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Annie - 12
Stu & Pat Dye
My husband and I adopted our mustang Annie when she was a yearling. At that time the BLM used a lottery system to adopt; everyone drew a number and the lower your number,
the earlier you got to pick out your horse. We had several nice-looking animals in mind, but our number was very high and there were not too many horses to choose from
by the time it was our turn to make a selection.
We almost went home without adopting anything, but finally chose a small, skinny, burr-matted filly who seemed a little more
confident than the others that were left. The BLM folks got her into a chute where they put a halter on her and loaded her into our trailer.
We arrived home and backed up
to our corral, expecting her to explode out of the trailer, but she slowly walked instead and immediately began nibbling grass, as calm as could be. However, she was far
from tame. She managed to get out of her halter the very first day and it took me five weeks to get close enough to her to get another one on.
Annie made an amazing transformation. She even made the cover of the BLM newsletter when they asked for before and after pictures. Annie went from a scrawny yearling to
a beautiful, solidly-built two-year old. She also turned out to be a very reliable trail horse. She was never skittish and tolerated many things (plastic bags, for example)
much better than our other horses. She took an immediate liking to being sprayed with water.
Annie was doing so well that when we found ourselves with more horses than we needed, we decided to donate her to a local therapeutic riding program. Annie has been used
as a therapy horse for several years now and is doing extremely well. We are told that the children just love her. We are very proud of her.
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