Life With Wrangler

If you have been visiting here for awhile, you have already met Wrangler, and may have seen some of these photos already. He is a favorite around here. I went into the pasture for a photo shoot a few days ago and he followed me everywhere, making it difficult to get pictures due to his nose in my lens.

He moved in with us in August 2008. He kept suffering major injuries and his human mom at that time, couldn't deal with him. She called me, we brought him home, and I wondered, "What did I get myself into?"

This was the final straw for his previous owner, when she said 'no more'.

This was the first one and it was almost healed, when........

next he did this to himself. She was never real sure how he was doing it, but he was continually getting torn up.

Over time he healed well. We were finally able to turn him out with the rest of the herd, he made friends and played well with others. No further injuries for a year.

Jerry started riding Wrangler one year ago and we were pleased with his good nature and calmness. This was his first ride and he calmed right down after a couple of little half hearted bucks. What a little sensible sweetie.

Fast forward to this winter/spring. Wrangler is 3 1/2 years old now and getting spunkier. We have plenty of calm quiet times with the herd grazing peacefully together.

And then there are the days when he is full of himself and wants to play, play, play. The other boys will play rough with him. The two mares do not want to have anything to do with the rough stuff and they let him know.

Sometimes things get too rough and we find these kinds of things and can only guess what happened; such as, one wild colt getting to tough with the above 'old boy'.

He loves to run and certainly enjoyed playing in the snow this winter.
Wrangler is a Paint Horse, colored white and brown, not so easy to keep the white parts white.

Wrangler and Cort share breakfast most mornings.

As a three year old horse, he is losing his intermediate incisors. That bottom one was very loose and he was wiggling it with his tongue, just like a child with a loose tooth.

Later the same day the loose tooth is gone and the adult incisor is peaking through the gum. Sorry, I didn't bother washing the grass from his mouth or brushing his teeth before taking pictures.

Wrangler totally skipped the terrible twos, but he has saved it all up and is a feisty, 'full-of-it' three, almost four year old.

He suffered this recently, a short, deep gash to the shoulder. I think he tried to play his silly colt games with a certain mare and she wasn't going to put up with him.

Patched him back together.

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Two weeks ago we drove an hour to meet up with a group of friends for a trail ride. Here are Jerry and Wrangler ready to go. What I did not get a picture of, was Wrangler taking off as Jerry put his foot in the stirrup and dumping Jerry flat on the ground, on his right side, on his damaged shoulder, which promptly and fully dislocated.....

-with a worried crowd of friends and strangers surrounding us, I was able to pop that baby back in. I am getting too used to doing that. Then, our MD friend wanders over and asks, "what's up", he missed the fun. However, did request that we wait next time so he can watch.

SOOOO..... Jerry says he is fine, attempts to climb back on the crazy three year old, and before he can get his second boot in the stirrup, that colt goes into a wild bucking episode that would thrill a rodeo audience. And for the first time ever, I get to see Jerry bucked off a horse. It wasn't pretty.

But he kept on smiling.

We didn't go on that ride......