Phase 1 | A new hope

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The arrival & first day with our Makeover Rescue Nr. 11096

After the arrival home, we unloaded him and brought him inside to gain some time to make a plan.

In hopes of giving him some company, we tried to introduce him to the other horses, but 11096 does not seem to be happy about other horses around him.

Because his hooves were in such bad condition, we put him into some hoof shoes to make it easier for him to walk over the stones and pebbles. He gladly didn’t mind wearing them, and already seemed more comfortable.

We left him to calm down for a bit… And he pawed... and pawed... and pawed...

And he pawed more... and more... and more… we felt so helpless.

The first morning after his arrival was promising to be an absolutely beautiful day…

But upon returning to his paddock the next morning, we were absolutely shocked to see just how much he pawed throughout the night. The paddock was completely covered in holes, and we realized that the report card really did not exaggerate. 11096 trotted happily towards us to say hello. We were very relieved to see that he seemed quite well and calm, despite the condition of his paddock, after the first night at his new home.

-> Loshenka Makeover Phase 1 Literature:

Full of nervous excitement I turned down the music blasting from the radio, as soon as the big sign saying "Sagebush Sanctuary” came into my view. Looking back onto the last days, it still feels like I was being in the middle of a dream. 4 days ago, I got a call from Susan, the friendly lady who organizes the participants of the Makeover I signed up to a few months ago, who told me I was chosen to be one of the people participating in this year’s Loshenka Makeover. I absolutely couldn’t believe my luck- I knew how big the interest is for this event and how many trainers had signed up for the event. Susan congratulated me, and then explained the now following process of filling out paperwork’s and forms, and then finally scheduling me for the coming Friday for picking up my rescue horse. At the phone she smiled and said "Look, I'm not allowed to tell you about your rescue just yet, but I'm very sure that they are the perfect match for you." After some more general information’s around the Pick-Up-Process, we hung up and I immediately called my best friend Phoenix to tell them about the good news.

After that call, I spend hours together with Corwin, our Rescue Organizer here at Duneheaven Stables & Rescue, filling out all the important paperwork’s. The Loshenka Makeover team wanted to know everything about our facility, my experience and the provided care and funds for my, for me still unknown, rescue. The closer Friday came, the more nervous I got. I tried to prepare everything humanly possible; I made sure that we have enough hay and bedding, I ran around the whole barn, annoyed the whole staff team with my nervousness and even Cooper, the barn dog, had enough of me by the end of Thursday evening. I even wanted to call the Vet already for the quickest possible appointment, but Phoenix luckily kept me from rushing all those things, trying to calm me down with saying "Look, if your Rescue Ponie would have such a terrible health status, I'm sure they would have already told you to make sure he will receive immediate healthcare. And even if not- you know Dr. Keene. She would make space for you immediately."

Smiling at the memories, I parked the car and jumped out. I looked around, everywhere were horses and people, in some calmer areas there were some rescue horses that were loading onto their trailers, and some cars with trailers already made their way to head out of the Sanctuary again. I chuckled at a big truck, one of those who fit like 6-8 horses, driving past me, thinking to myself at how fun it must be to be a whole stable-group who all participate together. "Well but it would be quite a chaos as well with all those different Issues," I thought to myself. I spotted a table with a lot of paperwork laying around, and all sorts of people running around it, some of which who wore Sagebush Sanctuary Team-Shirts. I made my way up to the table, greeted the Staff and after a quick chat about my travel I gave them my Identifications. A friendly girl who introduced herself as Roxanne then asked me to follow her. "Soo... your assigned Rescue is the number 11096. Are you nervous about meeting them?" she chuckled. "I so am! I was so excited the whole time for them- I still can't believe i actually got chosen as one of the participants!" I answered, and followed her into one of the stables. Curiously I looked into a few of the stalls, some horses were just chilling, others looked frightened, too many looked traumatized and hurt. I hurried to follow Roxanne down the alley and already heard quite early a horse, presumably at the end of the stable, pawing against the door the whole time. Roxanne then led me to exactly that box, and a super cute looking classic champagne boy sticked his head out of the box. I was absolutely overwhelmed, he looked the absolute cutest with an impish look in his beautiful green eyes, and his adorable pink snout booped into my arm and sniffed me all over like an absolute oversized golden retriever. I chuckled and went to pet his neck. "Hi you cute boy, hm? You're really a very beautiful ponie, and you definitely know that, hmm?" smiling I turned back to Roxanne, who then went to tell me more about him. "So, everything that we know about him is, that he is pawing basically 24/7. He has a quite bit of anxiety, every time we try to leave, he starts to paw again. His hooves are in a quite bad state as well; he wears them down very fast with his pawing. Our knowledge about his past is, that he doesn't do too well around other horses, at the beginning it was okay as far as we know, but with time he got only interested in humans, and the problems started to show up. We know that he belonged to an elderly guy, who sadly died half a year ago. The stable where 11096 was kept at that time tried to find a new owner for him, but with his behaviors getting worse and worse, he ended up getting surrendered a few times till he landed here."

