Point Arena Pintos: Changes at the Pinto Ranch

In the past month we have brought over two colts from next door. Mystery came first when he was 10 months old so that he could be gelded. Then we brought over Saunder even though he is younger because his mother, Mama was looking very thin and she needs to be able to rest and gain weight without having a colt to nurse. She makes beautiful babies but she teaches them bad habits, such as being pushy. We felt Saunder would be better off learning better manners at a young age. It is a delight to have these two colts here and they have joined the herd fairly easily.

We have a wonderful and awesome new trainer, Karyn Shirly, of Purple Sage Equine in Nevada. She is devoted to the methods of Tom and Bill Dorrance, Ray Hunt and Buck Brannamn. Our horses feel very comfortable with her and she accomplished a lot in four days. She worked with Kendra and Lil' (Little) One who really appreciated her gentle manner. She halter trained Mystery and assisted during his gelding. She helped Majestic and me improve our ground work skills and she also did body work on Suki to help him get out of pain.

Karyn is really adept at reading the body language of the horse and this came in very handy when bringing Saunder over, even though Thunder was standing right next to him! She timed it just right so Thunder would not come through the gate as well. She does a lot of research on horses and their health and gave us some very helpful suggestions. We all had a very rewarding time, plus lots of laughter!

Our vet Dr.John Fling has retired and so we found another very qualified vet, Dr. Rich Brazil who comes from Ukiah. We really appreciate his willingness to drive so far to help out the pintos. He had seen the herd in the past when they lived next door with a previous owner. I think he was pleased to see how happy and healthy they are now.

We are very excited that the pintos have such a great new team!!!