Responsible pet owners

Regarding my previous post: it isn't only horses who are accident-prone, you know. (Read the comments on the last entry.)

I used to have a few registered Jersey cattle. I didn't have facilities for a grade-A dairy, so I needed something to do with all that milk. I gave some to hogs, mixed with wheat shorts; and I raised Holstein bottle calves from a nearby dairy.

One of my prize yearling Jersey heifers somehow ended up breaking through ice in a 2-foot-deep pond. She couldn't get out, and died before I found her the next morning. We lost one of my Holstein babies in a different pond, another winter.

Another of my favorite heifers obviously was frolicking a little to heartily, ran headlong into a fence, got entangled there, and broke her neck. Cliff had to put her out of her misery.

My beloved Mandy, the dog I had before Sadie, ran across the highway and was killed. Am I irresponsible for letting her run free like the other dogs in this neighborhood? Probably so. She's the reason I won't turn Sadie out now, although Sadie has enough pent-up energy for a dozen dogs.

And now, about horses. The horse I owned a few years ago had a habit of pawing the woven-wire fence and tearing off his shoes. Finally Cliff put electric wire inside the woven wire so Pleasure Boy wouldn't get close enough to paw it. Our neighbor kept a horse on our property at the time; that mare would paw the woven wire fence, get her foot caught, and stand patiently until somebody came to set her free. It was a potentially dangerous situation for her, but thank God she never panicked.

We have barbed wire fences; we also use electric fencing around our hay fields. I'd love to have fancy, horse-proof fencing all over our place, but we don't have that kind of money. The local Tennessee Walking horse breeder tells me, "Well then, you shouldn't have horses."

No, of course not. And people who can't afford children shouldn't have babies. But then, I wouldn't be here, if my parents had followed that rule. Nor would my kids.

We have caverns on this place in which you could set our two-story house and not see the roof. Some of the banks of those caverns are straight down. We've had cattle get down in them before, and they had to be helped out. There's no practical way you could fence around all those caverns, dangerous though they are. I'm including an overhead view of our place (click on the picture to make it big, then notice the thin red line. That more or less shows the boundaries of our 43 acres). All the wooded areas you see, although you can't tell it from the air, are huge canyons.



If we had to fence all our property, then fence off the ditches... well, it isn't feasible. We do the best we can with what we have.

I take good care of my horses: I worm them regularly, have the farrier out often, get their vaccinations and have Blue's sheath cleaned when needed (sheesh). I do the best I can with what I have. Blue is my childhood dream come true, and I love him. We either have to take some risks with our horses, or not have horses at all.

And hey, the horses here get better care than 90% of the horses I've seen around the countryside.

(I hate debates, so this will be the last I have to say on this subject; but that's just me.)