This!

It's only Wednesday and it has been a fabulous week.. THIS is why I moved to Arizona!!

On Monday, I went and saw my little race horse...



Had to check me out a little bit before he would come out from behind mom.



Those legs!!!

Lil Rock is ALL stem!! LOL

He's got a pretty rocking bod too, but I just couldn't get any decent profile photos. Scamper is super protective of her baby and kept inserting herself between me and Rock. Nasty old hag!! She did relax after I spent some time brushing her, so in time, she will be fine. Just a lot different than Beretta, or even Sassy. Neither of those mares gave a 2nd thought to me checking out and handling their babies. I can already see the difference in the baby's attitude too. Rock is most definitely not as friendly or as outgoing as my Firewater Fooler babies. Oh well, he will come around. He was curious about me and did come up and I let him sniff me all over, but he was not allowing any reciprocating touches. LOL.

After I visited those two, I got to do lunch with Firewater Fooler's owner and her summer intern. What a great kid!!

A was telling me about the fiasco her rodeo trip to New Mexico was. I guess there were PETA protesters at the Taos rodeo and apparently, in order to protest the 'abuse' of rodeo animals, they thought it was appropriate to throw bottles at the contestants's horses. :-o.

I hate those stupid PETA/HSUS/Animal Rights people so much!! Stupid, F*&%ing morons!! They all deserve to be punched in the face...with a sledgehammer!!!!!!!!!

Nevertheless, we spent a good couple of hours catching up and laughing our butts off.

On Tuesday, I returned a borrowed trailer to Cindy D.'s neck of the woods and got to do lunch with my bestie!! More catching up and much laughter. I had kind of forgotten how enjoyable human company can be.

The heatwave has broke and we have returned to 'normal' summertime temps for the valley. 103-105*...It feels fantastic!! Don't believe them when they tell you there is no difference in how 'hot' feels once it gets over 100*. There is a HUGE difference between how 105 feels and 115 feels.

With the return to normal, we can start going back to the lake. I mean, it's just not safe to take horses when it's as absurdly hot as it was.

I met up with A and her intern again and Shooter and Jet got to go for the first time...



I was pretty sure Shooter would be okay with it. In fact, he was more than okay...He LOVED it!!

Once he got his feet wet, he started dragging me IN to the deeper part. LOL

Shooter has really been struggling lately. He is hiking his injured leg again and the skin around the scarring is breaking open. Of course trying to take weight off of that hind leg puts more weight on his opposite front leg and he has been really lame in the front again too. I figured the water therapy would help take some of the inflammation out of his legs. At this point, I don't really know what else to do. Shooter is obviously uncomfortable. He's crabby with everyone else and just swarms me, hoping I can make him feel better.

I really hate the thought of it, but I cannot, in good conscience, keep him alive if he is going to be living in constant discomfort. I really don't want to think of having to put him down. I love this big boy with all of my heart. Actually, it was my love for him that prompted me to save him in the first place. If any other horse had been injured that badly, with as poor a prognosis as his was, I would have just put them down at the time of injury. But it was Shooter!! And I just couldn't put him down without trying to salvage him.

I think the water therapy will help though. He was walking lots better afterward and loaded in the trailer without hesitation. I'll probably take him every day for 3-4 days and then take him every other day for a couple weeks and see if it helps him. Once I can get my finances regrouped after Rock's veterinary care bill, I will get Shooter's stifle re-injected and hopefully that will help as well.

As for my other nutcase...Jet...

He was not sure AT ALL about any of this. He wouldn't even unload from the trailer at the lake. I had to unload Shooter first and then it still took a good long bit before Jet decided to get out.

When it was time to take Jet to the water, he had finally calmed down a bit and was t.r.y.i.n.g. to be a good boy. I feel bad for this horse. He really, really wants to be a nice horse. But he definitely has 2 voices talking to him. An Angel on one shoulder and the Devil on the other. You can literally see him having conversations with himself. When the Angel is talking, he looks up and kind of tips his head to the side. When the Devil is talking, he looks down and his neck gets real tight and his nostrils flare. To get along with him, you have to let him have that conversation in his head. So far the Angel has won all of the battles, but if a person was ever to force him while the Devil was doing the talking...It would not be a good outcome.

I realize, at this point, that Jet is never going to change. He is just mentally fragile. I was supposed to take him back to SD, because my brother wanted to use him on the ranch, but once I started working with him again, I just knew that was not going to work. My brother likes a horse he can just go catch, saddle up and go to work on. Jet isn't that kind of horse. He tries awful hard to get along with me because he knows and trusts me. It's taken years to obtain that. I don't usually go for all of that mumbo-jumbo about 'building trust' crap that all of the snake-oil clinic trainers sell to people...but in this horse's case...Trust is the only thing that keeps him from overreacting to e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. LOL. He just doesn't process and retain like a normal horse. I just keep exposing him to everything I can though and in spite of having to have that conversation with himself, he generally ends up handling everything pretty well, so I keep thinking there is still hope for him.

I'll be heading to the lake daily with horses now. Luckily it is a very enjoyable 'chore'. :-)