Animal Update!

Here's yet another summer animal update (if you remember, I did a few of those last summer).

Starting with Buddy. He was sick last week, but now he's fine. It took me a long time to get this picture of him because he kept moving or blinking right before I took the photo. I think my camera was blocking his view of Coale, who was watching behind me. He kept moving his head so he could glare at Coale, but he eventually got annoyed with me for blocking his view, so he just gave grumpy looks to the camera. So yeah, Buddy's good.

The brothers. They look identical in this picture. Well, not quite. Coale got whatever kitty flu bug Buddy had last week on Thursday. Coale recovered in a day and Nono hasn't shown any signs of it himself, so hopefully we won't have any more sick kitties for a while.

The horses are all okay. Last Wednesday, there was a fire at the stables, but no one (horses

or people) were hurt. But 4 acres were burned. Kona was very upset during the fire because it was so close to her pasture. The picture above is pretty recent. It was taken on Monday, or yesterday.  We round pinned Sedona and Kona at the same time. The Sedona was trying to bite Kona for most of it though. Wings moved away in January, and I still need to arrange a day to go visit her.

I haven't seen Teddy for a while now. I know Teddy has a new home with a student from his class (he was a class pet).  It was nice to have been able to pet-sit a class pet who could (and was willing enough too) play with our cats. Hey mom, can we get a hamster?

After trip animal update

Jax came over to play at our house twice since we got back. He's a little bit bigger than before. It was hot outside the first time, and he wanted to run and play fetch the whole day. The second time he came, it was still hot (It's been really hot around here lately). So our solution (we did this both times he came over) was spraying him with a hose. He ran from it, he ran to it, he several doggy shakes, he wiped the water off his fur and on our pants, and he ate the water. After spraying him, his fur was cold and it felt so good when he rubbed it on our legs.

Buddy is as friendly as ever (and when we returned from our trip, a little more clingy then normal). After two weeks in Europe, I had almost forgotten how much more friendly and tolerant Buddy was than other cats. Yesterday, he sat on my stomach while I did a bridge.

The horses have lately been overall good. My horse instructor is out of town for the week, so I'm helping take care of the horses.

One of the other people that helps with the horses sometimes braided Sedona'a mane about a week ago. Later that week, we round pinned all of the horses (Sedona, Wings, and Kona) together. Wings trotted and cantered a little, but when Sedona wanted to zoom past, she would stop and turn sideways so she blocked Sedona's path. We took Wings to the center of the ring and worked the other two. Kona cantered a bit, but Sedona blasted of and went Zoom. She ran (which is faster than gallop) at top speed, snorting as she went.

Here's Kona wanting to eat Wings' grain. This is one of my favorite pictures. She's been doing pretty good. Last week, we gave Sedona and Kona their baths on one of the hottest days. Earlier this morning, I round pinned her and Sedona. She ran around at full speed with her tail up and snorting. Sedona was not running or being helpful in any way, so I moved her to the center and tried to work her again later.

Lately, Kona and Wings have been becoming friends. Here's a picture of them eating together. When we returned them to pasture together at the same time, they walked over to the water together, crossed necks and drank together. Wings pulled back on her lead rope one day and got most of her back out of place. Two chiropractors came (two different times, her back was that bad), and now, she's better. We're walking and trotting her a bit each day to work her back up to lessons.

Motormouth and Sedona both explain to us very loudly how hungry they are until we feed them. When Motormouth sees the car, he crosses the street so he can tell us how hungry he is before Sedona gets the chance. I tried to get an audio of him when he was hungry, to help explain why his name is Motormouth, but it didn't work.

Teddy isn't at our house anymore. He left before we went to Europe, but we'll defiantly watch him sometime over the school year.

Busted!

The Crows

I got Wing's grain and soaked it in a bucket for her when I got to the stables. I left it on the table to soak for a while before she ate it (we do this because Wings is 20 and her teeth aren't as strong as a younger horse's). While I finished up the other chores, the crows found Wings' food. They were all perched around her bucket, eating it. At one point, one was even sitting in it. I shooed them off (not before getting a few pictures!), but they kept coming back. Finally, I put the bucket in the tack room.

Wings

When I went to the mare pasture to feed Kona and get Wings, Wings saw me and headed towards me immediately. Kona followed a bit behind. I took Kona out first to give her food. Wings was not happy that I took Kona out first.

Here's Wings waiting impatiently by the gate for me.

Here's Wings kicking the gate. They're not supposed to do that because it could damage the gate.

