Gyp and the Water Tank

I just got back from a horse rescue retreat in Westfir. I wish I had time to write in my blog today, because I learned so much from the horses and dogs and people I met!  But, work calls, so I thought I’d let my friend Caly take over my blog for the day.

Gyp

Here’s a note from Caly, who runs a cat rescue in California, and who has horses who share a pasture with a horse named Gyp:

Last weekend Scott and I were out visiting the girls. We weren’t working them, just out in the pasture hanging out. Gyp, the #1 gelding who “protects” my girls was acting completely weird. He’s usually in your pocket – but this day he was acting like I was going to beat him any time I got near him. He has a lot of foot problems and I was wondering if it was pain, but he wasn’t acting like that at all. Fearful, not painful.

As we were leaving, I shot a pic of him with my cell and emailed it to Bridget. She got it and text’d back right away, but we’d already left.

Bridget: “Well, he’s not making a lot of sense, Caly. He’s dehydrated. He’s got a headache. He wants you to put water in a bucket for him instead of his stock tank. Something about the stock tank is making him upset. Check to see if it’s electrified or something? He’s not talking much, so try that, and I’ll try to connect with him again later.”

Caly: “Wow, that was fast! We’ve left, but will go back. Stock tank is not electrified.”

We finished driving home, picked up a big bucket (only have puny ones at the ranch) and drove back. Both of us feeling a tad silly. I mean, what could possibly be wrong with a stock tank? And, we weren’t anywhere near the stock tank when he was acting wacko. But, if there is ANY chance there is a problem with water – and Bridget has been on the money with our cats – well….we’ll risk a late dinner and a little foolishness, right?

It’s pitch black when we get back there. We grab the lantern and walk out to the stock tank and holy sh*t, it’s possessed!! We stood and stared. There was water everywhere. The ground around was saturated and was like quicksand. As we stood there staring with our mouths hanging open, Angel walked up to get a drink. She didn’t like the mud, so she stopped at a distance and dropped her head in for a sip and JUMPED back like she’d been bit.

I said, “whoa! Well, there is no electricity out here, so it can’t be electrified.”
Scott said, “well something is pumping that water up.”

I was wearing rubber boots and was calculating the odds of getting shocked – or electrocuted – when Angel made another attempt. This time she was okay and I realized she jumped cause she didn’t expect the water to be at the rim – it’s usually a good 6-8″ down from the rim cause the refill is controlled by a float.

And that was the problem. The grate that protects the float is locked on by wires, and they had been cut. The float bobbed up to the surface doing no good at all and the water had been running continuously since who knew when and turned the entire area into a marsh.

So, we moved the float down and moved the grate back into position and anchored it best we could.

Then, we pulled the big barrels out of the holding paddocks and pulled them inside the gate and filled them up so the (scared) horses could drink while the ground dried out. After we made sure everyone was okay we drove back home. The whole way back we were going “omg, can you believe that?”

When I talked with Bridget later asking her to explain how the HELL I was supposed to figure out the stock tank was the problem from THAT behavior. She said, he was “just really upset about the stock tank because he thought it was alive.”

Totally cracked me up (in a Twilight Zone kinda way) ’cause each time I’d referred to the tank I said it was “possessed.”

The next day Gyp was back in our pockets.