Question of the Day: "How's Badge?"

I get asked this question a lot. Sometimes several times a day, but I always answer, “He’s fine.”, or “He’s doing good.”, but in my heart I know he’s just plain, well, FANTASTIC! Here’s what he looks like now, some 46 days after arriving here.

"A horse carries a certain goodness, an inner light from which beauty flows"

He still needs to build up some muscle along his top line and his hindquarters where he lost so much muscle mass causing his spine and hip bones to protrude. When he was picked up by Animal Control in mid-March he had pressure sores on his hip bones. Those scabs are all gone, replaced by a fine layer of healthy fat and shiny coat.

Trust me when I say, feeding Badge is no small chore. It was and still is a defined regiment. Some days in the beginning I felt like lab technician measuring his feed and supplements, calculating the input and watching for the output-Boy is there output! Over the next several weeks I’ll move him over to a maintenance diet to ensure that he can maintain the weight and balance it with exercise.

He knows his way to the barn! In fact, he runs to the barn! As I open the pasture gate, Clang! Clang! The two Fat Bottom Girls edge out quickly and he is always behind them. He swings wide to the outside, covers the distance in ground covering strides, tail arched and his head held high, only to come to a screeching halt, because, let’s face it folks, it’s not that far to the barn! Maybe a furlong or so, but what a race! It must make him feel great that he beat those two, old Fat Bottom Girls! Besides every horse here knows that good things happen in the Big Red Barn; it’s called FOOD!

You see? It's a Triple Crown day for Badge when he gets back to the barn! -------------->

My dear friend Linda took these pictures after we used the clippers to clean up his bridle path, trim off his unruly whiskers and beard. Of course, he stood perfectly still as if it were just any other day in his life, which I believe at some point it must have been. All the attention, petting, grooming that he had missed for who knows how long and he was just eating it up-figuratively speaking of course, because we know he eats in the literal sense. Linda also took some amazing videos of him, and as soon as she figures out the technical part of her new phone that takes amazing HD videos, I’ll post them too!

So it looks like Badge is on his way to recovery and looking forward to each “waking-eating” moment and “sleeping-dozing” moment in his big old stall softly bedded down each night.

More to come…