Saturday, February 20, 2010

How Skeletor came to us

Skeletor doesn't know much. He tolerates people and that's about it. When he was born I messed with him a lot. He loved people.
Then, he smacked his head on something and left a nasty owie on his face right about his right eye. This caused him to start being head shy. He was put on meds, and his head was dr'd every day.
At this point my ex and I split. Skelly was still 'on his momma' and my ex wanted his momma so Skelly stayed with him. At this point though, he wasn't named Skeletor...his name was Joker. He was always running around the pasture bouncing around the other horses. He reminded me of a court jester from medieval times....trying to make everyone laugh.....so...Joker it was.

A while later I learned he'd been sold to a mutual friend. I was happy about that. Friend was a good guy......

We learned a short time later he'd been 'sold' 2 more times.....the 'middle' guy starved him to death. the last people to own him before us tried to put weight back on him. As we all know it comes off much quicker than it goes on. We didn't know who he'd been sold to. One night at a friend's house we got talking about horses. They started talking about their paint colt. One thing lead to another and before I knew it, they were talking about Joker. They called him something else...but dun and white paints are not very common...and after putting 2 and 2 together....I figured out it was Joker. They told us where he was...and the next day we drove by to see him as it wasn't far from our house. They'd told us the person they got him from didn't feed him....but I wasn't prepared for how bad he really looked.....it was terrible. Every rib visible...hip bones sticking out like skyscrapers on a city skyline.....the eyes that once held a twinkle of mischief were dull and lifeless. I started crying.
The next day we went with truck and trailer over to the pasture where he was to catch him.
You can't catch him....they said. He's afraid of people.....they said.
A bucket of grain and 5 minutes was all it took to catch him.....imagine...
He won't get in a trailer....they said...we walked him over here.....
Again.....5 minutes, a bucket of grain and some horse savvy and he was in the trailer.
No stress...no chasing him...no smacking him on the butt with a lead rope or lunge whip. He took a cautious step up into the trailer.....waited 5 seconds...and leaped inside. He knew he was going to a better place.
They stood outside the trailer dumbfounded. Jaws on the ground. When DH closed the back gate they started clapping. They were amazed.
Like I was some kind of magician who waved a magic wand and made a halter appear on his head and them made him appear in the trailer.
It was strange.......
So that's how Skelly came to be at our house. And, it should be obvious to all why his name went from Joker to Skeletor.....that's all he was....a skeleton of a horse....it was terrible.

No comments:

Post a Comment