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Tina

Tina is an old grumpy pony who is built like a barrel.
Once you get to know her though she is really quite affectionate and enjoys being groomed. She is also very pretty with a curly mane and tail. She has a fear of water and hose pipes and a knack of breaking into the feed room, where she proceeds to take one mouthful of anything that's going.
She is stabled next to Paddy and although wouldn't admit it to him she hates being in her stable if he's not there next door.

February 08
Tina is fine although she is starting to show her age a little more. She is slightly more stiff on her legs and so it's not often that we see her running in the fiels, unless Hilton is chasing her!
She recently has her teeth rasped by the vet, Tina needs sedating for this as she is scared of vets and just charges round and round the stable once the vet tries to do anything with her. No serious problems were found in her mouth though, just a couple of rough edges that needed taking off.
The vet listened to her lungs and detected a slight dust allerge, we had also noticed her coughing on a morning, so we have put her and Paddy on a shavings bed instead of straw and we now feed her a herbal breathing supplement too. apart from that she is very settled and happy and spends a lot of time with Paddy in the field.

May 2007
Tina is quite well in herself although she is again suffering with her weight and her arthritis seems to have worsened slightly.
We had been having trouble with Tina and the farrier as she really hates having her hooves trimmed, so much so that the time before last he refused to trim her back hooves as she was kicking and running away and it became impossible.
So we started to put time into handling her hooves every day and she was always quite good and well behaved for us and we began to wonder if it was the thought of strangers or just men handling her hooves which she found frightening.
Our horse trainer, Marie came down for a couple of sessions with Tina and found her to be perfectly well behaved and so she then arranged for a man to try to hold her hooves up to see if that was the problem, however she was well behaved for him too.
So we put work into training her to stand still and not run away and hoped that this would work well enough and luckily on the day the farrier came to trim her hooves at the beginning of May she was quite well behaved for him and after twenty minutes of careful handling and some bribery tina had four nicely trimmed new hooves and looked rather pleased with herself, and we were very pleased with her too. Watch this space to find out if the next time goes as smoothly, hopefully it will with plenty of practice and training.

July 2006
Tina has been doing very well and has been no trouble to care for, she seems to have got over her stubborn phase and has also been really good for the farrier on his recent visit. She has had her teeth checked by the vet but had to be sedated for this as she tends to get distressed and will run around her stable in a panic, luckily this only takes place every six months as she is an old girl and we really need to keep an eye out for any teeth problems which are common in older horses. Tina’s teeth however are in good condition so all she needed was a little rasp to get down any sharp edges, which may cause her discomfort. She has moved into a different stable next to Molly, which has a ramp, making it much easier on her legs as her old stable had a step on it, which she was beginning to struggle with in her old age. Recently we were given boxes of very old paperwork from the sanctuary’s earlier days. We were really happily surprised to find old newspaper articles from 1981 telling the story of how Tina was born. Her mum, a gypsy pony rescued by the trust, was loaned out to a family as a riding pony. The family loaning Charity was not aware that there was a stallion in the adjoining field and this stallion broke on with Charity and the result was Tina! We hope to show you the article and pictures on this page soon. We also discovered through this that her full name is Tina Marie and she was named after a dog that had died the day before Tina was born.

  March 2006
Tina is well and happy and has been quiet over the winter.
She has had a few minor break-ins to the feed room but was not allowed to stay in there as we have to go in after her & tell her firmly to get out!  If she was ever given the chance she would happily eat all the feed in there we are sure!
We do make up for it though by putting her night time treats in a bucket, she seems to appreciate it more like that as she knows that the other horses who get a large feed also get a bucket & she seems to think she is getting the same although really she only gets a handful.

January 05
Tina is doing well except from beginning to struggle a bit with her hips, especially when she is coming out of her stable in a morning. Because of this we have put her on some special herbs to try to help her joints and also a strong supplement from the vets.
She amused us all greatly not long ago when she managed to break through two
doors to the feed room. The difference this time was that someone had donated
a load of feed which we needed to sort through to see what would be suitable for us to use. There was Racehorse feed, Calf feed and Chicken feed there and Tina tore each bag open and took a mouthful out of each before we could stop her! We now have to padlock the feed room door when Tina is around as there is no stopping her once she sets her mind to getting in there.
 

November 05
Tina had a check up from the vet on the 9th of November and he was pleased with her health. However he did say that she is still overweight, as she weighs the
equivalent of a 16hh thoroughbred at 480 kilos! This amount of weight always takes a while to come off so hopefully in a year or so Tina will look slimmer and happier.
She also had her Tetanus injection which she did not enjoy, as she is scared of vets and needles! She got a few extra carrots in her feed that night for being so brave though.

October 05
Tina is doing well and we were very happy with her improved behavior with the farrier recently. She had all four hooves trimmed and hardly tried to kick.
She is still overweight and we are trying to keep her exercised as much as possible. She has had her diet changed to a feed balancer and chaff to ensure she is getting her vitamins and minerals but without gaining weight.
Tina has began to grow her lovely thick winter fur to keep her warm and dry in the cold wet weather. Now that the wet weather is arriving, she really enjoys rolling around in the mud, making it difficult for us to keep her looking presentable.

August 05
Tina is now having exercise almost every day to try to get her weight down a bit. We are sure this is doing her good as she seems happier in herself and voluntarily trots and even canters up the field, which is something we never dreamed she would do.
To support Tina's joints at this time, we have started to feed her a special herbal supplement which we have found works very well in the past.
To learn more abut these please visit  www.hiltonherbs.com
 

July 05
 Tina is coming on well with her diet and exercise programme. The vet has recently warned us about Tina being so overweight that she is at high risk of heart attack and arthritis. He recommended that she wear a grazing muzzle for a few hours per day to cut her grass intake, which she has taken to well. It has holes to let water and a small amount of grass through.
 Tina is also being exercised daily with walks around the ponies paddock and some small trots up the hill, which she seems to enjoy. We are hoping to start taking her for walks in the woods soon to give her more variety and a nice change of scene, having been born at the sanctuary she seems to appreciate this.

April 05
Tina has been enjoying life pottering around the big field with Paddy. She had her teeth rasped not too long ago which she really disliked, she even tried hiding behind some of the staff to get away from the dentist!
However these things need to be done as we cannot allow sharp edges to grow in the animals mouths, this would cause discomfort and ulcers and would put the horses off eating, which would then lead to nutritional deficiencies and poor condition.
Tina also had all four hooves trimmed, although she was quite naughty with the farrier he knows her well and persevered until he had her feet nicely trimmed.
One of the main problems on farrier day is not the farrier himself but the horses having to wait in their stables, which they hate! Tina in particular likes to remind us she is there by banging her stable door loudly.
We will be continuing training and handling work with Tina to
encourage her to stop being stubborn and barging.