lovinarabs
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- Nov 16, 2006
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On Friday I attended the local sales barn for their livestock auction in hopes of finding a small goat, pygmy or Nigerian dwarf. All varieties of animals came through, including a few goats, but I did not bid. I simply sat on my number. My 7 year old and I were just getting up to go get lunch and I happened to hear, “They’re bringing in a pony.” Well, we sat right back down. See I am known around the area as “the lady that takes in horses nobody wants” and I have a special interest in ponies and miniature horses of course. So we sat down. Although her owner was leading her, she was obviously very frightened and would not move so the auction guys moved in with flags and sticks and started wacking her to get her to move. Then the bidding started. I knew that we were full at our farm and anxiously watched the bidding. No one would bid at first so the auctioneer changed tactics, and prices, and dropped to starting the bidding at $20. Sadly that encouraged the local Amish community to start haggling over the scared and uncared for little yearling filly. I watched as the bidding was raised to $50 and stalled out. At that point two Amish gentlemen were bidding against each other. Please don't think I"m judgmental. Some of my friends are Amish and there are some really nice families in our area. However, I have seen with my own eyes how many of the Amish community treat their ponies. Often the children will jump on their ponies and steer them by reaching up and pulling their ears around. I have seen those same little ponies tied with chains to fence posts in the ditches to eat weeds for survival. I know that not all members of the Amish community treat their horses and ponies this way. Like I said, we actually have several friends who are Amish. But I couldn’t take that chance and let that happen to that poor little girl, so I started bidding. We ran the bidding all the way up to $100 and she was ours. I met the gentleman who had brought her to the auction in the sales barn office. He told me her name was Pony and that she might be timid, but was used to getting gummy worms and jelly beans, ju ju bees and peppermints. He told me where he lived and offered to sell me more ponies, which of course I had to say no to. I didn't know what hubby would say about one! But for the sake of my own curiosity we did drive by his house and saw the pen she had been housed in with two other ponies. They had a tree for shade, but also shared the rusty barbed wire pen with junk cars and auto parts, and old hay wagon and several cows. We also saw the tractor and homemade wooden trailer that she had traveled to the auction house in. She was hard to catch in the sales barn, partly because one of the sales barn workers came in the pen to "help me" with one of the beating stick things. I gave him my dirtiest look and told him to leave us be. Once caught she stood and just trembled, but she eagerly loaded into our trailer and made the trip home. Once home we have had her quarantined as we want to make sure that she doesn’t have anything she would give to the other ponies. She has proven to be very shy and hard to catch, but not in a naughty way. Just scared and unsure of her new surroundings and new people. She gets better each day. It was my husband who noticed that her one paint spot on her body has a very distinct shape. Once he pointed it out, I knew that you would be interested to see it. We're big fans of the story of "Cupid and Arrow". My girls have the book and are begging for the stuffed animals and Breyer models. As you can see, we rescued our own little “Arrow”. My oldest daughter, Liberty has named her, “Liberty’s Saving Grace” or “Grace” for short. I can’t say for certain she will live out her days here. There have been times we have taken in the “unwanted” and recuperated them, trained them and rehomed them. But this little gal is wiggling her way into my heart.
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