There's A WHAT In My Backyard?

*The winner to the Giveaway is announced at the bottom of this blog post!


When I got home from work on Friday afternoon, I went and did my usual routine of feeding the horses, goats and dogs. I went inside to eat some dinner and I debated back and forth on if I wanted to take a nap, or not. The nap won. So I laid down on the couch and snoozed for awhile. I had set my cell phone alarm to go off at 7:30 p.m. During my nap, I woke up to Sadie barking. She was in the garage. Then I heard Bailey growling. He was in the house. Bailey never growls, and I didn't really think anything of it at the time. But he kept growling. I didn't want to get up to check what he might be growling, sleeping seemed more important at the time. I woke up to my alarm and hit snooze a few times. I really didn't want to get up. But realized I better, or I may not be able to sleep throughout the night. I jump up off the couch and walked by the back door. Our back door is almost all glass, it is like a french door, but only one opens. I always look out and check on the horses when I walk by. I didn't see Chance so I grabbed the binoculars and looked towards Chance's pasture. She was in the far right corner. Then all of a sudden I see a horse walking down in between the 2 pastures, where there shouldn't be a horse. I was still extremely groggy from just waking up and at first I thought it was Fritzy, and that she had gotten out of the pasture somehow. Then I realized that Fritzy is not a chestnut and white paint. She is black and white. Oh how I hate that just waking up feeling! I thought I might be dreaming. Then I realized that I was not dreaming and there was really a horse there, but not one of my horses. I grabbed my cell phone, threw on a jacket, ran into the garage, put on my muck boots, grabbed a halter and lead and ran out the door. All the while I am in my pajamas.

I run out to the pasture and the horse is grazing in the long run, the area that is between the pastures where we can close the gates to and let our horses graze. I shut the lower gate, which caused my horses to get all worked up and start running through the mud. The stray horse runs down towards me, which is what I want it to do since I closed the lower gate, but I did not know this horse and I did not want to get run over. But I needed to get up to the upper gate to shut that one. The horse trotted right by me, and I run as fast as these bad knees can carry me and get to the upper gate before the stray horse decided to run back up to the top. I get the gate shut. It's trapped. I am out of breath. I immediately call my OH to tell him what is going on.

"Hi, I'm Paint Girl, what is your name?"



I did not recognize the horse. At first I was thinking it could be the chestnut and white paint that lives behind our house. But that one is an overo with a lot more chestnut then white. The one in my yard was a tobiano, with a lot more white then chestnut. Hmmmm....So I decided to run back to the house and get my camera. If someone didn't come looking for the horse, I would have to post signs that I found a horse, and I wanted pictures. I also might have had to drive through the neighborhood and knock on every ones door to see if they were missing a horse.



I had just finished taking pictures, when I thought I heard my dogs barking. Maybe someone was pulling into the driveway? I started to head back to the house just in case. I didn't make it far when I saw a woman walking over the bridge that goes over the creek to the back of our property. I ask her if she was missing a horse. She said "YES!". She had a halter in her hand.



She had her husband and 8 yr old twin boys with her. She told me that she had just gotten home and saw the gate open. Her horse was gone. Her husband had taken their sons to pick up a pizza, so she called him to tell him he needed to get home right away. Their horse had gotten out and they needed to go find him. When the husband and kids got home, they got in the car and started driving around the neighborhood. They didn't see him anywhere. Her boys were crying in the car. They didn't understand why their horse would want to leave them.



It was their second trip through the neighborhood when one of her boys saw their horse on our property. I believe at that time, the horse had come down to the lower gate and that is why they saw him. They were so happy that I had locked him up in our pasture. They were so worried about him. He has had some hind leg issues and they are getting x-rays this week to see what is going on. She was hoping that he didn't do any serious damage to himself by running through the neighborhood. I asked her what breed he was. She told me he was Saddlebred/Arab and maybe some Paint. She got him when he was 6 yrs old and he is now 15 yrs old. We talked for about 20 minutes about our horses, and her boys couldn't stop thanking me for finding their horse. I told them that he found me and I was glad he came here, because he was safe here until we could find the owner.



Who knows what could have happened if he continued on to another neighbors property, someone that didn't want a horse destroying their property, or dogs chasing him. He could have been hit by a car, which wouldn't be good for the horse or the car driver. I told the horse owner's that I would want someone to do the same if my horse's escaped their pasture's. I would hope that someone would try to catch them or contain them in some way so they wouldn't be running all over the place causing injury to themselves or to someone else.



All in all it was a very happy ending for this family and their horse. They were so relieved that he was okay and very thankful to me for containing him until they found him.

We found the way he came onto our property. The horse's owners live about 6 houses down from us, which is quite a ways since we all have 5 acres. He was probably walking or running down the road, and since he had shoes on, the clip clop caught my horse's attention. They would have whinney'd and the stray horse came tearing up our second driveway and back to the pasture's. He spent some time up by the round pen and going back behind the pasture's. We found many hoof prints and sliding stops from him. So he must have been doing some running around. By the time I woke up and saw him, he was just walking down the fence line of the pasture. My girls must have been running like crazy when this horse came tearing into our yard, and when I first looked outside they were being all mellow, until I came outside, because this is what they looked liked...........



Yep, black mud socks and bellies. I told ya we were getting some serious rain, and the mud is outragous! Poor girls. They really enjoyed their visit with the stray horse though and I think they wouldn't have minded having him around a little longer!

I would also like to announce the winner of the giveaway that I held on my blog. The winner will receive a $60.00 gift certificate to use on any of the csn stores websites! And the winner is..................... Cousin B!!! I will be forwarding your email address to my contact with csn stores and they will email you the gift certificate!! Congratulations Cousin B and thank you all for entering the giveaway!