A New Life

It's not raining for the first time in 10 days. We've had some breaks of sun through the grey and the horses are dozing in the rays, steaming or grooming one another. Their blankets are off for the first time since a week ago Sat when the sun last made it to the ground and Pete arrived in his new home. Under his blanket, he's thin, a body score of like 4 out of 10 and not the healthy, athletic 4. His ribs are too close to the touch under the flesh of his sides and the points of his hips are not rounded. His belly is bloaty but better than it was, likely the result of no exercise and parasites. He's eating quite a lot but he has to use those calories to power moving around, building basic muscles he's never had, growing a winter coat he's never needed, and keeping himself warm. It's a lot to ask and we were worried about all this bring him here, into the winter Cascade foothills, this late in the year. It was the only chance he had, the only one where he would not end up in another barn or with someone who would continue to allow his care to degrade or land on the wrong truck after a terrifying journey through the auction house. This was it, cold, wet, and roughing it. This is where he gets to be a horse with other horses. He's cold and thin but chances are, he'll survive. By spring, I have no doubt he will be looking healthy. I think we have the routine down to where we could put fat on a rock if we had to.

Pete Part III
Our Haflinger, Princess Cinderella, is a benevolent dictator. Her thick 13'3 hh furry self keeps everyone in line, makes sure everyone gets part of the meal and does not tolerate herd members beating up on one another. She likes things tidy and her herd polite. She does not roll in the mud, she prefers to be clean and treated with respect. She is an outstanding Head Mare for rehabilitation of troubled horses. She teaches them that people are worth tolerating, if nothing else.

Cinderella is a lovely mare and came to us after having several babies. She is very well trained but she does not appreciate the rough hands of beginners. Haflingers are also their own type of horse with a typical temperament all their own. It seems compassed somewhere among draft, pony, and Arabian which is sort of what they are. If a rider treats Cinderella with less than quiet respect or generally forces her to do something she does not want, she is powerful enough to rip the reins from your hands or your arms out of their sockets if you decide to hang on. Then, she will ignore you and do as she pleases. I love Haflingers but they are not generally a horse for truly new riders. I had intended Cinderella to be our guest/husband horse but the truth is that she is not a match for that job. She is terribly out of shape and needs conditioning to return her to a proper post-pregnancy state. I have felt horribly guilty about not being able to offer her disciplined daily exercise needed for that and not having a purpose for her, a job. I put her up for sale and received the typical strange responses, "hi i'm looking for a pony for my four year old do u think she will mind her?" Um, no. A few days after Pete arrived, I deleted her ads, she has a job. As long as good horse with no where to go end up in our pasture, she is their guide and she does her job incredibly, shockingly well.

On Pete's first day turned out with the mares, I fed everyone more than enough for dinner, spreading piles along the fence line so that they could spread out and be less likely to squabble over food. I had to blanket them for the weather and the last thing I needed was someone getting tangled in someone else's blanket.

Pete kept wandering away from his meal, sucking up leaves, exploring, and not realizing he needed to make his way back to the hay. He had been greeted by each of the mares and then checked out the terrifying new aberration of a spotted thing that smells like a horse but is the size of a dog, our pony Naught Dotty. After a while, she didn't eat him so after some chasing and a good sniff, she was deemed inedible and therefore uninteresting.

The mares ignored Pete, aligning themselves with Cinderella's behavior. In the early evening, I called my sister to tell her how Pete was doing. The mares had finished their dinner with quite a bit left on the ground. I was watching the small herd outside the window and was surprised to see Cinderella slowly moseying toward Pete. Cinderella edged toward Pete and then turned her head away a little and started grazing as soon as he became nervous. I began narrating what I was seeing to my sister, enjoying watching the copper-penny red mare with Barbie-blond hair make her way politely over to the new horse. She was able to creep up on him and eventually share breath in greeting and then pretended to graze again while Pete carefully checked her over, satisfying his curiosity. He had never been close to a mare, had been turned out with other horses all together only a handful of times.

Slowly Cinderella moved away, asking Pete to follow. When he hesitated, she continued to the hay along the fence line before looking back to where Pete stood, head held high with anxiety in the middle of the pasture. Cinderella nosed the hay around and then slowly, calmly turned around and repeated her sneaking up on the new horse routine. Pete also repeated his part from the prior scene but this time followed her all the way back to the hay. Cinderella had brought him into her herd, making sure he ate. She stayed near him, nibbling hay but mostly keeping Pete company and keeping the other mares away so he could finish his first meal outdoors in peace.