I looked at 11096, who was itching his pink snout on my shoulder right now. "Oh buddy, what have they done to you? You poor guy... I'll help you, we can work through that together!" I said to him, blinking away a few tears. Roxanne smiled at me and said "I'm sure you will. So, I guess you accept him as your rescue?" I didn’t hesitate and immediately said yes.

After she handed me his report card and I signed the paperwork, I went to my car and parked it right next to the stable. I opened the trailer and then grabbed the blue halter I took with me, hearing him paw against the walls of his stall over in the stable. Nervous about how he will handle the loading up, I adjusted the halter to be a bit smaller while walking over to his box. "Hey you mischievous little guy! Do you feel ready to come home with me?" smiling I gave him a treat and then haltered him, thankfully without him presenting any issues. He seemed very keen to follow me out of the box, but then immediately pinned his ears and swished his tail when I was leading him past the other horses who stuck their head out of their stalls curiously. Getting him out of the stable was a challenge, but in the end, I managed to do it with a firm enough voice (... and enough treats.). I led him a bit around in a few circles to get him used to me leading him, send out a prayer, and then loaded him up. This part was surprisingly easy, even easier than getting him past those other horses. “Probably because he was moved often from stable to stable during the last months..” I thought to myself. I tied him up, closed the ramp, and then stuck my head inside of the trailer again. "So, Buddy, do you feel ready for the Journey? Look here is your haynet, and I will be right there, just a few meters in front of you in my car, okay? We'll be home quicker as you can say carrot!" I chuckled, closing the small door and sitting back into my car.

The ride home was... well... quite bumpy one could say. At least for the trailer it was, who got kicked and stomped repeatedly throughout the whole 4 hours of ride home due to his pawing. I stopped two times to check on him and make sure he was okay, but every time I opened the door, he stuck out his pink nose, looking quite fine and Impish as before, so I continued. After arriving home, Pheonix immediately came to greet me as soon as I got out of the car. "Oh my gosh, you need to tell me everything! How is your rescue? What color? What gender?? What is their story, what issues do they have??" I laughed and hugged Phoenix. "He is a super precious boy; he is anxious and paws endlessly when nobody is with him. And he doesn't like other horses!" I said while grabbing my stuff out of the car. "Oooh poor guy! I'm sure we can help him. Are you ready to unload him?" she asked. I nodded and opened the front door, just for him to immediately appear in the opening. Phoenix squeaked of excitement and said giggling "Oh my gosh the nose. Oh my gosh he really is so beautiful! And he looks like he knows that." I agreed and watched Phoenix fondle with his nostrils, but then quickly turned around, opened the door and we unloaded him slowly. At first, he did seem to be a bit more anxious than I had anticipated, looking around and snoring like a dragon while taking everything in. I gave him his time to look around, he stared at the ocean and danced around quite a bit, till he seemed to calm down from the first impression and followed me, at least a bit calmer, to the stable. "I have to say, our stable is quite overwhelming if you aren't used to an ocean normally. The wind, all the seagulls, the smell..." I noted and then led him into his stall. "I'm so glad I prepared a stall next to an empty stall right at the end of the stable," I said towards Phoenix. "Oh yeah, that was indeed a good idea! Hey, did you saw his hooves? They're like.. a bit fucked n’ short, aren't they?" I had to agree, and told them that it presumably stems from his pawing. They were indeed too short, with very rough and broken corners, and some slight cracks in the hoof walls. When walking he wasn't exactly limping, but it was noticeable that his hooves were sensitive, and probably caused him some pain when stepping on sharper pebbles. After removing his halter, I went and grabbed brushes and some horse shoes, and tried around until I found some that fit him very well. I decided that he will get to wear them a few hours a day for now, and especially when walking around on our property. Phoenix then sat down in his stable while I went ahead to brush him a bit. “Did you saw his brandmark?” Phoenix asked, looking at his neck. “Yeah, I did, I have no clue why he has one,” I sighed, proceeding to slowly untangle his tail. “But now come on- tell me about everything!!” they said, standing up to help me with all the knots in his tail. I chuckled and told them about my arrival at the Sanctuary, how I got the first look at him, the trouble with walking past the horses looking out of their stalls, and what I know about him and his past so far. After a good half an hour of us talking and detangling his tail, I started to carefully braid two strands of his tail, adding some accessories while doing so, and chuckled. “The rose-golden band looks so cute on him! Rosé would have loved him,” I said, smiling softly. Rosé has been our mascot of the Stables; as she was the horse who helped scared new rescues to feel safe. She had passed away just a few weeks ago, leaving behind all of us with the still lingering sadness, and the leftovers of her rose golden accessories, that we always braided into her tail. Phoenix smiled and me and just nodded. They knew how much I loved Rosé. And even though I was unsure myself, of why I took her old accessories with me in the first place when I was looking for hoof shoes earlier, but it just felt right that he wears them now.

