I went camping with my friend and some of her parents friends the other day...
...and nearly drowned my horse.
The day we were coming home, my friend and I decided to take out horses swimming. The guy who owned the property has a huge lake and it's supposed to be safe... they've taken horses in there before and my friends horse has gone in the water a lot.
So yeah, everything was supposed to be fine.
My four year old gelding loves water. I've taken him swimming a lot. We went it and everything was good... we were deep enough that he was having to swim, the water was high up on his neck... he's used to it, we're good...
It was so fast... one minute we were fine and having fun, and the next minute he was thrashing around and he went under the water and I was thrown from his back. The water was probably eight or nine feet deep, not counting the mud. I can barely swim.
Dakota was thrashing in circles, I was trying to keep ahold of him and stay away from his legs... When I went under, he got free and I got tangled up in what felt like boating cable/cord.
He jerked me free from it, though, because I was still holding onto his mane (thank goodness for his short, thick mane...), and he pulled me out of the water.
He literally went completely under the water! It was so scary! When he went under, I just thought "Oh god... he's going to drown..."...
I can't believe that we got tangled up in boating cord... We were told that it was perfectly safe!!!!
Thankfuly, Dakota is just fine... he's got two scratches on his front leg and I'm treating him for earache (just in case), but he's fine and when we got home he felt good enough to take off at full speed across the pasture with the other horses and got them all excited...
One things for sure, I'm not taking any of my horses back swimming in that lake if we go back to that ranch to ride/camp-out. I'll stick to the ponds, creeks, rivers, and lakes I personally know are safe.
...and nearly drowned my horse.
The day we were coming home, my friend and I decided to take out horses swimming. The guy who owned the property has a huge lake and it's supposed to be safe... they've taken horses in there before and my friends horse has gone in the water a lot.
So yeah, everything was supposed to be fine.
My four year old gelding loves water. I've taken him swimming a lot. We went it and everything was good... we were deep enough that he was having to swim, the water was high up on his neck... he's used to it, we're good...
It was so fast... one minute we were fine and having fun, and the next minute he was thrashing around and he went under the water and I was thrown from his back. The water was probably eight or nine feet deep, not counting the mud. I can barely swim.
Dakota was thrashing in circles, I was trying to keep ahold of him and stay away from his legs... When I went under, he got free and I got tangled up in what felt like boating cable/cord.
He jerked me free from it, though, because I was still holding onto his mane (thank goodness for his short, thick mane...), and he pulled me out of the water.
He literally went completely under the water! It was so scary! When he went under, I just thought "Oh god... he's going to drown..."...
I can't believe that we got tangled up in boating cord... We were told that it was perfectly safe!!!!
Thankfuly, Dakota is just fine... he's got two scratches on his front leg and I'm treating him for earache (just in case), but he's fine and when we got home he felt good enough to take off at full speed across the pasture with the other horses and got them all excited...
One things for sure, I'm not taking any of my horses back swimming in that lake if we go back to that ranch to ride/camp-out. I'll stick to the ponds, creeks, rivers, and lakes I personally know are safe.