It was surprising how concretely caring and obvious her body language was. I knew she cared for her herd, treating rescue ponies like her babies. Her wrath when our Quarter Horse mare, Bella, went after Cinderella's ponies on arrival. Bella still doesn't care for ponies but she stays away from them and will show the marks of Cinderella's schooling on her sides until her new coat comes in this spring.

My husband came in the room where I was watching the adoption event in the pasture, narrating for my sister. He commented, "You've been on the phone with your sister talking about a horse for more than an hour?" I said just wait, you'll see, Cinderella is adopting him. It was like a little National Geographic drama right outside the window! We haven't owned a TV in almost 12 years. There was never a time when the content on television and the joy and work and stress in our own lives were so oppositional, I can't imagine bringing one into our lives. We don't have time or space if we wanted to and so much is so awful, I don't wish the invasion in any case.

Cinderella doesn't treat Pete like a baby, but she does treat him like a young horse who needs to be taught how to properly be a horse. He is nearly 7 but looks and acts 3. Cinderella treats him in this way, based on what he is. The next day, Pete was not standing in his costly hay pile, tossing grass everywhere, he was carefully standing at the edge of the pile careful not to spread it around where it would be lost or ground into the mud. He was still eating like he was starving but he was eating politely and under Cinderella's protection. She taught him to drink water from the seasonal pond, his place in the herd, to turn his back to the weather, and sleep under the trees. With her protection, Pete eats first and gets all his grain, he needs it, he's almost starving and Cinderella knows. Pete watches the mares carefully, imitating their body language and posture, learning how to rest on one hip while standing so he isn't so tired. He gallops up to the fence when I whistle bring hay or blankets. The Food Lady Provides, she brings us good things and offers scratches in places we can't reach.

Pete explored everything he could find, I watched him appear to attack a spiky Hemlock, thrashing around in the branches, trying to decide if it was good for eating or rubbing his itchy body on. It took a thrashing to decide it was nasty-tasting and useless. Pete popped out from the trees all spooky and full of himself. He licked rocks, rolled in the grass, and learned to use a tall maple stump as a scratching post by watching Bella. Everything went into his mouth, exploring in the only way a young horse knows. He never offers to bite any more, he has too much else to explore, he already knows what people are.

Offering stale grapes was deemed Poisoning The Horse until Pete watched the mares suck them from my fingers with alacrity. He nuzzled his grain bowl so I threw in a grape, where food belongs. He sniffed and rolled and nuzzled the grape and finally tried eating it. His head popped up, he did not hesitate to take the next offered from my hand. I'm sure he would have climbed that fence to strip every last grape from me, I was fully mugged for every treat I had. There was nothing so wonderful as a grape! Pete has never had treats.

We've had Pete with us since the last day there was a break in the rain. Today it was time to begin the process of separating off members of The Herd and putting them in sacrifice paddocks to keep our turn-out pasture from ruin. It has taken more wear and tear than I'd like keeping the horses together while Pete gets used to things but Pete needs to learn how to be a horse and it was the best I solution I could offer. He's now in his paddock with Bella, our other rehab project and family member. They need more hay than the fat ponies. I've left Cinderella turned out where he can see her for the night. Tomorrow, I will move the rest to their smaller paddock where they will return to a less generous diet! Pete will not be able to see the rest of the herd other than his companion, Bella. It's Thanksgiving day and we'll be home to monitor how he does. I hope our neighbors are not too disturbed by the horse yelling and screaming for one another that may come and that the drama does not continue long. Best to move them at breakfast, it's hard to holler for long with a mouth full of hay.

I am thankful we gave Pete a place to go, that my sister, our kind-hearted husbands, and I gave in and brought him home. The longer I've had to consider him, the more it's clear that he has just what he needs, a herd that will treat him well and guide him and enough space to be a horse. I'm also seeing an active, curious mind with bright eyes that want to spend more time learning than keeping the worried look he arrived with. He's a good horse. It amazes me that he could be treated so poorly and cast off his past so completely and readily, eager for a different life. I keep waiting for the day he may act out from his past, we've seen this before. I don't know that he will, I don't know that he won't.

We all have something to be thankful for.

