[copied and pasted from facebook]
PRESLEY AKA SATAN BACK STORY###
I operate a rehabilitation center and I was contacted by friends of mine that had just got a new farm. Their neighbors had horses breaking through the fence and into their yard. I was called over to investigate…Because many of the horses were stallions and in bad health. They contacted animal control and between myself and animal control we seized 14 horses from the property. SATAN was one of the 9 stallions seized.
Animal control then tells me this person with the starving horses used to work for them. 14 horses and 5 of them this person was fostering for animal control. SATAN being one of the five.
SATAN was bought as a yearling at a horse auction by inexperienced horse owners. SATAN and his half brother (aka partner in crime…who is much nicer and still available) got loose from their home. 6 months they were running at large and no one could catch them. One day a farmer called and he had trapped them in a field. Farmer kept them through the winter. Then animal control came and got them and moved them to the foster they thought they could trust.
The day we got the warrant to remove the animals we caught all but SATAN. We used a mare (he was still a stud at this point) to lure him to a barn and get him into a 10 X 10 stall. With the help of 4 people we couldn’t even touch him in the stall. So we backed up the trailer in the barn and ran him in.
When we got to our facility we backed the trailer up to another stall and let him out. For 6 days he would run any one out of his stall and strike and kick at you baring his teeth. (Hence where the nickname Satan started)..Because he was the devil.
On the 6th day of him being there I had enough of his BS. Him and I spent the next 3 days living in the same stall…I have a foaling cot I would sleep in the barn with him.
Late one night we had our boarders over and we decided tonight was the night he needed to feel a humans touch and by the next morning about 5 am we had him halter broke…(after the little jerk drug me around like a rag doll about 30 times) Every day after I would get him out and lead him a lap around the barn.
A few weeks later we started working on desensitization. (That is where the blood sweat and tire part of the post came into play) First time I went to use the carrot stick to touch him he spun just as fast and kicked me with both back feet in my hip. ( he had a come to jesus meeting after that) then we ended the day with a loose (no girth) saddle over his back.
He has came a long way since day one and Olivia is the perfect trainer to finish the job…
I have 25 horses in training and we have about 30 rescues so I didn’t have the time to give him the one on one time he needed everyday so I created that ad and here we are… over 11,000 likes and an unwanted feral pony has become an Internet Phenomenon over night…
You have to meet Satan to realize how special he is…No matter how many kicks bites or bruises he will always turn back at you and give you that “What did I do wrong” face and steal your heart…
Can’t wait to see the rest of his transformation from this side for once and a Huge thank you to Matt (Olivia’s husband) for giving Olivia the ok to help out this pony and to Olivia for caving in after weeks of me rubbing him in your nose to train!!! Lol…
And to the 11,000 followers…This is overwhelming and amazing. Thank you so much for having a good laugh but following up on this pony journey. We will rescue over 100 horses this year and he will always have a special place in my heart (and in my temper)…lol. We have many horses that come in like Satan that the world forgets about or gives up on and hope this pony story can make a difference on how people view feral horses!!! Thanks again
Jessica Lynn…
Facebook.com/indoorlanes
So there you have it: THE REST OF THE STORY! And here you thought it was some poor sap who’d literally been run into the ground by a deranged, flesh eating wildebeest. Thanks again to Jessica for the laugh, but especially for all her hard (and hazardous!) work day in and day out to give these horses a better life. Now, back to that handsome little devil…