Groany Pony

“Do not join with those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.” Proverbs 23:20-21

Roany Pony is a glutton. His weakness is grass. He can’t help himself. Every Spring when the grass finally greens up, I have to watch him like a hawk or he will eat himself into a terrible fit of founder. He has been so bad before that he could barely walk and had to have injections every four hours to get him over the hump. Of course, I was his nurse and I was ecstatic that he recovered fully. I still almost cry when I see him buck and play.

Roany has been with us for four years and came from a man who was heavy handed. He is very untrusting of adults, but loves kids. When my little one was only a year old, Roany would bend his neck to meet his hand so the baby could pet him through the fence. He’s never kicked, bit, or even moved an inch when a kid was anywhere near him. In fact, sometimes I send the kids out to catch him because he won’t come to me without a big bribe of sweet feed and a little song and dance we do before he lets me catch him. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about ponies that were spoiled rotten, but with Roany that is just not the case. He is our good pony, even if he is a pig!

Every time I see Roany lying down in the pasture, I suspect he has fallen to founder once again. This morning he was stretched out for more than 30 minutes under the cottonwood tree and I ran out to check on him. I scrutinized his every stretch as he rose. He looked a little stiff to me. So I blamed myself once again, for not putting him up sooner. I know his weakness. I am his keeper. It is all my fault and all my work when he gets sick. I second guessed the treat of some sweet feed yesterday after he’d let the kids ride him bareback and lead him around the pasture by themselves.

I put him in the front pasture, which is smaller and has less grass. Within an hour, he was back down. I kept watching him. Just when I was headed to the garage for my tube of Bute, he was up and wandering around as if he had made peace with his temporary confinement. And he was fine the rest of the day!

Naturally, for the next week or so I’ll be watching him like an old mother hen. I’ll be letting my big horse, Scooter, in with him to help eat the grass so Roany won’t get too much to eat and because I know it is not the same seeing your buddy through the fence. I’ll still let Roany out in the big pasture throughout the Summer periodically so he can keep up with the gossip with the horse that lives behind us and the ones cattycorner and across the street. I’m pretty sure they have horse meetings when no one is looking.

It is a lot of work to take care of a glutton! Almost like living with an addict of sorts. I can never trust Roany to know when enough is enough, and yet I can’t leave him to his own demise because we love him.

Thanks be to God for never giving up on all the gluttons of this world, whether equine or mankind, and for loving us enough to keep us from what we deserve.

“His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.” Psalm 147:10-11