Loose Horse

In my attempt to consume less coffee, I've decided that a weekend day can be a coffee day. So on Saturday I went to get coffee and a muffin from a local drive through. Kind of a treat yo self thing. In my half asleep state I started driving to work, rather than back home, so I ended up taking the long way home from the coffee place.

As I was driving past one of the thousands of grass seed fields, I looked over and saw a horse in the field. It was just standing around in the windrows, and had what looked like a blanket on. I slowed down to make sure my eyes were seeing thing correctly, then pulled into the field.

This field is open, no fences, and alongside a fairly busy road where people like to drive 60+. And as the grass seed hadn't been harvested yet, there was absolutely no way a horse would be turned out on it. So obviously the horse wasn't where it was supposed to be.

Turned out the blanket was a fly sheet

I was in my pj's, no bra, and flip flops. Not exactly horse catching clothing but oh well. I did have a bag of horse cookies in the car since I had gone to the feed store the night before. I hiked out to the horse, calling to it and it very calmly walked up to me and ate the offered cookies. It was a black and white mare who looked to be in good condition (though her feet needed to be done) but the right side of the fly sheet was all torn up. I called the sheriff's office to report it, and they said they'd send a deputy. I then called A (who lives 3 mins away) and asked her to bring me a halter and lead rope. Mare was good about me hanging onto the neck of the fly sheet, but I was worried that if she tried to leave I wouldn't be able to keep control of her.

A was able to find me in the field and the mare was more than content to hang out with us getting scratches and cookies. As we were waiting for the sheriff to show up (who never did), A and I decided that if we couldn't find the owner we'd take her back to our barn. I did post to FB about her and a few people quickly shared the post. I was contemplating calling our vet to see if she was micro-chipped when a passing truck stopped. It was the neighbor of the horse's owner. He was calling the owners as he got out of his truck.

The owners showed up very quickly and were so happy we had stopped to catch her. They hadn't noticed she had gotten out till the neighbor called. They lived about a third of a mile down on the other side of the road. Apparently Abby, the mare, is quite skilled at opening gates and letting herself out. They've only lived at this property for about a year and this was the first time she'd pulled the Houdini trick. They vowed to upgrade their fences and after many thank you's they started walking her home. While I was happy we were able to find Abby's people, I was a little disappointed I couldn't take her back to the barn and have her feet done.