Rustic

I had hoped to give Rustic the entire summer, but his condition deteriorated faster then expected. By the end of July he could no longer run around and was in obvious pain from his leg. On July 26 2008, Rustic was put down. Run forever my sweet boy.

Rustic is very athletic and friendly. Rustic is very sweet and warms up to new people rather quickly. He gets along with all other horses and just wants to be friends.

Apparently about a year ago badly broke one of his legs. The leg has not healed correctly and there are some serious complicating factors. Rustic by nature is highly active and is constantly running and jumping and playing with the other horses. He is only four years old, so this is to be expected. Unfortunately because of his injury he can only be expected to make it a couple of years before his leg breaks down completely. In order to obtain those couple years he would need to be kept in a small flat pen where he would not be able to run around and play since that would escalate the break down. During that time he would need to be on increasing pain medication in order to control the already advanced and worsening arthritis.

At this point I have decided that Rustic deserves quality over quantity. I don't believe that being the horse he is that he would want to spend his last amount of time in a pen, but rather out running and playing. I know that if I was told that I had only a short amount of time to live and that I could live longest in a hospital, that I would choose to take a shorter amount of time filled with all the things I wanted to do in life. I am going to further research his problems, but at this point I intend to let him enjoy the summer, running and playing with his horsie friends and then have him put to sleep.

This boy was run through the Hermiston sale and was being bid on by the kill buyer. He has had 45 days of training and five rides when he was taken through the auction. He rode through the auction and was nervous, but did nothing wrong. When I went into the pen after the auction to take some photos of him I had to ask someone to help me because he was so friendly that he wouldn't stay far enough away for me to be able to get a good shot.