Seven: The Survivor

*Warning* This post includes some very gross pictures*

Seven is a four-year-old Appaloosa gelding.  He is technically my brother's third horse, but that's a long story and to keep things simple, we say he's my brother's second horse.  Alex had gone a few years without a horse so when he was finally ready for a new one, we talked my dad into going to the auction.  We walked all around for over an hour and not once did we stop to look at the little Appaloosa colt.  He was in a pen with a bunch of pony weanlings and we just assumed he was one as well.  And Alex was not in the market for a pony.  He had a few that he wanted to bid on but we didn't get any of them.  My dad has a rule that he won't spend over $500 on a horse (a rule he's only broken once) so that makes it pretty inconvenient when the horse you really like goes for $550.  Finally there were only four horses left to go through the sale.  It's a pretty low end auction so the horses that go through at the end of the auction are the meat horses and all the injured horses.  They run them through in groups because chances are the same buyer will take them, the meat guy.

My brother saw the little Appaloosa and decided to bid anyway.  He won with a bid of $130.  We ended up buying Jimmy at the same auction and they came home with us that night.  It was dark by the time we pulled into the farm so we didn't get a good luck at them until the next morning.  We were horrified when we looked at Sev.  He was such a skinny little guy.  He had very little fat on him and his entire body was covered in tiny little scabs.  He had trouble walking and had a big scrape on his head.  He also has a very deep cut that goes through his hoof and up onto his leg on his front left.  It looks like he had wire wrapped around his hoof.  It doesn't affect him at all though, luckily.  However, he very quickly gained weight and his spirit came back.  He was, to put it nicely, a little brat.  The healthier he got, the less he wanted to have to do with people.  We managed to halter break him early on, so he was pretty good to lead, if you could catch him.  And that was a big if.  He and Jimmy became fast friends and were always together out in the field.  Then, summer came and just as he was completely healthy, Socks kicked him in the chest.  What started out as a blood blister got progressively worse, until one day, when Alex was washing it off according to the vet's instructions, it popped.  Warning, the gross pictures are coming up next.

Basically, Seven had no chest.  It was all open and it wrapped around his left leg.  There was a hole at the top of what should have been his chest and if you looked up it, you could see all the way up his neck.  The vet didn't know what to do.  The fact that he was still walking on it amazed her.  The vet gave us some bute to give him every second day and sent us home after we refused the offer to put him down.  Honestly, our decision probably was selfish.  He never acted like he was in pain, honestly, but I have to imagine that he had to be.  But Alex had lost his first horse very suddenly and tragically, and we didn't want that to happen again.  And we felt that Sev deserved for us to at least try.  My dad ended up having to go up North to work so my friend, Morgan and I came up to stay at his house for a few weeks.  Every day, twice a day, we tied Sev up to the pole and washed off his chest.  We would then cover it in SWAT to keep the bugs away from it. 

We honestly didn't know if he would get better.  But his attitude didn't change at all.  He was very happy to see us, his appetite didn't change and he still insisted on trotting around when he got excited.  In these pictures there is a lot of pus (all the yellow) but we made sure to wash off all the pus so that the entire wound was clean.  This went on for the entire summer.  He was kept by himself to keep himself from being injured by the other horses.  He began waiting at the gate for us.  He couldn't wait for his baths.  He became the nicest guy in the world.  Him and Si, my dog in the picture, became good friends since she was the only animal allowed in with him.  Slowly, Sev began to improve.  We would wash him in the morning and by the time we washed him in the afternoon, the wound would be covered in pus.  By the end of the summer, the pus stopped appearing.  We put Socks in with him for a while (My dad's choice, which we all thought was risky considering she's the one who kicked him in the first place) and they did well together. 

This is what it looked like at the end of the summer.  By this time, he was feeling great again.  He was running around, bucking and rearing.  We still kept him isolated, with just another horse for company just to be safe.  Very quickly after the summer, it began to really heal.  His comeback truly was amazing and I give all the credit to Sev

This was Sev the following January, as you can see there was a small mark but it had almost completely healed over.  The next summer he developed what looked like proud flesh, just a bumpy patch of skin, so we called the vet out and it turns out it was actually a tumour.  Luckily, it wasn't cancerous and the vet was able to easily remove it.  He has since completely regrown all his hair back and you would never have known he had a major injury there.  He is completely sound and our vet cannot believe how well he has recovered.  I have to say, SWAT was the best thing we ever discovered and it was thanks to Sev.  It's a cream that keeps the bugs away and we'd cover him in it.  It's part of what helped enable his chest to heal.

Sev was started when he was two, he had a few rides that summer but we really began riding him when he was three.  On his first ride off the farm, we got lost.  Alex was on Sev, his friend Kevin was on Pawnee and I was on Sadie.  It was pouring rain and we were lost in the dark for five hours.  It was in a huge wooded pasture (a square mile of land) that we weren't too familiar with, and we just got turned around and couldn't find our way back to the gates.  Sev did amazing.  He didn't buck or hesitate once.  He did however, somehow manage to chew through his chinstrap and we ended up using a shoelace to make a new one for him.  He is an extremely stubborn guy.  He takes the stereotypical Appaloosa to heart and is as stubborn as a mule, and has a perfect example of a rat tail.  He doesn't really have a tail at all.  His hair is barely longer than his tail bone.  I feel very bad for him during fly season.

He is far from perfect but we love him anyway.  He took lessons from Pawnee and you really have to prove you want to ride him by somehow managing to catch him first.  It is not an easy task.  He also has recently decided that he doesn't need his back feet picked up, something which he is going to be shut down on very, very soon.  He is not an easy horse, he has an opinion on everything and will let you know it.  However, he's safe even for beginners to ride.  He loves to go, although his trot is far from comfortable.  He's recently discovered that he loves chasing cows but doesn't really know what to do once he catches up with them.  He recently had his first trip into the mountains and he's not sure if he likes going for a ride that long.  He sweats if he thinks about working.  He and Fonda are good friends and are constantly together.  Before it was always him, Fonda and Cas together, with him and Fonda doing stupid boy things and Cas getting angry and keeping them in line.  He's been a bit different with Cas gone, but we're hoping he'll return to his happy, hyper self soon.  He is one stubborn mule but we love him.  He started off skinny but now he's our fattest horse.  He's our little survivor, having been through more than most horses and he's come out of it with a happy-go-lucky attitude and only a few scars.