Meet my Co-worker Bonnie

This is Bonnie. She's the Chief Executive Philosopher here at j.Nic Designs and this is her "I'm sorry mama!" face.

She is always up to & getting into something. This time I was scratching her chest & neck & she kept creeping forward & taking steps in toward me, crowding me. I'd ask her to back up a couple of steps each time she did it as she needs to learn she can't crowd my personal space. Horses are large animals & they have to learn boundaries to keep everyone safe so as much I was would love to have a lap horse & as much as she would love to be one I know that isn't practical ;). And if I get hurt & can't work, they can't eat! So after the third time of me asking her to back out of my personal space she looked me dead in the eye, picked up one of her front feet & set it right down on top of my boot. Not hard mind you or I'd have a broken foot/toe right now but enough so she got her point across of being a brat because she wasn't getting her way. Needless to say she took more than a couple of steps backwards after that & went straight into her stall. So this is her apologizing. 

I adopted Bonnie from the Georgia Department of Agriculture about 2 years ago. The Dept of Ag enforces animal cruelty & neglect laws across the state so if they get a call about horses (or other livestock) not being taken care of they step in to investigate. Usually they try to educate the people if it's a neglect case about what steps they need to take to make improvements if they want to keep their animals. Some people just straight up sign over their animals right away, telling them they can't take care of them. Others make the necessary changes & keep their animals & then there are some that refuse to give up their animals or take care of them & the state has to step in, get a warrant & take the animals. Bonnie belonged in latter case. She was impounded along with her mom & 2 other stallions (one of which was her dad but no one knows exactly which one). She wasn't quite 2 years old & her mom was pregnant again (and ended up losing that baby because she was so malnourished). I really had no intentions of taking on another horse that day I met Bonnie. The dept of ag holds auctions to find homes for the horses & I just needed a pick me up as I had just came back home after temporarily moving in with my mom & dad for almost 7 months to help my mom battle a rare form of cancer. I like to visit with the horses they have & see & hear their recovery stories since that is also where Molly, one of my other horses I'll introduce you later came from. The second I met Bonnie though I instantly loved her. One of the officers from the Dept of Ag that I had met previously when I adopted Molly asked me if there was one I was interested in. I told her I really hadn't had any intentions of getting another horse that day but I really felt a connection with Ruffles (that was Bonnie's name at the impound facility as they named her whole group after potato chips.. lol). She tried to convince me that I should be interested in another horse but I knew where my heart was. So no one else was interested in adopting Bonnie that day & when the auctioneer said "Final call.. anyone interested $100?" I raised my hand & the rest is history. I named her Bonnie because she was rehabilitated at the Lee Arrendale women's state prison. The prisoners work with & help rehabilitate the impounded horses so I figured since she had been at the state prison Bonnie was a suitable name as now I'd have to find her a Clyde ;). And I wouldn't take a million dollars for my $100 horse ;)!