As you might have gathered from my "Vitals" column over there on the right, we have a lot of animals. And many of them were given to us.
Most of our chickens were given to us by neighbors.
Our meat rabbits were given to us by a neighbor.
Samson was given to us by a teacher at the school.
And now, from another teacher, we have . . .
Everyone, meet Bill.
Bill is a Welsh mountain pony. I think of ponies as stocky, furry little things, but Bill really just looks like a miniature horse. He belongs to the teacher's son, who used him for his very young daughter a few years ago.
We weren't sure how much training Bill had. Turns out, almost none.
He may have been fine for leading a little child around a few years ago, but it's clear that whatever training he had then has been forgotten. It took A. fifteen minutes to catch him in the smaller paddock just to get a halter on him. It seems a safe bet that he's been running around in a pasture for the past few years with no contact with a halter, much less a saddle.
Luckily, he seems to have a very good temperament, which will help. Because A. is going to have to train him. And Cubby is going to have to ride him during the training. Bill is too small to carry A. around, so Cubby is our most experienced rider Bill can comfortably carry.
Cubby and Calvin are happy to have a more lively horse to ride, because geriatric Samson pretty much tops out now at walking a quarter mile to the post office with Poppy on his back. He's a great first horse for a small child, but the older children are ready for more of a challenge.
And I think Bill is just the pony for the job.
6 comments:
Bill is beautiful! How does he get along with Samson? Are you still keeping Samson?
Linda
“Gifted animals”… you got me! I thought your blog would be about really smart, talented i.e. gifted” animals! Love reading your family adventures!
Linda: Oh yes, we're keeping Samson. So far they've only sniffed each other with a fence between them, because Samson tends to be aggressive with other horses. But he didn't try to bite or anything. We're hoping Bill won't seem a threat to Samson because he's so much smaller.
Anonymous: Ha. I thought about that possible interpretation after I wrote the title, but was too lazy to change it. The dogs are pretty smart, but I don't think any of the other animals are Mensa material.
I grew up thinking "pony" just meant "young horse", same way "cub" means "young bear". Now I think I know that pony means miniature horse, but does it also mean young horse? For people who actually have horses, do they have different words to mean young vs. small breed?
Anonymous: An actual pony is physically different from a horse. There are literal miniature horse breeds, which look like a shrunken-down version of a full-size horse and are not just young horses. Ponies are different. Ponies tend to have shorter legs, bigger heads in proportion to their bodies, and an overall stockier frame.
All horses and ponies are called foals when they're very young. Young male horses and ponies are colts. Young female horses and ponies are fillies. Older male horses and ponies are either stallions (intact) or geldings (castrated). Older females horses and ponies are mares.
Both Samson and Bill are geldings, it's just that Samson is a full-size horse, and Bill is a pony.
All sizes of people for all sizes of animals.
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