracy again, and says that we ought to have her take Walker over to her place to work with him. Walker still has not had any vet work done on him. This is where it hits the fan.
Mom: "She won't do that, he doesn't have his Coggins done and she said she won't have or haul any animal that doesn't."
Dad: "Well I don't remember her saying anything like that."
Mom: "She DID. Why are you calling me a liar?"
Dad: "I'm not. I'm just saying I don't remember her saying that."
Lather, rinse, repeat. Mom's coming close to going Molly Weasley on him at this point. He has a convenient habit of forgetting things that he would rather not hear. (For the record, yes, he IS an SC. A bad one; we don't like going anywhere with him.)
So instead of taking Mum's word for it, he calls up Tracy, who informs him that no, she will not haul or board any animal without a coggins and shots. So then, knowing that we really don't have the funds to burn on a trainer right now, and that Mom thinks miss Tracy is an arrogant little bimbo and would be happy to forget about her, starts telling Tracy the situation, that we can't lead Walker yet, etc. This didn't directly involve me until I hear . . .
" . . . when can you come out? Yeah, my daughter will be here in the morning?"
Oh, hell no. Yes, I will be here in the morning, but I do not want to spend my day off listening to Tracy tell me how stupid I am or how I've been mishandling the horse. So he sets up an appt for her to come out a week from Saturday. She charges $45 an hour. And he says I spend too much money on frivolous things.
Firstly, Mom has already stated she does not like this person. Secondly, I find it insulting because, while I'm no horse whisperer, I have trained them before. Our other horse was raised on the grounds and I'm the one who got her trained to lead/ride/ etc. The first horse they bought me when I was 13 was an absolute nightmare, but after I'd had her for a few months, she had settled down considerably. Seeing as how Dad is an over the road truck driver and only home once every two weeks, at best, I'm not exactly sure why he was on the phone with this woman, saying things like -
"Yeah, I've gotten him to pick up his feet. I can walk in the pen and pet and brush him . . ."
*insert enraged fit of profanity here*
And he still doesn't understand why Mom is upset, as he says that "Not remembering something and not taking your word for what really happened does not mean I'm saying you're a liar!"
Does this make sense to anyone else? :confused:
We're just uber frustrated right now. Mom's going to call lovely Miss Tracy tomorrow and cancel the appointment she made.
Also, there was a bag of wheat in one of the barrels in the shed that Dad decided would be good to feed to Walker. One problem, the wheat has been sitting in there for over a year. He says that doesn't matter, and gave him some anyways. Lo and behold, it wasn't much of a surprise (for us anyways) when we went out this morning to find Walker stumbling around like he's drunk, and can't even keep himself from bumping into the sides of his corral. That's right. The. Horse. Is. Drunk. Hopefully being a little tipsy is the worst thing that he'll suffer from eating year-old grain ><
Thanks to anyone who's read this far. I'm really not sure what to do, as this horse thing is only the surface of a myriad of similar things that have been going on. *sigh*
And not that it matters, perhaps, but the horse isn't even his O_o My 15 year old brother is actually the one who wanted to buy Walker, so they used some of his savings, plus the money that they get on their tax return for him.
This past February, we purchased a lovely paint/Tennessee Walking Horse colt for rather cheap. Cheap because a) he was nearly two years old and had almost literally never been touched by human hands, though he was kept in a round pen and fed twice daily. And b) because of reason a), he has no negative Coggins test, and no shots. Was this a bit foolish of us? Yes, but we've done it before, and he's been a very sound animal.
We did manage to find a horse trainer that was willing to coax him into her trailer and haul him the short distance to our home. She wasn't happy when she found out that he didn't have his negative Coggins certificate, but did it anyways. When she unloaded the horse, whom we dubbed Walker (yes, after the Chuck Norris character), she went on and on about how stupid his previous owners were and how yes, we got him for a good price, but for a few hundred more, we could have gotten one trained and all it's shots from the organization she's with. It seemed like she couldn't go on enough about her superior knowledge and the thing's she's done. I don't have anything against those who train horses professionally, but this girl was full of herself.
Which means of course that my Dad was instantly enamored and in awe of her. :rolleyes:
Anywho, she drove away. Thanks for your help, but good riddance, ya know?
