Some People...

Fleetfoot Jack's previous owner showed up in a pickup truck with a horse trailer behind him and got out and demanded that I give him "his pony." Jack was nowhere in sight, otherwise I expect he would have loaded him up just that instant. In fact, now that I think about it, I bet he thought Jack would be in the Top Meadow, away from the house, and had planned to just take him from there without saying anything at all.

Wow. Fleetfoot Jack, a.k.a. Odin, came to us ill and contagious in mid-November 2007. I asked the owner to come and get him and left a check in the barn to pay him for some hay he had delivered. He never showed up and never replied. All but one of our horses became very ill with strangles, and little Jack suffered some pretty severe symptoms. So I paid the vet bills, and fed the little guy all winter, and tamed & began his training with the help of the children, and now that he's worth some money, the owner wants him back.

What is the right answer here? Shall I bill the owner for six and a half months of board? That's, let's see, $1625. The vet bill was gosh, for Jack alone it was probably only about $200, but for the other horses that he contaminated it was much, much more, perhaps thousands. I doubt I can get the owner to pay for the other horses' vet bills, but I suppose that depends on who actually "owns" the pony.

Anyway, I called the state police because the guy said he had called the state police, and they said they never heard of him. I mentioned that I didn't want this man on my property and that I doubted he would have pulled this kind of prank had there been a big man living here along with us, and they said that if he ever came back I should call them right away.

Never a dull moment....