The rest of the story..

A few weeks ago I did a post about cold weather
and included a picture of our neighbors horse Copper.

A lot of you thought we should let him run with our horses.

Well, he use to.
For about two months.
Two very long months.

Copper came from a big ranch up North that kept a
lot of roping/barrel racing/all around rodeo horses.
He was a companion horse to some of their big money makers.

Not quite sure what happened, but he and a lot of other horses
were sold at fire sale prices.

Our neighbors purchased him (he is a Pony of America - POA)
and brought him to our house.
Yes, without asking us.

We had, for about a year, boarded a horse
for them named Sky. She was very old and rarely ridden.
About a month previous to this we/them made the decision
to have her put down. It was tough to have to do, but necessary.

I guess they figured since they had boarded Sky with us,
Copper could board here too.

Copper had been low man on the totem pole for all
the years he had been running with those big Quarter Horses
and he comes here with our 2minis, pony, yearling and 1horse.
What do you think happens?

He decided to kick our little herd's butt!

Gypsy was injured the first day when he nailed
her in the right knee, so we had to move
her and Jenny to another pen.

That left Scotch and the minis with him and
he beat the crap out of them so bad and ran them
through fences every day.

We put Copper in with our cows after a few days of this.
Do you think that worked?
Nope.

The cows got horrible gashes in their heads and
were not able to eat at all.

Of course we informed the neighbors of all this and
at first they though it was funny. Really they did.

After three weeks of this kind of behavior we told the
neighbors to find somewhere else to board him.

They thought we were being rediculious, saying that's what
horses do to determine herd hirearchy.
That is true and if it decreased in intensity and no one
was getting seriously hurt I might have let it run it's course.
But he seemed to be getting meaner all the time.
Jumping the cow fence and getting in with Scotch and the minis
just to have another go at them.

Copper was a gelding, but may have had a retained testicle
that made him behave like a stallion.
Or maybe not, who knows since he reportedly didn't act that
way at his previous owners place - or did he?
We'll never know for sure.

Took the neighbors a month or so to find another
place for him. He was low man on the totem pole with
big Percheron horses knocking him around at the new place.
He was there for two years while the neighbors put up
fence on their land.

Now he looks longingly over the fence towards our place.

Occasionally I'll feel bad for him till I remember how
horrible it was having him here.