Reno Updates? (obscenely image-heavy)

Oh? What's this? YES!

You may or may not recall that when I moved Reno from our old place he was a skinny, wormy mess with some nasty cases of rain rot, thrush, AND white line. There's a long, crazy story behind that. If you're not interested in the whole thing, just skip the blurb below:

_{My boss was a slave-driver, working me over 70 hours a week, and most weekends; I was only paid for time out in the field (pet sitting), not for any of the office work I did nor for any of the times I had to watch the dogs boarded at my boss' house when he was doing a house sit for a client that exclusively wanted him; he also made me work after coming out of anesthesia for minor invasive procedures TWICE, and didn't give me time off to go to my aunt's funeral when she was killed.}

_{Overall, the only time I had to go see Reno was when I paid board on the first of every month. Other than that, it was rare that I even got to see him. The place seemed nice; inexpensive field board with a large group of horses, which would be good for him. The owners and barn workers all knew of my really busy situation, and we had a full-board agreement. I bought feed with the promise that if he started losing weight, they would give it to him. Nope. I managed to make it down for board and spring had started to heat up (70s-80s) and found him still in his medium-weight winter blanket. Took that off, covered in rain rot.}

_{The last straws for me were finding out that someone (never figured out who) stole some of my stuff from the tack room and the VET stopped answering or returning contact attempts to try to get my horse on track with his health. Told them we were leaving, paid for the full month anyway, and the friend who told me about our current place hauled him out for me.}

TL;DR - my boss was a jerk, I never had time to see my horse, and the people I boarded with neglected him.

_{A few weeks after arriving at the new barn}

Fast forward almost a year and a half later and he's much better. No more rain rot (that went away rather quickly, though he still needs to grow back some hair). Took care of the thrush and WLD, and his hooves are growing healthy. The farrier says he has great feet, which is a big compliment for a Thoroughbred. He still has a little worm issue, but we're trying out some things to see if we can take care of that.

Reno's best friend is a big mule (donkey jack x TWH mare) named Jackson. They have some bromance going on and it's freaking adorable, though they give each other some ugly marks. His pony girlfriends recently left to move on to their next little girls, and apparently he really freaked the heck out when Olive got into the trailer to leave. Poor baby. But now that the girls are gone, he's a little more manageable about the separation anxiety.

The owner of the barn is going to be working with me on getting him ready to be ridden again, and supervising a little when she isn't busy or relaxing. The other day, she lunged him and gave me a quick try with it. I'm not good at lunging, but I'll get better with practice. Reno has to learn that mommy isn't a doormat. It didn't go PERFECT, but it was great nonetheless.

_{Gotta say, my brother is an AWESOME photographer.}

And I must give major props to my mom. Despite her major horse phobia, she sat in the grass (a bit away from the action) while we lunged.


Last edited on 2017-05-05 at 09:58:21 by vōs♚

Love the photos (great job to your brother) and way to go you for getting him back up and looking so good!

Aww, he looks so much better and bright-eyed and lively too! I'm sure he's thankful to be a new place where he's doing better. c:

@Blue Kat - Thank you. I'm so pleased with the progress he's made, health-wise.

@River - Lively doesn't even cover it >-> There's more where that freak-out giraffe photo came from XD

Also, I determined that he's shorter than I thought he was. I'm 5'3", which would make me 15.3 hands. He's a few inches shorter than me at the wither, so approximately 14.3 hands. I have a shortcake Thoroughbred XD