Nadia

Nadia

breed: Arabian
color: grey
age: 13 (born April 20, 1998)
sex: mare
height: 14.2 hh

Nadia is well started and would be suitable for someone with intermediate riding skills.

Status: Adopted

Nadia is a sweet, pretty mare that was originally rescued from a hoarding situation in Eatonville by Pierce County Animal Control in June of 2010.  She was in their foster care systems for several months, and while the other 16 horses and minis that were seized had found homes, Nadia and one other horse did not and eventually Pierce County Animal Control ran them through the Enumclaw auction, where Nadia ended up being bought by the auctionhouse owner who frequently sells horses to slaughter.  PCAC ended up buying the horse back from the auction owner and surrendering her to SAFE’s care.  When she originally arrived at SAFE, she was still quite thin so we spent several months just getting her healthy.  We had heard she was broke to ride, but she was quite flighty and nervous about being handled, so we sent her to our trainer.  She’s been with our trainer for a month now and doing well.  Our best guess is she has formerly been used as a gaming/barrel horse.  She would make a really cute little 4H western horse!  She’s still a little nervous and sensitive but she’s quite sensible as well.

Nadia came back from training today and I was able to get a quick video and some still shots of her under saddle.  She was so good that our volunteer Sara’s daughter, Angelique, was able to take her 2nd riding lesson on her even though she had just arrived in a strange place she had never been before.  What a sweetheart of a little mare!  Here are some photos and a video clip (please excuse the jeans and lack of proper headgear, this was an unplanned session).  Here Nadia demonstrates not only her excellent “Whoa”, but also she does flying changes!

Nadia is not even back from training yet (she is coming back on Sunday), and she already has a potential adopter!  They went up and tried Nadia up at the trainer’s and feel she is a perfect fit for her family.  Pending adoption!

Next weekend, Nadia will be returning from training. She has been doing really well, and finally learning how to be a proper arena horse and not just having two speeds (“dead run” and “whoa”). She is learning how to give to the bit and has not had any issues with grouchiness about being ridden since those first couple of rides. When Nadia comes back, it will be Aiden’s turn to go to training! Now three years old, he is ready to start his next adventure. I can’t wait to see how Andrea enjoys working with our sweet little Aiden!

Nadia under saddle

Nadia is doing great! She is now going walk, trot and canter off the lungeline in the big arena. She was a little testy about being ridden at first, being sulky about going forward and generally crabby, but finally instead of trying to work with her like a horse that was not yet started with a ground person, the trainer took her off the lungeline and just pushed her forward around the arena and as soon as she started moving forward she started behaving much better. She is green, but has obviously had some training (probably western) and she has a great whoa on her. Yesterday Dr. Hannah came out and checked her out as the trainer wanted to make sure she was not sore in her back, and we also had her teeth done and her shots.  We will leave her in training a little while longer, but she is officially available for adoption!

Here is a photo of Nadia under saddle yesterday.  She actually was not very good yesterday, she is very herdbound to her pasture mate and was screaming and fairly tuned out to the trainer (she’s since been moved and now shares a pasture with Delilah, who gets along with her but mostly ignores her).  When the trainer would lean over her back and go to mount, she actually got a little nasty about it and would pin her ears, buck, and try to bite the trainer or the handler.  It was the first time the trainer had seen this type of behavior with her, but she was also very worked up about being separated from the other horses.  Today, they worked with her again and it was hailing and windy outside, so they decided to just work with her in the barn in a foaling stall.  They tried a different saddle on her to see if that helped, and this time she was completely relaxed about being mounted and the trainer was able to steer her around in circles in the stall.  She does seem to be a horse that has been ridden before, she doesn’t mind at all about being saddled or girthed up, and seems to understand how to steer and move off the leg, but she is also a very high-strung girl that when upset, is reactive, so the trainer is being very careful with her, especially after what happened with Calamity last summer.   We will take it slowly and carefully with Nadia.

I’ve been playing phone tag with our trainer, but I caught her for a few minutes this morning and she gave me a quick update on Nadia.  Their farm in Stanwood has been buried in 3 feet of snow (and still snowing today! thank goodness we just have rain here now) and their arena frozen but she has been on her once and just walked her around.  Nadia is very nervous and skittish, reminding her a lot of Amber (another Arab mare we had that Andrea trained for us).  However, despite her nervousness she is very sweet and Andrea also got the sense that she is broke to ride and has had some training in the past.  I’ll keep working on getting some pictures of her!  It’s hard when she is an hour away from Monroe, but its worth it for us because our trainer, Andrea Lucianna of Half-Trak Farm, does such a fabulous job with every horse she has trained for us (13 horses so far!).

Nadia has gone into training!  Our trainer picked her up from the foster home on Thursday night.  She reports that Nadia looks great and that Judy, her foster mom, did a great job getting weight on her.  She worked with her a little bit yesterday, Nadia was very nervous so they just did a grooming session with her and are giving her a little time to adjust to her new surroundings.  Hopefully I will get some pictures soon.

I received an email from the woman who had Nadia and the other seized from her. She provided some information on Nadia, that she had purchased her from Darlene Wilson (same as Calamity) and that she is supposedly cart-trained and has been used in parades. She stated Nadia is purebred Arabian and is 12 years old. Obviously we will take this information with a huge grain of salt but it does help to know her age and Dr. Hannah should be able to confirm that.

Also — Nadia’s fecal was negative and her bloodwork normal, her teeth are not bad so she just needs more groceries.

More photos of Nadia at NWESC — she’s pretty, isn’t she?

Nadia’s arrival at NWESC:

Nadia is a 12 year old gray Arabian mare that was original part of a Pierce County Animal Control seizure in early June 2010, out of a hoarder situation involving 18 ponies and horses and 55 dogs that were living in filthy conditions. This is also the same place where Zanadu and Calamity (RIP) came from.

Nadia was one of only two remaining horses in Pierce County’s contracted foster home that had not found a home, and on 11/12/10, she and the other horse were taken to the Enumclaw Sales Pavilion and run through the auction. Sadly, Nadia ended up in the kill pen scheduled to be shipped for slaughter. At this point SAFE was contacted, as Pierce County Animal Control was willing to make a donation to a rescue organization to help get Nadia safe, but they would not buy her back from the auction yard.

Normally, it is not our policy to buy horses from auctions, especially after they have gone to the kill pen. Our take on this is that it is analygous to buying puppies from a puppy mill to save them…it is contributing to, rather than addressing, a systemic problem. We are inundated on a daily basis from horse owners asking us to take their horses they no longer can or wish to care for, from Animal Control/Humane Society organizations asking us to take horses for them, and from individuals pointing us to various threads or Craiglist ads about horses going to slaughter or being offered for free and begging for us to help. There are horses in need everywhere needing rescue, and paying overinflated prices to a kill buyer who laughs as he publicly refers to us as “bleeding heart idiots” is not the answer.

That said, we chose to make an exception to our policies (which we have before, Lucky being another case in point), because of the circumstances involved and primarily due to the loss of Nadia’s former pasture mate, Calamity, in a tragic accident last week.

Nadia is currently at the NWESC facility for assessment and quarantine as she spent nearly a week at the auction facility. Dr. Hannah has given her a brief evaluation and given her a body condition score of 2.5. Apparently she has had her vaccinations and a dental float, but Dr. Hannah is doing bloodwork on her and a fecal as well to rule out any physical explanation for her poor body condition.

We don’t know if she is broke to ride but from what I have been told, she is very sweet and easy to handle, even nervous and in a new environment.