Free to a Good Home. I was tagged in the ad on Facebook and was taken in by the picture of the adorable pony underneath it – a huge mop-top of black hair and a sweet Shetland face under it. Reading the ad told me that he was half-blind, a stallion, and he needed to find a new place as he had some behavioural issues. I was immediately worried about what would happen to him as it is difficult to rehome a stallion, let alone a blind one. But there appeared to be some interest, so I put it in the back of my mind. Apparently, once again, Laura had the same concerns, but also put it on the back burner.
The little guy kept coming back to both of our minds throughout the next day while we were working, and finally, we started actually talking about it. That led to Laura contacting the owner and finding out that he was still available. She was trying to find a good home for him, and was very interested in the Sanctuary. Next thing we knew, we were hooking up the trailer and starting out in the lightly falling snow to go pick up our new pony. We want to say a huge thank you to his owner for making sure he didn’t fall into the wrong hands as can often happen when an animal is offered for free, and especially given that he was a stallion.
When I first saw Rocky, I was immediately struck by how beautiful he was! He was like a small version of The Black Stallion. He was quite shy, which made catching him a bit of a struggle. Thankfully, the big horse he was with was very calm and helpful! Rocky loaded well into the trailer and even let us put a warm blanket on him for the drive home.
We don’t know a lot about his history, other than that he was one of four ponies rescued by the owner that gave him to us. The others found good homes too. He hadn’t been handled a lot and was quite shy, although he was starting to slowly warm up to his owner with time and patience. Based on his behaviour since arriving at the Sanctuary, we believe he was either used as a breeding stallion or a “teaser” stallion in the past. (A “teaser” is a pony stallion used quite often on thoroughbred farms who is brought near the mares to tease them so the owner knows when they are in heat. They are then taken to be bred to the actual stallion.) He is quite studly, especially when he sees a mare, and we currently have a lot of squealing and calling going on across the yard as Rocky and Pinky holler at each other. We are going to be getting both gelded as soon as the weather warms up, and hopefully they will become friends.
We have been spending a lot of time with Rocky, working on gentling him and getting him used to being handled. His personality is starting to come out the more we get to know him. With his adorable head tossing and dancing around his pen, we started calling him Rockstar, and with that Tina Turner hair, he often gets serenaded with “What’s Love Got to Do with It” at feeding time. That, and “Black Velvet” thanks to his soft muzzle, and “Rocketman” for obvious reasons. When we sing, he tosses his head and runs around, bucking and kicking.
We look forward to getting him used to human contact and showing him that life with pony-snuggles is a great life!