Fast forward two weeks, and I have gotten Walker, AKA Mr. Elusive (my special nickname for him), to let me put a halter on him, and he would stand still and let us brush him. Not bad, I thought, considering I couldn't get within ten feet when we first got him. However, Dad still thinks he's too skittish and that we should have progressed farther with him by now, despite the fact I told him that you can't really say "X horse will have X number of skills/ground manners within X time limit". He keeps calling the trainer back, whom we shall refer to as Tracy.
"Tracy says this, and Tracy says that", and frankly, me, my brother, and my Mom were all quite sick of hearing about the infinite wisdom of Tracy. Now, since I've been employed with the Beef People, I haven't had a whole lot of time to work with Walker like I used to, but on my days off, I got him used to the idea of picking his feet up for me. He'll even let me toss a blanket over his back without so much as a second thought, and if he's close to the railing on his pen, you can actually climb the fence and lean over so that you're lying across his back.
Dad still thinks we haven't gotten far enough with him. So he starts going on about the wonderful Tracy again, and says that we ought to have her take Walker over to her place to work with him. Walker still has not had any vet work done on him. This is where it hits the fan.
Mom: "She won't do that, he doesn't have his Coggins done and she said she won't have or haul any animal that doesn't."
Dad: "Well I don't remember her saying anything like that."
Mom: "She DID. Why are you calling me a liar?"
Dad: "I'm not. I'm just saying I don't remember her saying that."
Lather, rinse, repeat. Mom's coming close to going Molly Weasley on him at this point. He has a convenient habit of forgetting things that he would rather not hear. (For the record, yes, he IS an SC. A bad one; we don't like going anywhere with him.)
So instead of taking Mum's word for it, he calls up Tracy, who informs him that no, she will not haul or board any animal without a coggins and shots. So then, knowing that we really don't have the funds to burn on a trainer right now, and that Mom thinks miss Tracy is an arrogant little bimbo and would be happy to forget about her, starts telling Tracy the situation, that we can't lead Walker yet, etc. This didn't directly involve me until I hear . . .
" . . . when can you come out? Yeah, my daughter will be here in the morning?"
Oh, hell no. Yes, I will be here in the morning, but I do not want to spend my day off listening to Tracy tell me how stupid I am or how I've been mishandling the horse. So he sets up an appt for her to come out a week from Saturday. She charges $45 an hour. And he says I spend too much money on frivolous things.
Firstly, Mom has already stated she does not like this person. Secondly, I find it insulting because, while I'm no horse whisperer, I have trained them before. Our other horse was raised on the grounds and I'm the one who got her trained to lead/ride/ etc. The first horse they bought me when I was 13 was an absolute nightmare, but after I'd had her for a few months, she had settled down considerably. Seeing as how Dad is an over the road truck driver and only home once every two weeks, at best, I'm not exactly sure why he was on the phone with this woman, saying things like -
"Yeah, I've gotten him to pick up his feet. I can walk in the pen and pet and brush him . . ."
*insert enraged fit of profanity here*
And he still doesn't understand why Mom is upset, as he says that "Not remembering something and not taking your word for what really happened does not mean I'm saying you're a liar!"
Does this make sense to anyone else? :confused:
We're just uber frustrated right now. Mom's going to call lovely Miss Tracy tomorrow and cancel the appointment she made.
Also, there was a bag of wheat in one of the barrels in the shed that Dad decided would be good to feed to Walker. One problem, the wheat has been sitting in there for over a year. He says that doesn't matter, and gave him some anyways. Lo and behold, it wasn't much of a surprise (for us anyways) when we went out this morning to find Walker stumbling around like he's drunk, and can't even keep himself from bumping into the sides of his corral. That's right. The. Horse. Is. Drunk. Hopefully being a little tipsy is the worst thing that he'll suffer from eating year-old grain ><
Thanks to anyone who's read this far. I'm really not sure what to do, as this horse thing is only the surface of a myriad of similar things that have been going on. *sigh*
And not that it matters, perhaps, but the horse isn't even his O_o My 15 year old brother is actually the one who wanted to buy Walker, so they used some of his savings, plus the money that they get on their tax return for him.