Blessing others with my horse

Here I go taking a stab at this blogging of having a horse and how it has helped other people.  This will be on how my two horses have helped other people through things, and how I have helped others.

I am going to start out with our first horse named Sonny.  Sonny, registered Gold Sonny Reed, was a palomino paint horse.  When got him when he was fifteen.  I at first wanted to lease a horse, but couldn't find one to work with my schedule and my daughter, K's schedule.  We had been taking riding lesson for a year and I really wanted K to have one that she rode most of the time.  I was hoping that that would help her with her social anxiety.  I had read that animals did.

Since I worked in retail and that consisted of nights and weekends, in addition with K being too young to drive herself; we found a friend of mine there taking lessons who wanted to lease.  Leasing is where you pay the owner so much money a month to ride a certain number of times a week.  Generally, you use the owners tack and grooming supplies.

During the course of the nineteen months we had him, we had three people leasing him.  One girl had anxiety also and needed to be home schooled.  The others just felt a connection with him and could find a haven from the regular stressful day.

After sixteen months, Sonny was limping severely on his front left foot.  The vet did some digital x-rays and found advanced arthritis.  Sonny got special shoes and a supplement.  After a couple of months, it no longer helped him.  We then made the decision to put him down.  That was a hard day.  K was only twelve years old and was there that day.  She spend time with him until the vet came.  When the vet arrived, we walked him to where they were and K handed the lead rope over to her.  I went up to say goodbye to him afterwards, but it was too hard for K.

Owning Sonny helped K so much that I couldn't believe it.  He helped her more than any treating professional that we had been to could.  K also had such a natural talent with horses.  I didn't want this to end.  Many friends at the stables told me the same thing.  Two months before we put him down, knowing this was going to happen soon; we began the search for another horse.  That was a difficult process as he was still alive; we would compare those horses to Sonny.  After a few weeks, we found one.  She is Un Dun Dee, or Dinah.  A red dun paint/quarter horse.  The story continues in the next post.  Here is a picture of Sonny.