Home At Last...

The next morning I called the lady and asked if it would be okay if I picked up Sammy that afternoon. She agreed but again wouldn't be home. I arrived with my trailer and proceeded out to the field to halter Sam. As she did the day before she came to me and dropped her head into my chest. I haltered her and lead her out of the field to the trailer.

Sam has been on a trailer one time in her life when she was 4 months old. I carried her to a county show for the weanling class, and nothing else has ever been done with her. No other training, NOTHING. When we got to the trailer, she stretched her neck to look in and then turned to look at me. I touched her shoulder and told her it was just like last time, but his time you are coming home. It was as if she understood my words, because she walked right up into the trailer.

Finally, she is home and the task of bringing her health back must begin, albeit very slowly. She is so much like her mother it is scary. Those same soft almond shaped eyes, the same shape of her head, the same small muzzle.

I gave her a stall with lots of bedding for her bones. She doesn't have much to pad them with right now, as she only weighs 580lbs. I gave her some hay and she practically inhaled it. A clean bucket of water, salt block, and soaked grain and beet pulp. The strange thing is she didn't drink, lick the salt or eat the mash. The vet prescribed 6 small meals a day and increasing grazing time by 5 minutes a day until her weight picks up and she is more used to eating regularly again.

Right now she isn't sure what to do with something in a bucket, so we will watch and see if she eats.