October 28th, 2011

Today was a really cool day at Hytyme. First, Jim was working on the carbuerator on the dump truck. The carbuerator had gone out while the truck was in the big field, so Jim was standing on one of the mounting blocks, in the pasture, with his head in the engine compartment. During the entire process, Snickers and Peanut Butter Boy were next to him, with their heads near the engine compartment as well, occasionally giving Jim small bites of encouragment. It was a bit like a circus!

Also, we had just about 30 visitors from Sanford Brown College's Vet Tech program. Dr. Andrea Dover brought the veterinary technology students out to the barn. Dr. David from Eagle Fern was there, too. Our horses helped students practice bandaging, giving shots, and worming.

Playing the parts of injured horses who required bandaging and wrapping were Braveheart, Coal, Juliet, Tempest, Appa, Devon, Jaqueline, Marquis, Mary, Snickers, Hobbit, Katie Mae, Peanut Butter Boy, and Athena.

Everyone did amazingly well! Jim was very proud of the horses, and all the students seemed surprised that the horses were as polite and as accomodating as possible. The only horse who felt a little out of sorts was Tempest, probably because she wasn't used to the arena. The whole time, Rosa was he-hawing for Coal. The vet tech students thought that was pretty neat. Also at the same time, Katie was having her dressage lesson with Cynthia. Everyone thought that was pretty cool, too.

Says, Jim, "You know what? We have the happiest horses in the world. We should all be proud, making them like that."

After bandaging and practice dressing wounds, the vet students gave shots and wormer to our horses. Everyone was remarkably good! Even Apollo and Gideon got their shots and wormer, and they were perfect, too.

Here are some pictures of the day:

Thank you again to the Sanford-Brown College Vet Tech students for your time and help! We hope it was a valuable learning experience, too, and that working with the Hytyme horses will help you be better equipped for working with horses in the future!