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The Welsh Ponies
An elderly lady died and when her relatives took over and did not want the animals we went in and rescued her ponies, Hungarian Puli dog and her 77 wild cats. We got the dog back from the RSPCA who had taken it away because of negligence and fostered it to a caring home. I asked my friend Celia Hammond to help and she did a brilliant job in catching, neutering , de-worming, de-fleaing and de-absessing the cats before helping us to re-home them. We took on the ponies. Their field was full of poisonous ragwort, their stable had a huge hole in the roof, they were thrown white loaves of bread to eat and had not been handled.They were in a pretty poor state when they arrived and the oldest one called Mouse unfortunately only lasted a few months.
Sky
is a Welsh C grey mare about 10. She is very prone to sweet-itch and as with most greys has a couple of small carcinomas on her rear end. As they had not been used to people it took some time for them to settle down and get used to all the volunteers but like her son she is very excitable and is not suitable as a riding pony.
Rhett
is Sky's bay son. It took 4 people two and a half hours to catch him, he was so wild. We had him gelded and then sent him away for 6 weeks for a modicum of training “If you don’t send him away” said the vet “he could kill you.” He is now doing much better though a little nervous and he spooks easily. He also suffers very badly with sweet-itch and receives regular treatment for it. He has to wear a special anti-midge coat all through the spring and summer. |