Sandy~2 months after rescue

It's been 2 months since I rescued Sandy & Parris! Parris was adopted by some friends of ours and is doing wonderful! She is being ridden a lot and being pampered like she deserves!

Sandy has come a long way since we got him but still has a ways to go to be trust worthy. He still flinches easily if you make a fast move around him. He will let me catch him now and really enjoys to be loved on. He'll rest his head on my shoulder while I rub him down...it's very sweet. I have lunged him a couple of times which he picked up easily so I'm sure he's been lunged before. My husband also trimmed his feet which turned into quite the ordeal. I thought for sure either my husband or Sandy was going to end up hurt! He gave Chris his first foot without much of a fight and I thought "ok this isn't going to be so bad"! Then when he went to pick up his other front foot that's when all hell broke loose! He fired at Chris with his hind foot and almost nailed Chris in the head. So Chris had a "come to Jesus talk" with Sandy which in my opinion did not help. Normally a horse will move away from the shoer but Sandy was moving towards Chris like he wanted to run him down. Chris finally finished the other front foot. We still had the hind feet to go! He tried picking up his hind foot and Sandy was kicking & jumping to get away from him. Chris couldn't stop at that point because Sandy would have won. If a horse knows he can get away with something than that will set the mood every time he needs attention to his feet. Chris had to follow through with showing Sandy who was boss. He finally was able to pick up his hind feet and hold it. When I first rescued Sandy from the neighbor she told me Sandy was trained to do the parade marching gait. I have heard how a non-gaited horse is trained to do that and it can be very cruel! Beating the horses legs with chains is involved! My suspicious is if this was how Sandy was trained he will be ultra sensitive when his legs/feet are involved.

Here are pictures taken today of Sandy. Compare them to the pictures on the right side of the blog called "Condition prior to rescue" to see all the weight he has gained. He just has some filling out to do in his spine & hips and he'll be looking like a normal horse!