Living In A Cloud

Or rather, "clouds." It's a Seattle fall/winter day where there isn't really any rain or fog, we're really sitting in a cloud-bank that has descended all the way to the ground. Driving through this stuff requires variable-setting, intermittent wipers. I was very excited to buy my first car in the era when this became a standard feature, more so even than A/C.

It's been raining, drizzling, showering, pouring, misting for more than a week. Wind and rain pounding their way through the mountains at night has kept everyone awake through most of this time. Our urchin keeps waking up screaming, the noise outside being mistaken for Monsters, cougars and bears in particular Under The Bed. Mom says "But Honey, you have a trundle bed, the space under your bed is full. What kind of Monster do you think could possibly fit under there?" The Answer: "A Flat Monster." Duh. The conversation degenerated into talking about, "Pancake Bears" or monsters that are flat until they're let out from Under The Bed and then they fill up like balloons. I apparently lack imagination at this stage of my life. Stephen King just *had* to have spent time with kids.

I'm completely disassociated from reality today, not having slept enough last night due to several rounds of screaming night-terrors. Yeti was restless and seemed worried about something. He's been lurking close to me, guarding and/or wanting lots of attention. He's an old man now, I worry about him. His ears and nose were too warm last night.

I've finished what I need to for work today and I'm waiting for my carpool. I want to go home and try to rest. Yesterday, I felt normal after a weekend of sickening antibiotics. Today, I feel like someone's standing on my chest again and my head is as cloudy as the scene outside my office window. Leaning on the window sill, I can look into the non-winter-dead plantings so carefully maintained by the facilities folks. I wish my yard looked as inviting. I can see only 3 buildings again through the mist. Watching the traffic and people walk by the new tower I work from my quiet office leaves me feeling like I'm the same age as our child, trying on Mom or Dad's shoes. It feels over-sized and adult. When was it that I stopped asking Santa for castles for Christmas and started sitting in meetings trying to save a corporate universe, feeling as though I'm pretending to be an adult and know what I'm doing even though I know that's not true.

We'll go home and light a fire and Yeti will come in wet and needing a bath, wanting his human to pet him and telling my by giving my arm a giant, slobbery nose shovel. And, hopefully, I'll sleep.

OMG! What IS that?!

The weather is at it again tonight, roaring away. Things have been bumping and crashing in the night for more than a week, putting people and animals on edge since no one has been sleeping well. I am sick again, more antibiotics.

Pete mugged me for grapes this morning, the last of a few in the fridge, green and the size of bowling balls. OK, they looked like crab apples but their size was unnatural. Pete doesn't know what treats are, he thought I was trying to poison The Horse. I tossed one in his grain bowl so he might recognize it as food. It only took one and then he was not only taking them from my hand but he shoved the others out of the way and would have climbed over the fence to get the rest if he could have. "Holy cow!" he says, "Those are REALLY GOOD!"

Pete Part II
We brought him home last Saturday during some of the only storm-free hours all weekend. This was to be his second time ever being turned out with other horses and never with mares in the almost 7 years of his life. My sister and I talked about this, speculated on what might happen. I mulled over for hours what would be the safest way to introduce him to everyone with minimum yelling and screaming. I didn't want them to have blankets on to get tangled up in if there was a scene. I wondered if I should introduce him to the fence line or if I should allow the dogs to use their passage into the pasture they use to run around and WOOF at Bad Guys.

In the end, we unloaded Pete uneventfully with dogs all heavy panting wagging, sniffing, and rushing around under foot. Pete looked at them, "What are those?" but only using a pricked-ear stare. We turned Pete out alone in our largest, safest pasture. He slowly trotted a few steps out into the green pasture that, to him, must have gone on forever. He scanned his verdant new surroundings with a brief snort, making sure nothing was eminently about to eat him. This tool all of approximately 3 seconds. Then that black velvet nose went strait to the ground and started hoover-ing leaves like M&M's dropped on the starving from heaven. Pete did not panic, he did not look at the other horses, now staring at him from the next paddock, he did not run the fence or try to kill himself in some crazy horse sort of way. He stood a few steps from the gate and stuffed himself. Pete's bright eyes and flicking ears would pop up for brief moments, checking again for imminent death by predator but down the nose went, sweeping across the grass causing leaves to vanish at a shocking rate. So much for the terrified new comer scene.

