Smokey

Weight doesn’t affect the face of a lot of horses, but it definitely has his! His jaw has filled out so much. Swift healing vibes coming his way!
 
Good news first. He's continued to change and his face now has a real spirit, stallion of the cimarron vibe to it. Lol.
Last week was the first time when he did the cute droopy bottom lip thing when I scratch his neck.
And I know his voice now. He's been so quiet but he has started nickering. It's low and raspy. Kind of like what you'd imagine from a Smokey.
Face changes attached
he looks so much more relaxed and content. love the droopy lip. I remember it took Tintin our donkey about a year to bray and then it was like tuning up bagpipes till he got it sorted
 
Bleh. Foot is still sore but today we also got a case of Choke . The only reason we didn't end up with a huge vet bill is that the vet couldn't come out for several hours and by that time he was better so we were able to cancel.
When he's sick he's however so very cuddly and wants to just be close
 

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Why does he keep forgetting?
Work has been very busy so we haven't been able to handle him much but I do feed him twice a day etc.
Still just a few weeks of not working with him and he guess back to being nervous about being handled.
Does that seem weird? Is that normal?
My daughter has been very involved in after school stuff and so he's back to walking away from her. Of course that's no fun
 
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I don’t think they forget but when they’re anxious it takes a long long time of repetition for them to learn not to be anxious about it anymore. You’ll get there.
 
It's wet here and he loves to roll so his 6 months update looks a bit messy but you get the idea.
He's gone through a few personality changes. It will be interesting to see who he ends up being next year.
Initially he was very meek and terrified. He just expected to always be in trouble and something bad would happen. To be fair he really did have scars all over so one way or another bad things did happen to him even if they were just accidents.
Then with a little more weight on her went through a spicy phase where he loved to be a drama queen and give us a run for our money.
Leaving him behind whenever he wouldn't let us catch him was the right approach.
He's easy to catch now and he wants to be part of things. He's still easily startled at times. Still a little headshy. But for the most part he expects good things to happen now and he comes in from the back pasture and wants to join us to see what's going on.
He's actually become more tolerant of hugging and kissing and loving on him than even Minnie at times.
He fits in well. Those two are two peas in a pod with Minnie being the clear leader.
I think he's happy here
 

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I knew he would thrive with you and it's clear that he has. He looks so much more switched on, and calmer, too. He's a lucky boy to have found a good place at last.
 
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I knew he would thrive with you and it's clear that he has. He looks so much more switched on, and calmer, too. He's a lucky boy to have found a good place at last.
I think that's his “i know I'm a good boy" face. In the beginning he seemed to think he always was in trouble and punishment was coming.
Having Minnie be so attached to me probably helped convince him good things are to be expected here to be honest.
 
Sadly the chemical burn from eating the poison weed has healed hardly at all. He's very fluffy for winter right now so it's covered by more hair.
But as for the actual scar/lesion I would have expected more healing by now
I've never seen it in horses though. The weed is very common and we even have it in my place.
But the sticky sap is so stinky that even the goats won't eat it. Horses hate it unless they're starving. So mine never had any ill effects from it.

I also terrified him with my attempt to take a photo. I had the camera in my hand and raised it for the picture taking and he freaked out and ran out of the barn. Not too far though and he let me approach and pet him.
He was still worried about the phone. I let him sniff it and he was very brave and then I brushed him with my phone. And that's how I managed to get today's photo.
Wish they could talk!
 

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He's so furry!

It is a shame about the burn. There are various things you can try for chemical and keloid scars, like vitamin E oil, which might help him. But as long as it doesn't hurt I think it will make him look handsome and hard!
 
He is so furry!
Did I mention that the last owner called him Scar?
We changed it because he's such a scarety cat that a 'hard' name like scar just didn't feel right. Lol

I know I whine a lot about him still being so easily frightened and think I should explain why it's such a big deal to me.

Minnie came to me as a fairly unhanded yearling. So the having to gain trust made sense and now she's just the cutest.

DJ came to me after he came off the race track at around age 6.
I know race track can be very hard on horses but from his behavior I would guess he was actually treated very well there. He had an affinity for men. Very trusting and friendly to anybody but especially male visitors.
DJ having that attitude of expecting good things from everybody made me feel very safe because when he startled it was about typical horse stuff and just a quick startle and back to carrying on.

Both DJ and especially Minnie would look to me if something worried them.
Smokey is the opposite. Anything I or other people do worries him much more than a grocery bag or rabbit in the bush.
 
Lol. The difference is that before he was happy to have Minnie be the lead. He felt safer to follow. Wherever Minnie goes there he goes. Now he knows the drill.
He still checks on her to make sure she is coming though
 
Smokey came down with laminitis. We usually don't even have grass but recent rains made some grass grow and hand grazing has been our bonding thing.
I wonder if the little bouts of lameness here and there were early signs of things to come rather than just tender feet from having had such overgrown hooves.
The good parts are that our whole place is soft sand and no grass in the area they live in.
But it's very scary.
It always felt too good to be true to end up with a cute boy like Smokey so easily.
I think the year of starvation and toxic plants probably does leave some issues behind.
He got a dose of NSAIDs and is resting. I guess that's all we can do.

I have no experience with laminitis at all. What does that mean for the rest of it?
No more hand grazing. No more molasses cookies?
Where do we go from here?
 

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