miniature guide horses

Classes officially started again two days ago. (For everyone taking Neuroscience, it started on the 6th.) After our biochem lecture where we found out each other’s majors in undergrad (this isn’t really something any of us really discussed very much, but apparently, something like half the class majored in Cell Biology & Neuroscience), a couple of us went out for lunch. By this, I mean that I held down a table while everyone bought food because I brought lunch from home (hooray for saving monies!).

We eventually ended up at my house, where we played 3 games of Settlers of Catan (I think I have a new favorite board game :D ). I slaughtered everyone in the first game, and Luke killed us off in the second two, partly through ruining my life and starting a brick monopoly.

I am somewhat of a master of tangents when it comes to conversations, so when Chris started rubbing his eyes and saying he was going temporarily blind, I brought up the subject of miniature guide horses and was met with blank stares.

Why yes, yes they do. :O

Shortly after I graduated from Davis but remained on the community service listserv, there was an option to help a center that trained them in Woodland, and you better believe I was all sorts of interested, but since I’d already moved back home, driving there several times a week to volunteer when I had no income to speak of wasn’t financially viable.

I was pretty disheartened, to say the least.

Anyway, I pulled up that site for them and we started reading up on just how awesome guide horses are.

• On average, they live for 30-40 years.
• They only shed twice per year, don’t get fleas, and can see clearly in almost-complete darkness.
• They can move their eyes independently and thus have a vision range of almost 350 degrees.
• They have amazing memory! <3
• They’re not there to “compete” with seeing eye dogs (that argument has been raised), but it does allow for another mobility option for someone who is blind (e.g. someone who’s afraid of or allergic to dogs, wants a guide animal with a longer lifespan, or one that can live outside).

It was probably around this point in time that Chris fell asleep on one of the couches, so Luke and I spent the next couple hours wading through bunches of websites on where we could adopt a guide horse, because there are a lot of miniature horses out there who have been neglected, abused or are sold to auctions for their meat. ;_;

This kinda led to our somewhat outlandish plan on how we’re going to start a farm and buy/adopt a herd of miniature horses and while we’re at it, we might as well get some hens, and perhaps a cow and some sheep, and he might as well learn to hunt, and I might as well start growing vegetables/herbs/fruit… (This is the conversation Chris woke up to 3 hours later.)

Outlandish (but awesome) ideas aside though, I really do want to adopt a miniature horse somewhere in the distant future, when I have the financial means to care for one (and a place of my own).

Triple H Miniature Horse Rescue <3