We brought his new herd over to join him in order of social rank in order to keep the hollering down. Princess Cinderella was first, as is her right. There was sniffing and then running and bucking across the pasture for the delight of being in the sun and free of wet blankets and muddy paddocks for the moment. Pete hardly noticed the others, he was busy eating.

The large bulk of leaves and grass available for Pete to gorge on left us worried about leaving him out in that pasture over night. Instead, we blanketed him and out him in a smaller paddock. He looked at me intently over the fence, still thinking of humans as his Herd. He swished his tail, thinking. Something brushed his ankles. "OMG! What is THAT?" He stamped his foot to shoo the thing that touched him away from his legs. He swished his tail in irritation. "AHHHH! That THING touched me again!" followed by another foot stamp. I watched Pete throw his head, eyes starting to roll every time he swished his tail, tip whacking him on the legs. Pete had spent his life in a stall with his tail bundled and wrapped far above his hocks, protecting it for that Arabian breed show that he never saw. He didn't know the feeling of his own tail hanging about his legs.

As the sky changed from light steel-grey clouds to black, Pete must have realized that no one was bring him in to his stall. The next morning, it was clear he had spent the night pacing the fence line closest to the other horses until he wore himself out and had to rest. The paddock was stamped into a wet brown froth with marks where Pete had thrown himself flat out on his side to rest. One side of him from ears to tail was covered entirely with caked and wet mud. His eyes were rolling and bloodshot, his dinner untouched. I gave him breakfast where he was, without the other horses and stood next to him while he ate so he did not feel alone but none would take his food. When he'd eaten enough, I lead him over to the pasture and turned him out with the mares.

The mares took turns exchanging sniffs and snorts in order of status. The last was little pony Naughty Dotty who preferred to mind her own business of removing grass from the pasture. With the other exchanges completed, Pete turned his attention to Dotty for the first time, her coat a '70's shag carpet of white with black leopard spots. The black heat came up, eyes huge and starting, ears pricked, nostrils flared, snorting. "WTF is THAT?! It smells like a horse but it has spots and it's the size of a dog, it must be a HORSE-EATING DEMON!" Pete was frozen in fearful contemplation of the possibilities, "A posessed dog? A monster wearing a horse skin???" He must have run out of answers and it hadn't eaten him in those first few moments so it was time to investigate. Dotty's quietly contemplative breakfast in the sun was interrupted by that gangly, rude new horse running at her full speed snorting and determined to get a close up look at her. She was having none of that, out running the stabled bound interloper as fast as her stubby little furry legs would move her.

I brought everyone more than enough breakfast of grass hay and waited to see the interaction. What would happen introducing a completely isolated gelding into a herd of mares?

I watch Pete eat rudely, stomping hay into the mud, throwing the piles around about. I ground my teeth watching sweet summer hay lost and knowing that every blade was far from free. At times, Pete would be distracted from his meal by a near by leaf which he also ate. And then, he'd find another, and another, and eventually loose his food. I went out and stood by his hay and whistled to him when he wandered too far, calling him back to his pile of hay. Pete was used to being fed in a stall, just enough to live, never enough to thrive until recently. Now The Food Pile went on forever without the near-by boundaries of his stall walls. He lost his way, not realizing there was a pile of hay to return to and then not being able to find it once he figured out that's what he wanted. Eventually he stood with his hay, plowing mouthfuls into his his dainty mouth lined with the marks of lips pursed out of anger and fear.

The mares ignored him.

My sister brought Pete a new blanket that fit him better and would keep him more warm with less danger of tangling himself in it. His coat is so thin, not really enough for the winter we see at our old farm house in the mountains. We didn't want to bring him here into the cold but it was all that he had, the only answer. My sister said, "Well...I guess he'll be cold but he won't die." If he did, it'd still be an ending better than the auction yard with a long ride on the wrong truck.

The Other Side of The Fence

It happens almost every time a new horse comes to stay with us, most of them for a relatively short time. Somehow, some way, they find a new way to to end up on The Other Side of the fence.

It's dark and raining again (still?) when we pulled up to our gate. My husband gets out to unlock and open the gate for me to drive through. He heads out to collect our emptied trash cans. I pull slowly around the curve of our driveway, mindful of our furry, white escorts trotting along up to the house. Headlights plow straight through the rain onto the the generous blanketed bottom of Princess Cinderella, our Haflinger and The Mare In Charge. The others are orbiting around her, wandering the yard, snacking on grass. Everyone is on The Other Side of the fence. It doesn't look like they've been out for long and they haven't yet busted into the hay barn.

