Sunday-
5:45am- try to ignore the cat fight in the hall, hope that it doesn't stir up the dogs
5:50am- of course now that I'm awake, now I have to pee..... Get up, dogs take that as the signal to get excited about breakfast....yes, at 5:50am. (should I mention that they don't even lift a HEAD when Brent gets up!!!! They don't even look at him, but if I get up, they're dancing at my feet and heaven help me if I sleep in past 6:30, cause then they're dancing at my door and wrestling each other and banging off the walls......)
5:55am- stagger down the stairs, shushing dogs, telling them to go lay down.....watching Briston (the Saint Bernard) stagger into one wall, then another, cause he's just so excited about the prospect of FOOD. Have you ever had a 130 lb dog bounce off your walls at 6am? It's LOUD!!! He was just wiggling all over, he was so happy.....and he just literally bounced down the hallway off the walls.
6:10am- ok, ok....I'll let you out, all four of you.....we're dog sitting two dogs, Trooper a border collie mix, and Nigel a cocker spaniel. As I open the outside door to let them all back in, I watch the mini horse, Casper, come to the two strand gate from his pasture into our barn yard area. We've been having issues with him getting out, thought we had it under control. Seems like he's staying where he belongs...
6:15am- I might as well feed you, I'm now wide awake. Feed our two on the porch, feed Trooper and Nigel in the kitchen and living room. Can't separate Trooper entirely from the dogs, as he will not eat then and at this point I think he's eaten twice since we got him Wed. night, really don't want to turn him back over to his owners underweight! Can't leave him and Nigel alone to eat, they'll eat each others food, not to mention that Nigel doesn't LIKE to share and tells Trooper that.
As I stand there one eye on them, one eye on Casper out the kitchen window......there goes Casper, right through the bottom strand of the gate. Ok....breathe......he didn't go very far last time he got out.....he'll probably be fine until these guys get done eating......continue to watch, Casper goes out of sight......breathe, he'll probably be right back, surely he won't leave his herd mates...... Callie, his best friend lowers her head and looks like she's going under the gate!!!! ACK!!!!!! If she goes, I have a chase on my hands......as long as he doesn't have a buddy to run with, he won't go very far, if he has a buddy, who knows where they'll stop?!!!
6:20am- frantically throw on boots and a coat, run out the door. Casper is clear around the garage and headed out into the big wide open farm fields next to us!!! No wonder Callie was thinking of breaking out!!! She wanted some adventure too. Get to the barn door to get a halter and realize that I left Trooper and Nigel unsupervised!!!!!!!!
6:25am- Callie is in the barn safe, phew....get a hold of Casper, he's safe. Now what? On Friday, (when he busted out the first AND second time) we put them back into the pig pen, which was where they had lived until we moved them in with our horses. But we couldn't let them out into the paddock attached to that pen, as they had previously torn up the fence between our horses and them, and we hadn't gotten it fixed well enough to hold up to horses on both sides pawing at it.
So we left them inside over night, until we could fix that part of the fence. The next morning when Than went out to feed, they had bent over the 32 inch hog panel so far they went over it and were loose in the barn. We thought we had the fence problem solved, so we let them back out, Sat. morning. He stayed in the ENTIRE day, no worries. Did I mention he stayed in the ENTIRE day? Just wanted to make sure you got that part......
Back to 6:30 Sunday morning- I put them into the 4 foot hog panel pen that we used for the goats, but I realize that Callie can still get her head over the "gate" which is a pallet wired to the posts and actually can also get her head over the panels too. Which means she can lean on them until they bend/break away too........
I didn't have anywhere else to put them, so into the goat pen they went and into the house went I. And wonderfully, there was no blood shed. Nigel was very happily eating Trooper's food and vice versa. Although Happy almost had his blood shed as he had barked (on the porch, because he was stuck there and didn't want to be there) the entire time I was in the barn and I could hear him in the barn (so of course anyone in the house can hear him) and when I got on the porch I wanted to ring his neck. Did I mention that EVERYONE else in the house was still sleeping and really needed to sleep as we had been up late watching the Olympics!!!!
I got Brent up and he hot wired the two strands for the gate, they are a heavy spiral wire (think heavy duty slinky about 10 feet long) and they aren't part of the hot wire fence line, so he had to construct a way to connect them. We let the little monst....., I mean ponies back out, and off we went to church holding our breath.
It looks like he found out it is hot, because all he did was look at it when we went out to see him after church, he didn't come up to it or try to mouth it, which I saw him do on Friday. He stayed in ALL day Sunday, after that. The ENTIRE rest of the day....for some reason devious comes to mind when I think of him now....
Monday 4:45pm- driving home from art co-op, hey look Casper is out! Grrrrr.....much swearing under my breath...... decide to get the mail at Saxonburg, anyway......come back and hey where did he go?!!!!!!! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME, WHERE COULD HE POSSIBLY WANT TO GO?!!!
Oh phew......he's back in with the other horses.......park the burb, get out and hey look there's a note in our door handle......why look..... it says that at 4:30pm there was a white pony out on BB, sticking close to our house.......now whose pony could that be......
5pm- back into the goat pen with them, page Brent, consult the tracks in the fresh snow (thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for snow that morning, I could tell exactly where he had gotten out!!!!!) consult Brent on fencing strategies, decide that Brent can deal with it when he gets home.......
7:30pm- the fence is lowered in many places and the ponies are once again let out.....here's hoping Casper stays in. Thank goodness I am HOME almost the entire day and that Than IS home the entire day, so we can monitor him. Of course his staying in for an ENTIRE day proves NOTHING right now........but one can hope. And laugh, really hard.....a day or two later.....maybe.....
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