My dad is an old-fashioned farmer type, and knows nothing about horses (he's not even allowed to ride them any more, after he tore open Magic's mouth with his heavy handed 'yank their heads around' riding style), and for the most part, he's happy staying away from the horses. The one thing I can't convince him of, however, is that the junk yard across from the farm is not a good place to let the horses in!
In the summer, the horses' second pasture is a stretch of land originally intended for cattle, surrounded by a electric fence. Just a little ways outside that, is the junk yard/burn pile/collapsed machine shed with a smallish 'lake' thing right in the middle. The junk yard itself has a permanent fence around it. Usually when I put up the electric fence, there's a good yard between the fence and this junk yard. My father, however, once in awhile decides that the grass is too long in there, so he pulls down the fence and opens the pasture to the junk yard! And he usually does this while I'm off at school or work, or if I'm gone for the weekend. :-x
I always lecture him on how they could get hurt, and he always laughs it off. Well, about a month ago, a wind storm whipped up and blew down a still-standing portion of the machine shed and Bandit came up with scratches and cuts all the way down his hindquarters. (Mostly superficial cuts, thankfully.) And when the farrier came out a few days ago, and I showed him a break in Dante's hoof that I'd thought had been caused by a kick or a big rock... he said it was where an old abscess had blown out! I've also pulled pieces of glass and metal out of the mud in all the horse's hooves, and pieces of rusted wire out of their tails.
And yet my dad keeps saying "They're horses, they'll live." or "Give him some penicillin, he'll be fine."
I always put them fence up as soon as I find it down, and dad hears about every cut and scrape they get while in there, but I just can't seem to get it across that one day, one of them might get seriously injured! How can I make him take me more seriously?
In the summer, the horses' second pasture is a stretch of land originally intended for cattle, surrounded by a electric fence. Just a little ways outside that, is the junk yard/burn pile/collapsed machine shed with a smallish 'lake' thing right in the middle. The junk yard itself has a permanent fence around it. Usually when I put up the electric fence, there's a good yard between the fence and this junk yard. My father, however, once in awhile decides that the grass is too long in there, so he pulls down the fence and opens the pasture to the junk yard! And he usually does this while I'm off at school or work, or if I'm gone for the weekend. :-x
I always lecture him on how they could get hurt, and he always laughs it off. Well, about a month ago, a wind storm whipped up and blew down a still-standing portion of the machine shed and Bandit came up with scratches and cuts all the way down his hindquarters. (Mostly superficial cuts, thankfully.) And when the farrier came out a few days ago, and I showed him a break in Dante's hoof that I'd thought had been caused by a kick or a big rock... he said it was where an old abscess had blown out! I've also pulled pieces of glass and metal out of the mud in all the horse's hooves, and pieces of rusted wire out of their tails.
And yet my dad keeps saying "They're horses, they'll live." or "Give him some penicillin, he'll be fine."
I always put them fence up as soon as I find it down, and dad hears about every cut and scrape they get while in there, but I just can't seem to get it across that one day, one of them might get seriously injured! How can I make him take me more seriously?