After giving him hay and a little ball filled with treats and carrots, we decided to give him a bit of space to regulate on his own and get used to his new environment. While walking away, we already heard the continuous noise of him pawing. "So, you really did not exaggerate, did you?" Phoenix laughed, "But I'm sure you will be able to solve his problem, and you know we will all help you!” After a bit of a chat we separated again and I walked over to my little bungalow that's situated right at the edge of the Duneheaven's property. Inside I grabbed my little notebook and then went on to do quite some phone calls. First, I called Dr. Isla Keene, our Specialist Equine Veterinarian, to do a blood test to make sure he's all sound and healthy and to Xray his hooves to make sure there is no invisible damage done to them. "It would also be really good if she could take a quick look inside of his mouth," I thought to myself after the call, but I decided that she won’t need that Information right now. After that I called our Equine Hoof Care Specialist Dr. Elian Crow to tell him about the condition of his hooves due to the pawing, and he agreed to the part-time-hoof shoes usage for now. He promised to come over right on Monday to do some work on his hooves and to look what option would be the best for him to help him with not grinding them down even more. I did also try to reach our Equine Behavior Specialist, but she wasn't available so I left her a Voice message. "Hii Heather, I just got home with my Makeover Rescue! I wanted to schedule a meeting for next week, possibly Tuesday?, to talk through the problems and then discuss a therapy plan together. I will send you all the information’s I’ve got so far about him later via. Text! Thank you." I put the Phone down and took a deep breath. "This is really real and he is here!" I said out loud, stood up and then went to write on a small sign for his stall some general information’s and a warning that said

"Rescue Nr. 11096

Please do not feed treats, ignore his pawing and don't give him attention for it.

Please keep away other horses from his box, he's anti-social! :D."

I went back to him and spend some time with him while hanging up the sign. He seemed to be very stressed, so I decided to stay with him while texting a good friend of the Duneheaven Stables if he'd be able to install rubber mats on the walls and ground of his box during the weekend. I sighed and slid my phone back into my paddock and stroked his neck a bit. "What could I do to calm you down a bit? You don't seem that happy in here, do you? Maybe it's contra productive, but I think I should try to put you on one of our paddocks so you can see all of us people working here, what do you think, hmm?" Said and done; I haltered him and led him out of the stable. After a bit of dancing around at the sight of the other horses on their own paddocks I managed to put him into his and then sat down on a chair next to his Paddock, waiting for the others who promised to meet up with me in the evening. Sitting there, listening to the Seagulls and study his movement had something calming after this day. He was dragon-snorting trotting parallel to the fence to show off to the other horses. Gladly his neighbors are very chilled and laid-back horses, so there was nothing to worry about. Although I could swear, that they shot me an annoyed side eye here and there. I chuckled a bit.

