The Clydesdale ladies are putting on weight.

Most times, we girls don’t want to admit added dimensions or even think about the potential of extra poundage.

But for Claire and Chantilly……………….this is a good thing.

These days they’re both happy members of the “clean-plate-club”.

I am putting them both in the “rescue horse” category.

I had originally thought that Chantilly was in okay shape when I got her and that Claire was the only rescue case.

Now, I’ve reconsidered.

They were both rescued.

……………………Claire’s lips are so very, very droopy.

She uses them for scooping her food into her mouth like a front-end loader of a tractor.

She can’t really keep them close to her teeth when she’s chewing.

Chantilly has loose lips too, but not to the degree that Claire’s lips flap in the wind.

AND, both ladies have the same damaged or missing front teeth………..

I hate to think of the potential sad coincidence of how both mares would have had that happen to their identical front teeth…………….

Plus, both girls have loose, flaccid lips……………..nerve damage?…………..(sigh).

 

 

I bought them from the same farm in Alabama.

 

 

That owner bought them at auction, and their previous owner is in Oklahoma…………….so, they both probably came together to the auction from that owner in Oklahoma.

(This is all reflected on their registration papers.)

I’ve called and left messages several times for the previous Oklahoma person to try to get additional information and history on the mares.

But, he has never called me back……….

I’m starting to think that somewhere along the line both girls have run into an owner with a short temper.

Someone who believed in discipline with a  2″ x  4″…………or something similar.

 

………………baggy lips and identical broken or missing front teeth…………….???

 

………………too coincidental……………….

 

I really want to say something right now………………..but it wouldn’t be “G-Rated”……………..

…………………..filled with flamboyantly descriptive adjectives………………along with impossible adverbs and anatomically impossible prepositions……………..

The content has a lot to do with extreme disappointment in my fellow man…

Extreme disappointment.

Both these mares have been through a lot of previous neglect.

 

 

 

Maybe I can do better by them…

 

 

 

*************************

But back to making lemonade out of lemons….

 

 

Both Claire and Chantilly ARE putting on weight.

Their coats ARE improving.

 

Their personalities ARE coming out.

AND here’s another huge plus……………their hooves are growing!

Our farrier had to trim a lot of healthy frog from the bottom Claire’s hoof this last weekend……………………..and that’s really really great news.

Claire has such lousy hooves to begin with.

 

It’s great news that she’s getting enough nutrition finally to stimulate her hooves to grow healthy hoof…………..so much so that it needs to be trimmed off…………….

We are just putting one horse hoof in front of another in their progression and return to better health………..

 

What happened to them before they came home with me?

 

 

 

I’ll never know…

What happens from here on in……………………….that’s the focus now…