Hi Jennifer & Cheryl,

Sugar (now Juliet), Happy Annie (Annie Oakley), and Bucky (Max) are doing great!
It was a month ago yesterday that my crew came off the trailer at 10:30pm. You couldn’t touch any of them and they spent the first night in the big pasture. The next morning they were moved to a smaller pasture and by that night they were moved into stalls. I kept the babies in a double stall for the first week as they were bonded and needed to rest. Sugar was put in a single stall next to them so everyone could still be together. Progress was quick after that. I use a combination of resistance-free training methods.

Today, they all halter, lead, lunge (round pen and line) and know basic horse commands (whoa, stand, wait, turn around, move over, put your halter on, etc.) Everyone also wears fly masks and accepts being fly sprayed (although they think it smells really bad…) All are picking up their feet (not for very long, but they’re getting the idea), and I will hopefully have them blacksmith safe in a couple of weeks and then trimmed.
The vet was out a couple of weeks ago. Sugar is 8 months pregnant, Max was gelded and all had Spring shots and new coggins pulled. Wormed them with Ivermectin a couple of weeks ago and Annie had a bad case of round worms. Will worm again in 1 week to catch the second part of the cycle.

They are all happy and well adjusted. They quickly figured out that being pets is a wonderful thing…you have people to dote on you and you get a lot of good things to eat. The ladies at the barn take turns grooming them and picking their stalls. Everyone talks about “our new babies”. The barn members even gave me a “baby shower” for the new horses, complete with baby bottles filled with peppermints. I’m sure when the time comes a couple of them will be adopted out to “in-barn” permanent homes.

Thanks again for making this possible. Without you guys these happy pets would not have had a happy ending.

Best Regards,
Leslie Newberry

This is Annie in early 2009, happy in Florida!