The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread 11

[HairOfTheDog]

Good morning :~)

Last night was the first night the horses stayed naked... I was sitting outside yesterday and there were a couple mosquitos, and we could hear frogs.

It's almost spring!

How's Harley and his new feet? Still got them on? Planning on riding?

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Well, it's obvious around here spring is on the way,,I don't think it's arrived:), but it's on the way:) The farmers almanac says one more batch of snow this year, and it wouldn't surprise me if they are right. We have always gotten our biggest accumulations in March.

Yes the shoes are still on...I've been painting his hoofs every day with some hoof dreesing, Yes I am going to ride today. The farrier said it was OK, but to keep it at 20-30 minutes of easy walking 2 days in a row, then a day off...that's going to be hard 20-30 minutes:), hardly worth the effort of putting a saddle on:) I think today I am going to stay in my arena, that gets pretty boring pretty quick:) I'm hoping when I ride him, I'll be able to tell how he feels about the new shoes:) And it would be nice if tomorrow when I ride, he's not sore, altho only going for such a short time may be the result of that, and not better shoeing. LOL it's all just maybe's and if's:)

Becky

[FrogInABlender]

Good Morning, and thanks for the link to the jammed heels pic. I really like Patty Stiller. She's real good to post nice clearly marked pictures of things that make them easy to understand what she's talking about.

[HairOfTheDog]

You'll be able to tell a lot better once you get started and can probably make some informed judgments then about how he feels and what he can do. Let us know when you're done!

I've got to go to ~town~ this morning to do a presentation at an agency.... ugh.

[FrogInABlender]

Your new girls sure are pretty Texasgal! Such cute little heads. Thanks for sharing them with us.

[MissTargets]

Good Morning.

Cold, windy and snowing. Looks like the rest of the week is going to be bad.

No ads in the "Lost and Found" for the dogs. I am now wondering, being as the condition the older dog is in, that maybe someone did dump them. They all have dew claws and I know most breeders remove them.

[HairOfTheDog]

Oh dear. Poor dogs... poor MT! The old guy is the one I'd be most likely to keep. What 'condition' is he in? The young ones would probably be easy to place if no owner appears and you ran an ad. Are they all pretty nice temperaments?

[FrogInABlender]

Becky, I think his feet look real good now. Hopefully this'll do the trick!

[Beaker]

Hi everyone!

Happy Monday! I was wondering if any of you could give me some links to some online horse selling sites. I'm aware of equine.com, but do any of you know of any other reputable sites?

[FrogInABlender]

I've had friends who've had good luck with AgDirect.com and I've found their search to be very user-friendly.

[Beaker]

Thanks! I remember though that AgDirect doesn't have a lot of Mass listings, but I did bookmark a couple of prospects. I'm at work and doing horse budgeting things instead... I minimize my browser whenever someone is coming. :-p I keep going back and forth between "Ooooh pony!" to "Ahhhh! Money!"
LOL.

[Duchess47]

Good morning,

Sam is doing great. I was out playing with him yesterday. It looks like his legs are straightening up more by the minute.

Doctor released my sister from ICU to home yesterday about noon. Said she was doing great :)

[FrogInABlender]

Good Morning! I had a fairly un-horsey weekend but it was pretty nice. They had a building, home & remodeling show over at the civic center this weekend and since we are (hopefully) getting ready to start building our house we decided that we'd go and check out all the cool new stuff.

But I did manage to get a little bit of horse-related stuff taken care of before before we went. I took Goose to the vets and had his noogies nipped. It was a gorgeous day, but quite cool and windy, so really it was a perfect day for it as evidenced by the line of colts already there to have the same thing done to them.

Sadly, the old blue heeler that was always there to claim the 'goodies' wasn't there because he'd had heart problems and had to be put down just last week. But the other two dogs more than made up for his absence with their own enthusiasm, and here's the pic to prove it. You can see that the boxer-mix is already licking her chops...

Like I say, he was doing a booming business. This is one of two other very nice QH colts that were also there. He was having his wolf teeth extracted in this shot...

[Duchess47]

Good morning,

I was hoping they were just lost, not dumped. I sure hope you can find them good homes.

[Duchess47]

Good morning,

Try http://www.horsetopia.com

[FrogInABlender]

Wow, that's great news all around!

[Duchess47]

Yep - blessings all around. It's a glorious day.

Your pictures would just about describe the scene two weeks ago at the vets. Slick and two of Janelle's colts went in for surgery. :)

[AnAmericanMother]

Conformation breeders do not remove the dew claws -- only the hunting breeders do.

By their looks, those are conformation type Goldens, not hunting dogs (hunting Goldens are small, skinny, and mostly red in color, without the heavy coat.)

Did you take them to the vet to check for chips? My dogs are chipped, it's a good insurance policy.

Next stop: find the nearest Golden Retriever Rescue organization. There are some REALLY good ones, well-funded, that leave no stone unturned to locate good homes and/or return lost lambs to their owners.

[FrogInABlender]

Conformation breeders do not remove the dew claws -- only the hunting breeders do...

Yeah, they do to, or at least some of them. My sister raises show Irish Setters and she has (or at least used to have) all of hers done when they're a couple of days old. BladeRider raises them too and would know for sure.

[AnAmericanMother]

Well, all the show Labs still have their original equipment, and my big girl came from a show breeder with her dew claws intact. And when the conformation people bring their Goldens out to try to put a performance title on them, they have theirs too.

Here's the AKC breed standard for Goldens: "Dewclaws on forelegs may be removed, but are normally left on."

If I were going to use my dog in performance at all, though, I would have them removed at birth. Those dewclaws are bad to catch on things and tear. I keep Shelley's trimmed very, very close for field work. All Miss Ruby has is two tiny white semicircular scars where hers used to be, you have to part the hair to see them.