I leave the car running, headlights shining on my jail breakers. Needless to say, they want nothing to do with me while they dine away on wonderful fresh grass. If you are a horse, there is nothing in this world you want more than fresh green grass. Other brief interest may past through their furry minds but if you're a horse, in the end, it's all about grass.

Walking through the harassing rain, I consider all the halters I have to go haul out to bring everyone back in, assuming they decide to allow me to catch them. I'm stepping carefully down the puddled gravel drive wearing my work clothes, including silk blouse, heeled shoes, and a designer leather jacket that was an anniversary gift from my husband. I'm not sure was ever intended to get that wet. I'm wondering again how I've ended up hear and how many of my weekday colleagues are doing something similar, i.e. none. The office people go from house to car to indoor parking garage into work and back again. No need to worry much about weather other than to look at the opaque grey that hasn't brought snow in the mountains yet.

I think better of the default plan of haltering and returning one horse at a time and fill a wheelbarrow I use for hauling hay with Dinner. I give The Food Lady Whistle I use every time I approach and begin wheeling toward the pasture. Pete follows eagerly at a trot, stepping ahead and stuffing his long dark face into the pile. This gets everyone's attention. I move ahead and Pete stares and me, torn between the departing meal and The Herd behind him. A handful of hay waved at his nose decides for him and we're off at a bisque pace back toward the gaping pasture gate.

It doesn't take long before I am surrounded by a swirl of running horses and dogs in the dark and wet, my heels sinking into the grass and mud. I can't see them and I hope they can see me as they rush past, nearly brushing me. I have to trust their skill and grace in not running The Food Lady over. Everyone pauses at the pasture gate to see if I'm really offering dinner, piles of hay just a little better and a little less work than all that green grass on The Other Side of the fence. As soon as the flakes hit the ground, the herd comes in and arranges themselves around the piles of sweet grass based on their social ranking.

We examine the gate, it was a poor installation of the chain that broke when a large someone leaned hard on it to scratch their bum or to stretch under for some of that taller green grass. My husband comes out with a new chain and we replace them in a safer manner. I knew we should have fixed that, but it was one of 1,000 things we hadn't gotten to.

During the time I'm standing alone, feeling the rain soaking my hair, I wonder again what I was thinking when I made the zillion choices that brought me here. My lungs are tightening from the cold and the fungus on the huge tree we had to take down that still needs splitting. I breath slowly and try not to allow a breathless coughing fit to to start. I feel myself getting sick again, the sinus infection that never goes away and takes hours and days and weeks away. The leaden exhaustion caused by infection sucks at my body and mind. I'm going back to the doctor tomorrow but I'm also scheduling another visit to the ENT clinic. My symptoms are an allergic fungal infection. I want them to run that test, one of the few they haven't. I'm holding a silvery, soft ball of fear in my belly, the online articles say this can't be permanently cured, it's often not diagnosed.

I watch horse shapes in the rain and ask my husband to hurry, it's hard to getting breath. We fix the gate ad my mind goes back to fixing dinner after changing into my farm clothes. I'm The Food Lady here, it's my job. Inside it's light and warm and my inhaler is waiting for me aling with fish and greenbeans. And, Yeti's completely indifferent Cat thinking his small predatory thoughts.

It's All About The Dog...Unless It's a Horse

The Story of Pete, Part I

There isn't an easy way to start at the beginning so I'll start with today. Right now, The House of Yeti boasts, or is traumatized by, 3 horses and one spotted pony. There is an additional horse, she has been sent away to a reform school for teenagers who need something to do. 3 horses and one spotted pony are too many. This is the beginning of our story with a horse we can call, "Pete" for now.

If you have space, they will find you. Pete found us.

Pete is a coming 7 year old black, sorta black, Arabian with beautiful names on his papers. My husband and I first saw him on a section of video intended to sell our Paint gelding in training. Pete's performance showed a bright-eyed youngster, tail held as a flag, pacing the arena with a slow, easy trot. If the sound had been left off, the video would have been lovely. It wasn't. Pete was a young stallion with a habit of biting and attacking people. The trainer's recorded conversation was disturbing enough for us to remove our horse immediately from the barn. Pete was beautiful. We talked about who he was and how unsuitable a horse like him would be for us. But Pete was pretty. My husband kept the video years after we sold our gelding because Pete was handsome.

