Meet Chance

Well, I promised information on the new pony that arrived Tuesday. We've decided to call him Chance, because if chance ever played a role in a pony's life, it was in this one. Chance is also french for luck, which this pony has had a lot of, both good and bad.

A trailer arrived in the yard on Tuesday afternoon, dropping off this young gentleman...

As you can see, he's missed a few meals, and not just recently. We can't at the moment say too much about where he came from, but we can say that a concerned citizen saw him someplace, bought him, and dropped him off to us. Bless your heart! It's cases like this when you realise that we need tougher legislation around the standard of care issue. There needs to be more than food and water on the property, the animals also need access and need to be physcally capable of eating it!

He appears to be a Newfoundland pony, which breaks my heart, because if there's anything out there that's tougher than a Newfoundlander (whether human or equine) I have yet to see it. What it would take to bring a pony bred to thrive in Newfoundland to this condition boggles my mind. Horses are often rated for weight on the Henneke scale, which runs from 0 (dead of starvation) to 9 (going to die of morbid obesity). Chance ranks at about a 1.5.

This kind of thing really pushes my buttons, because with most ponies, the problem is keeping the weight OFF them. My welsh-shetland cross gained enough weight this summer on a half-acre paddock that we had to start letting her girth out (hmmm....seems we both suffer from the same problem....). The vast majority of ponies are like air ferns--all you have to do is wave the hay at them and they gain weight. So, what went wrong for poor Chance?

The vet is coming out to check him over today, we hope. We suspect his teeth may need to be floated (filed down to remove sharp points that make eating difficult and uncomfortable). He probably has worms, though he doesn't have the big worm belly, so he may not be too bad. We're hoping that he hasn't suffered too much damage to his heart and digestive system, which is how we lost Sadie in the end. He seems a nice boy, though he will swing his head away as you enter the stall. And, like most Newfoundland ponies, it will take more than this to get him down. He is the most determined little survivor.

Please keep Chance in your thoughts. If you would like to donate to support his rehabilitation, we are still sorting out the Paypal issue, but you can drop it off in any of our donation jars around PEI. We expect anything between 2-3 months to 10-12 months of rehab, depending on what medical issues crop up during his convalescence. And please consider buying a ticket to our dinner fundraiser on October 23. This is our major fundraiser and is our main source of revenue, for cases like Chance.

I think I need a hug. Where's my pony?