Irene had to move her horse, Spirit, to a new stable recently. The new place is actually closer: theoretically, close enough to walk to, or a three minute drive if you dislike that theory as I do. Irene insisted for several days that I had to come see the new boarding situation. I, on the other hand, have been quite happy just to know that Irene is happy with things: why spoil it by having to go somewhere? But she insisted, and yesterday I finally went.
The most important part of the new boarding place, at least in our dog Finn’s opinion, is the fact that Finn has two dog-buddies there to play with. Banjo and Timber are close enough to Finn’s size, age, and temperament that he always has a good time playing with them. So our visit was really more about Finn than about the horses.
Trimming Finn’s claws
Finn needed a bit of a trim on his front claws, so Irene brought out his emory board. Finn has an unreasonable fear of anything related to trimming his claws with a normal clipper, so we worked with a trainer to find an alternative. She couldn’t ‘fix’ his fear, but he did learn to use a scratching board so long as adequate treats were involved.
It works well enough to keep his front claws to a reasonable length and ‘dullness’, and his back claws (thus far at least) seem to take care of themselves. It isn’t perfect, but a dog’s brain is a complicated thing…
Spirit’s new home
I can truthfully say now that Irene’s horse Spirit is boarded “just up the road”. With fewer trees and a different mountain we could see it from our house. It is a good-sized place with large horse turnout areas and a total of five (?) horses being boarded. There is no stable or indoor riding arena, but that was true of their previous location as well.
My biggest concern for Irene was whether she had enough places to ride nearby. Where Spirit was before was quite close to a number of river valley trails that Irene had grown to really like. The new spot has fewer options, but so far Irene seems happy with the paths she can take Spirit down with her riding friend, who also had to relocate her horse to the same place.
The people who own the property seem to be great. Friendly, kind, with their own animals that they love. As I mentioned earlier, they have two dogs that Finn gets along with really well. Banjo is the younger one, about a year or so old: he has about the same energy level as Finn.
Timber is a bit older, about four years old. But he is an ‘old soul’: very mellow and calm, definitely not prone to running around like crazy. But he is a very sweet dog who honestly just seems to be entirely happy with a good pat.
Spirit seems quite happy with her new living arrangement. Irene says she and Ruby, Irene’s riding friend’s horse who moved with her, have spent most of the days since moving with their noses firmly stuck in the hay. That’s a good thing this time of year as the horses are preparing for the colder days to come.
The rest of the pictures I took are of the dogs interacting. Click on one to open a slideshow with larger images.