My sister boarded her horses over a number of years at the barn managed by the people who bred Pete with the pretty names on his pedigree. They bred horses during the time when horses were a tax write-off for the wealthy. The tax benefits were taken away by congress and left Pete's humans with a half-filled barn and boarders as the only income. The Head Trainer left, the assistant trainer took over, mostly for mucking stalls. Pete lived in a stall and was rarely touched because he's a mean stallion who bites. He was a baby mammal who put his mouth on everything to explore his world but he was left in a stall where the only thing to explore was the next person who walked in. They hit him so he bit. They hit him again, he tried to defend his small universe. They beat him next time. It wasn't just one, "They" it's what was done, he was a mean stallion. He started to cower in the corner of his stall every time someone opened the door.

My sister got to watch as months went by without Pete being turned out or handled or allowed to interact with other horses. She made quiet suggestions to his people, she petted him, she gave him treats, she took photos when his owners decided to sell him for the tax-deduction era price. Pete was covered in muck and it was hard to tell exactly what color he was. My sister did her best to make him look good but no one paid his asking price. She watched in helpless disgust that she turned her mind away from. We were children too much like Pete. I picked up pieces of Pete's story over the years he lived in his stall but only in passing, she didn't talk about it.

Eventually Pete was one of few left in a mostly empty barn. The manger's family had a truly terrible health crisis and they shut their business down. Kind people helped care for the horses until a new manager came in with her own business. The new manager and the kind people had gotten Pete out and taught him to walk on a lead. They taught him not bite people, most of the time. They didn't hit him. They did geld him!

My sister boarded her mare there again under the new manager. We talked about Pete a lot. I came out and worked with the petite black horse who was so different from our powerful, willful Haflingers. He was not a dangerous stallion, he was an eager youngster who looked and acted half his age. I was impressed by how fast he figured out what I was asking of him. He didn't bite but he did think about it until my elbow arrived inconvienently in the way if he tried.

We talked to our husbands about taking on another horse but we agreed we had to many. It was a hard decision because we have what Pete needs so desperately, a green pasture with mares to kick his ass and teach him how to be a horse. Without learning how to be a horse, he would try to be what he knows and make people his herd. Treating people as his herd is a behavior that brings many horses, and sometimes people, to bad ends.

This month, Pete's owner could no longer pay board, he was to be off the feed bill by Dec. 1, a few weeks away. There are no homes for horses. Everyone I know who can take in another horse has including ourselves. No one wants a horse with no skills, no job, no value, especially just before the holidays when feed bills are highest.

And ad went up on craigslist and my sister sent it to me. Craigslist horses listed very low or for free tend to end up sucked into a creepy circuit of people buying low and re listing high or taking them to auction after posing as, "family" homes or being resold because the new owner didn't understand what it would take to care for the horse. The horses are often not well cared for and they do not learn the skills they need to find that real long-term home. I felt ill seeing that ad. I knew my sister did too.

I told my husband that Pete was on craigslist. It was last Friday and he asked me if we were picking up a horse the next day. I hadn't said much but after 10 years, I would guess he can read the look on my face.

We picked up Pete the next day. It wasn't raining so I cancelled my riding lessons and off we went. The gaggle of teenage girls that float around most barns was to be found at this one too. They became interested after seeing a strange lady walk into Pete's stall and walk him out for grooming without hesitation. No one touched Pete except the manager and my sister. They started to form an audience on the stairs across from the cross-ties where we got Pete ready, my sister installing polo wraps as the only protection we could offer his legs. We untied the tail that had been carefully braided and kept in a cover in anticipation of entering the show ring, tail like a flag, floating above the ground. It was more than a foot past the ground. My audience was silent when I pulled his tail straight and chopped it off ungracefully at the ground. I handed my sister the thick section of tail, so symbolic of an Arabian show horse and of his new future as her pasture horse.

I took out a section of the property owner's white fencing along the driveway on the way out. Good thing I bought my first trainer more than second hand because learning to pull a 3 horse slant load is not easy!

In The Beginning...

The House of Yeti began with a velvet, white potato puppy who stayed that way for approximately 15 minutes. 10 weeks later, he came home and our lives began to revolve around The Dog until he had his own car, flock, house, yard, child, and most importantly, his own Cat. This is The House of Yeti.