Teddy's Great Escape

When I got home, I finally remembered to clean Teddy's cage. I brought one of my sisters in the room with me so she could watch him while I cleaned. When we checked in his cage, Teddy was gone. We checked the whole playroom even though I had a pretty good idea of where he was. Hamsters like to find little dark concealed corners or holes, it makes them feel safe. Whenever I played with Teddy, he often dashed over towards our closet, so I thought if he got out, that would be the first place he would go. 

I was right. We dug through our old halloween costumes and dress up clothes and found him in the back corner of the closet. He chad been smart about his escape. He found an open bag of his food and dragged a bunch into his hidden corner. He must have been working most of the night to escape, burrow through all those clothes multiple times, and start stashing food.

This is how far he had gotten overnight. Smart hamster. His plan was pretty well thought through, he had a safe corner (It was more concealed by clothes so it was dark and smaller), the clothes served as a protection against cats (Fortunately, he was in a room we don't let the kitties in), us, and the air conditioner, and he had plenty of food stashed for when he needed it. He even made his corner pretty close to the open food bag. He only left out one small detail in his plan. He didn't have any water. When we put him in his cage, he went straight to his water and took a long drink. Hopefully he won't do it again.

After his long night adventure, Teddy was tired. When we put him in his clean cage, he snuggled up in the soft bedding and started to fall asleep. You can see how tired he is in this picture.


There were a lot of animals that got busted for doing bad things today. Maybe it's National Cause Trouble Day. If it is, do not tell the kitties. They could top all of the other trouble makers to day. Especially one kitty, Coale. Coale has eaten many lost hair rubber bands, even thread. He also ate part of our Christmas tree and has snuck into our attic. Buddy has walked outside (He's not allowed too), and often goes onto the kitchen counter which he is not allowed to do because of breakable stuff (clumsy kitty and vases don't mix) and puts snot on the windows. NoNo (AKA Noel), has eaten ribbon, thrown it up, and destroyed his kitty bed (by kneading it really hard).

Animal Update

Here's an update on how all the animals around here are doing.

Kitties

Here are the three kitties. Buddy's in the front, Noel's in the middle and Coale is in the back. Buddy turned eight in May and he is still crazy and playful. Noel and Coale turned six in April. Noel is a pretty kitty and Coale is as troublesome as ever

Buddy is my cat. He's the best kitty ever! He's posing in this picture.

Here's Motormouth, one of the stable's mousers. He's a friendly cat, but he's a little weird sometimes. For instance, he buries his entire food bowl if he didn't finish his food so the other cat doesn't find it. He now likes sleeping on the roof of Sedona's stall. He sits on top of the port-a-potty roof so he can see if anyone who feeds him is entering the stables.

Teddy

Teddy is as playful as last summer. I think he's one and a few months old or somewhere around there. This is on of the structures he plays on.  It's made of plastic so when he has an… accident, we can just wash it off.

This is the whole structure. He has a little hidey hole below the yellow castle as you can see him peeking out of in the first picture.

Horses

Sedona is doing great. Her shoulder is better and I ride her regularly for lessons. Her saddle is fixed so now she will canter correctly. Sadly, Masai died last summer in a accident in pasture where he broke his leg.

Kona is doing good as well. Last summer, she had a back problem that confused her and caused her to spook and run non-stop. She had a sore back a few months ago again, but now she's all better. The bay horse behind Kona may be Kira, Wing's daughter.

Here's Wings. She hasn't been sick or hurt since we got her. Her health has gotten a lot better since she came here. It turns out that Sedona and Wings used to be friends and they were Wing's old stables together for a while. When we introduced them, they were already friends.

Running

Today at the stables, we exercised the horses by having them run in the round pin. At first, neither wanted to run although Sedona (the chestnut horse in the front) wanted to bite Kona's (the brown horse with her head sticking in the picture) tail. Then, Kona galloped for a bit while Sedona stood still. After a while, we chased Sedona around until she started to run. After she started running, she didn't stop for a while. In the picture, Kona was running behind trying to keep up.

When we exercise them this way, we do everything both directions. So they walk each direction, they trot each direction etc. In the middle of her run, Sedona suddenly stopped without slowing down. Then, she turned around and took off running in the other direction all by herself. That worked out well for us because it meant that we could just stand in the middle without having to chase them. Sedona knew the routine so well she changed directions all by herself. Kona was pretty happy chasing Sedona so exercised themselves.

Horse helping

Every weekday, I go to the stables to help out with the horses. This is a picture of me cleaning a stall. The horse in the background, is Kona, one of the horses I ride and help care for. She is hanging out in the back of the stall I am cleaning.

This is a me with Motormouth, the cat who follows me around the stables because I feed him (Motormouth is his name because he talks A LOT).

Here is Masai, one of the horses I help out with. I get to ride the horses pretty often, 3-4 days a week. Masai is one of the horses I ride a lot.