Ooh…he’s a pudgy little thing! On my way to school I pass a farm that has a normal-sized horse, a mini horse, a mini donk, and a Percheron. Too much cuteness.
I wish I could afford to keep more than on horse at this time - my 24 year old mare has been alone off and on all summer. There are horses in the field next to her so she’s not totally alone, but they go in at night. Mine’s out with free choice stall access. I just can’t afford to board two horses.
AWWWWWWWWWWWW!!! Peanut is adorable! I hoppe he has a long & happy life with you & Irish… I know it will be much better than where he came from.
I have been wondering about your English boy, how is he settling in? Aren’t Setters WONDERFUL???
Bosicbo - Pudgy is an understatement. And it’ll be hard keeping the weight off him with as much pasture as I have. I may have to pen him part-time in a grass-free paddock with a limited amount of hay. But he can’t do his job as companion if they’re separated.
PapSett - Pat is a lovely boy, although as a house dog he’s getting fat and lazy. All he wants to do is be beside me and have my hand on his head. He’s such a lover.
Mehitabel - Yep, the other horses treat him as one of them. In fact, pony temperments being as they are, a small guy can be quite the herd bully.
I turned them out together last night in the big paddock, ahead of schedule. They seem joined at the hip already.
StG
Heh… and THAT is what Setters are best at ! They truly are the most loving dogs ever. So glad to hear that Pat is doing so well for you!
That’s your new baby? Damn, I hope you had a caesarean.
Major cuteness overload! Also major poundage overload, but as you say, it’s really hard to keep those little ones from porking out, especially with such lush pasturage.
Irish is GORGEOUS. And no doubt ecstatic to finally have a buddy. I’m waiting for you to update with the news that Peanut is now Herd King and lording it over Irish. We have a mini mare at our barn and she has Percheron-sized attitude – definitely queening over her paddock-pal, the mini donkey. Whitney was dark, almost black in her youth. Now she’s well on the way through gray toward white.
What a wonderful person you are to think of your own four legged family so highly as to give them friends, even ones that might rack up vet expenses.
I cannot decide who I am happier for, Peanut for finding a new forever home or Irish, who has a new friend.
Oh, and to get it out of the way,
I, for one, welcome our miniature horsie overlords.
Oh, yeah, Shirley, my pets have pets. I got Sabrina to be a companion for Papi (both siamese), but Papi seems to hate other cats. Papi loves dogs, though. I got Pat (the English Setter) to be a playmate for the standard poodle, since the doberman was sort of old and grumpy. I took in the Alaskan Malamute just because I knew him since he was a pup and he’d been abandonedby his owner, but he wasn’t supposed to be a pet exactly. He was just supposed to be a guest for life. He was an old barn dog when I got him - now he has his own dog bed in my bedroom. Since I work and can’t be with them all the time, I want all my animals to have friends. That’s how I ended up with 10 animals!
I put them out together in the big pasture and they’re doing fine. Irish still comes when he’s called. I worried that he’d be so taken with his new buddy he’d ignore me. Peanut cmoes when he hears the shake of the bucket. Fortunately, I can put a small handful of feed at the bottom of a deep bucket and he’ll be so absorbed trying to get every grain that he doesn’t notice that Iriah got 2 lbs of sweet feed. No cuts or scapes on either of them.
StG
I want one!!! Soooo cute!
I suppose my landlord wouldn’t like it if I had a miniature horse in the apartment though, huh? Oh well. I’ll just have to look at pictures for now.
gasps
Ooh I’ve not seen a flaxen chestnut for years
makes silly girlie squealy noises
Give me a spoon, I’m gonna eats him 
We gots some more treats for ya, Lobelia!
Like here!
Or this pretty girl.
Minis are wicked adorable!
ETF - Are minis particularly suseptible to founder, do you know? Is there anything I need to know especially about their care? Peanut is broken to pull a cart, but I don’t have one. It might be handy though, when hauling stuff to and fro.
Lobelila - He’s not quite small enough to be eaten with a spoon!
Dr. Rieux - Very snarky. I like it!
taxi - I understand they’re using minis as certified service animals now. And your mandlord can’t kick out a service animal, or he’d be breaking the parity laws.
StG
I don’t know for sure, but I’d suspect minis would be in just as much danger of founder as ponies, and we all know how prone they are to it if they get anywhere near as much as they’d like to eat.
You know, the other day I saw an old ER rerun where a wheelchair using patient came in with a miniature horse as a companion animal. This guy was even smaller than Peanut, I’d guess less than 30". Is this a realistic scenario? Can horses be house broken?
zagloba - I’ve never seen one, but according to this website, there are many plusses, including a much longer lifespan. Guide dogs have an average working life of about 8-12 years and miniature horses can live and work into their 30’s and 40’s.
StG
Thanks, StGermain. The link claims an advantage of guide horses over dogs is that people are less likely to confuse them with pets and try to exclude them from premises on that basis. My first inclination before reading about horses as service animals would have been to resist letting them in because I think of horses as outdoor animals.
How are Peanut’s hooves doing?
Baker - I haven’t gotten the farrier out yet - it gets dark so early and I don’t like my horses worked on when I’m not there. I’ve seen farriers get pretty aggressive with horses when the owner’s not around. Besides, Irish isn’t as good unless I’m holding him.
zagloba - I think the main advantage would be the longer working life of a mini versus a dog. It costs a lot of money to raise and train a service dog, and their working life is pretty short. Well-kept horses live for a long time, and most can do work almost to the very end.
My pair are doing very well together. It looks like it’ll have been a good investment.
StG
I would positively love to see a picture of the 2 horsies together.
16 years later and today I found Peanut dead in the barn. He’d been acting lethargic yesterday, so I texted the vet for an appointment. I wasn’t too worried - he was still coming up for his dinner. The vet never got the chance to come out. When he didn’t come up for breakfast I went looking.
Farewell, Peanut. You were such a pony - stubborn, too smart for your own good, escape artist. But you were loved.
StG