After half an hour of me chatting happily away to get him used to my presence and my voice, Corwin and Arlow came over and eventually also Liam, who is our Equine Technician, settled with his chair into our small round. They were all absolutely in love with the new rescue, and he very quickly managed to sneak into their hearts as well. I then went ahead and told them in detail everything I know.. which is in fact very un-detailed. "And he really paws that much? He seems chill like this.." asked Arlow, our stable hand, laughing a bit and looking at the Rescue. "He really does it nonstop without humans around." I nodded, stood up and walked over to my new Horse, and let him take the rest of my apple which he was of course an absolute fan of. "I already called Dr. Crow, Dr. Keene and asked Heather to come over Tuesday. I also asked Pablo to install rubber mats in the stall I choose for him, to help his hooves a bit." I told them and sat back down, rubbing my hand in the grass trying to remove his sobber. Corwin nodded "Very good, I'm sure everything will go well, you are very knowledgeable and already did a very good job on Aspen and Feliana." I smiled, those two were really lovely souls whose rehabilitation I led last year. They were quite some projects, but everything went well. Although those were different cases, as they weren't my horses, and were just here for rehabilitation. "I'm honestly very curious how he will react to the other horses around here, and if we can find him a friend to bond to. But that will have to wait for a bit, I fear like at the moment it would be nonsense to already try to get him to socialize." I said. "Yeah, I agree. But I think a few days after the Vet check we could absolutely try to get him some friends. It would be good for him. And as you told us from what you've seem at the sanctuary he isn't that aggressive towards others, he just.. has a strong opinion about them!" Liam mentioned, hiding a smile, and the others agreed as well. “Is there a reason why you gave him two braids with stuff from Rosé?” Arlow asked me curiously. “I found them accidentally while looking for his shoes.. I don’t know why I braided them in. It felt right to me,” I answered. Arlow laughed “I understand, well, it looks fabulous on him!” he said. After a whole while of chatting more about him, and guessing a bit around where his issues could stem from, we decided to call it a night. After some indecisiveness, I did decide to leave him out on the paddock for the night, as he seemed calmer here than in his stall. We agreed to leave the others in the other paddocks turned out as well, and so I went to say goodnight. While walking to my bungalow, I took a deep breath, trying not to cry. The first day was overwhelming, I couldn’t lie about that. I didn’t exactly worry about not being able to help him, but the lingering fear was always there in the back of my mind. Hearing his pawing in the distance and looking at the dunes while walking, I thought to myself “I promise I will help you. We will work on everything together, and you will recover from your past. I promise..”

The next morning, I immediately got out of my bed, put some clothes on and walked quickly over to his paddock where Phoenix already stood. They turned around slowly and said dryly "I think you didn't get a horse, but an excavator. Look at the state of this paddock!" I stared at the paddock, which was absolutely unrecognizable. It was basically completely turned around, full of holes, some bigger and some smaller. "Well," I said, "I guess we should be happy he didn't manage to dig himself an escape tunnel." We both laughed and he trotted happily over to us, greeting us with a neigh. "He seems perfectly fine," I laughed, "But he seems to have managed to escape his shoes.” They were absolutely nowhere to be seen, but that would be a problem for later. The other horses around had a quite fed-up look on their faces. I had to admit, that the whole scene was quite funny. I made sure to give him his breakfast, fill up his hay net and then went onto his paddock to shovel the loose dirt and sand back into the very big holes. Throughout the day I spend quite a bit of time bonding with him, walking with him over our property, showing him around a bit and then grooming him well. But also made sure to expose him to enough alone-time. He did paw a lot, but his anxiety seemed to be somewhat manageable when he was on the paddock, as he still saw humans walking around and working around the stable.

Over the next days the topic of how we should name him came up more and more often. I was very unsure of the perfect name for him, so I pushed that decision away for now. The first days with him went well, I had to secure the holes dozens of times, and slowly got him used to his stall. Sunday evening, he was calm enough in his stall, that I was able to leave him in there for the night. Before I put him into the stall that night, I tied him up at our grooming area, that was thank God empty at this time of the day, and made sure to give him as much love and good massages as I could. "I'm so glad your arrival went so well. And look, tonight you will even sleep in your stall, you already made a small improvement! Tomorrow Dr. Keene will visit you. She's super nice you know, and she always has treats with her. I heard they are really good!" I smiled while brushing his legs. He blinked at me impishly, with an mischievous spark in his eyes, his ears being immediately in full-attention-mode after hearing the word "treats". I laughed and ran my fingers over his neck that was now shining nicely in the dim light. I put on his shoes, and led him into his now full-on gummi-protected stall and closed the door. "Goodnight little guy, sleep well!" I said, giving him a kiss on his pink nose and then walking to my bungalow, hearing how his pawing gets more and more faint the further I go. Inside I grabbed some leftover noodles from lunch, opened my laptop and started researching about pawing, hoof-health and what could have possibly been the reason for his issues. After a whole while of researching, I yawned while closing my laptop. I spend a few hours laying in bed and trying to sleep. It was impossible to fall asleep, my new horse, all the worries, the excitement, and the thoughts about what happened the last days, kept me awake. After finally falling asleep way after midnight, I dreamed about Corwin bringing a new, and very anxious, Rescue into her paddock, and then calling for “Sokrates”, like he always called for Rosé when she was still around. I dreamed, that my new Rescue, apparently called Sokrates, with the same braids and accessories like Rosé, trotted over to the new Rescue, softly greeting her through the fence, soothing her anxiety.

The future? Who knows. I brushed it off as just a dream. But either way, I kept the name. Welcome home, Sokrates.

Thank you for reading ♡