Friday, January 29th, 2010 Last day

Day Eighteen - Last Day


-The story of my personal life at internship


This is one of the kitties that lives on the ranch. There are three of them...They're all black...O_O











This is one of the bigger turnouts. Right now in the far corner you can see Cobalt...I like him a lot. He's one of the most sweet horses I've ever met.











Cobalt! Yay! He's so sweet! I don't even know how to describe him...He's just amazing.

Almost every day I was there I would turn him out so he could go exercise and play. Usually he's with Lilly.








This is Audry, she runs a non-profit, savinghorsesinc.com, and Cobalt is one of her rescue horses. I worked with her almost everyday I was at the ranch.










While grooming and picking hooves I got some Thrush Buster on me...XP Blech.

Well...Just in case I ever get Thrush in my shoe then I'm covered...









This would be the stalls we relocated a lot of the horses too. The mud and rain just got so bad that the horses needed a more dry place to stay.











This is a giant truck full of hay...We feed most of the horses around 2-3pm...They know when we come around, so they make a huge racket. Every. Time. We come.










Some of the horses need supplements, so Audry has to mash them up into this sort of paste thing that they eat. That way they get both the good tasting food, and the not so good tasting but helpful supplements...=]









These are all of the stalls we move horses into, and the area we fed first usually.












This is where the hay is loaded off usually, then we took it and passed it around to other boarders horses and so on.











Cobalt and Lilly running around having a good time.



-Highlight the most significant personal learning experiences for me at my internship

I would say my most significant learning experience has to be about how some horses are treated. When Audry was telling me about how she saves horses from the feedlot I was very shocked. I didn't know that people auctioned their horses off to be killed for their meat.
She told me about two separate race horses that are at the ranch and how they were both dumped after they got too old to race. They were just sold at auction because no one gave a care after they had gotten older. I mean, come on, horses live for up to around 30 years old, and they were tossed away after they were 8-11 years old just because someone decided they were too old to race.
These horses are so sweet, and really, after getting to know them for a few days, you can tell that all they want to do is please you. They want to run and hang out with their buddies, and when a person is with them they just want attention and praise.

I'm glad there are rescues out there, because none of the horses on the feedlot or in auction about to be on the feedlot, deserve to be there. With the right care and training, they could be amazing companions and lovely riding horses.
All they need is someone who cares about them, and has some time to spend with them.