Our Animals
October, 2007
Teddi, a dwarf mini. She has wobbly front legs, an undershot jaw, rounded ears, her head is too big and she is almost blind in one eye. Her personality? "I want what I want when I want it!" She is three. The vet did not expect her to live this long, but she seems to be doing very well. Papa, a true mini and no relation to Teddi. He is about 37 or 38 years old now and in great health! Very affectionate old man. Cameo. When she arrived two years ago she was hundreds of pounds underweight and the vet was not sure she would live. She has too few back teeth to chew her hay, so she gets soft food and today she is looking great, although her age -- about 32 years -- is starting to take its toll. She's calm, affectionate, and easy. And BIG. She's a Morgan. This is Star. She arrived this past summer and had been advertised as a children's riding horse. No way! Her extended front leg has a badly messed up knee, her right back hoof is a club foot and she has a heart murmur. She is a Mustang/Welch Pony mix and wary, but affectionate. She is about 16 years old. She is in our neighbor's pasture area here. Cookie is our newest. The vet asked us to take her. She is almost an albino (what you see on her is dirt -- she loves to roll). She has bad eyesight and poor hearing and startles easily. The other horses attack her so we have to keep her separate. She loves to lick, like a dog! Her left back leg is in the picture below. She's about 20.
Cookie's left hind leg was never taken care of after some kind of accident and what you see here is an awful lot of scar tissue, raised up (called 'proud flesh') and making it hard to move that leg. We have been slathering lanolin on it and wrapping it with 12 hour breaks in every 48 for air to get at it. Slowly but surely the old scar tissue is sloughing away. She was galloping in her pasture area for the first time a few days ago. Our two Nubian wethers (fixed male goats), Shar (Prince Shar) and Funny (Funfetti), two of quadruplets raised by another family and named by their children! They are 3 years old and fun and loveable. They keep all wild blackberries and unwanted shrubs at bay. When they get out, they go straight for the strawberries. Our laying hens. The white and gold ones are Buff Orphingtons and the black and the grayish one in the middle are Americanas (lay green eggs). This is King. He is a shepherd/lab mix and only six years old, but his arthritis is so bad in his back hips, spine and legs that we may not be able to keep him around for more than a few more months. He picks up things I drop for me and barks at hot air balloons (he knows if he barks enough they will go away, and they always do...). We love him. Here is Dusty. His full name is Gold Dust because of his color. He was being trained as a wheelchair dog and was doing outstandingly -- until we realized that this dog gets carsick at the drop of a hat. But he's a wonderful pet and a lot of fun and now....all ours! Dusty will be three next spring.
And this is Riko. He has been ours for about 24 hours now. He is a beagle/Australian shepherd mix and has enough energy for about six dogs! He's a year old and already he and Dusty are wonderful playmates. Riko is going to be very easy to train. He is very smart. One day ago he had never been on a leash and you can see he is already getting the hang of things. By popular demand of three young ladies, we had to get a picture of Charlie Wiggles, our guinea pig. He's either two or three now, I can't remember! Terribly tame and spoiled...Anna is holding him here. Barry's enjoying taking pictures of the animals, so here are the two parakeets! There used to be three but one flew past me and out into the wild blue yonder this past summer. They were named Grace, Faith, and Hope. Hope is gone....! Faith is the aqua male on the left and Grace is the blue female on the right. We hope you all know what those tiny fish called tetras look like. We have five of them and I refuse to put up pictures of them!
