TJ has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  I came out this morning to find that he had passed sometime in the night.  There were no marks on the ground to indicate he had thrashed around........nothing.

I saw that he was lying down and went over to see why he was being such a lazy bones this morning.  As I approached, his pal Melvin was standing off to the side just looking at me.  I called TJ's name and did not see his ears move and as I got closer I couldn't see his ribs rising and falling with breath. He apparently left us sometime during the night.

Farewell Dear boy.  You were such a comical old man and easy to be around.  Volunteers loved to groom you almost as much as you liked being groomed/fussed over.  We will really miss your smiling face and twinkling eyes.

A note from Bonnie who spent hours riding and working with this wonderful boy before he came to TIER:

Rest In Peace My Dear TJ. You will always hold a special place in my heart. I loved you, you, ornery butthead. Everyone that met you adored you even though you were a butthead. Despite your cushings, you proved even short, fat, old men can still haul ass if the mood struck you. I always held out hope I would bring you home again. Rest now buddy. Enjoy all those peppermints and apples up over the rainbow bridge, you deserve them. Thank you to my sister, Kristy for saving him from an uncertain future and to TIER for giving him a blessed last year of his life.

TJ is getting his winter coat in since the weather has been cool.  He does have Cushings and gets Pergolide every day to help with this condition.  He still gets pretty fuzzy though!

Since TJ & Melvin are the "Grumpy Old Men" of TIER, we decided to put them together.  Surprisingly, Melvin is the Grumpier of the two!  We had thought that TJ would be the bossy one as he was bossy with some of the other residents...especially about food.

After TJ's arrival at TIER we called on Philip Rhue to float his teeth.  He had quite a few hooks that needed attention.  TJ was an excellent patient and just seemed to take the whole thing in stride!

After Philip had finished working on TJ's teeth, he seemed to say..."Is that it?  That's all? Piece of Cake!"

Dr. Christine Garloff came out with the Platt College students to get a bit of "hands on" experience.  TJ is the perfect candidate.  He has good ground manners and is low key around people who aren't used to working with horses.  He did make them work to get that hoof picked out though!  He'd easily lift his foot for Dr. Garloff, but made the students learn how to ask for his foot properly!

Some of the students observed the "hoof picking lesson" and then went on to other horses to put what they had learned into practice. 

Thank you Dr. Garloff, Karen & Platt College Students for visiting and working so hard!

Tj's story was that he was not owned by more than 2 people until several month before TIER Board member, Kristy got him from a family who was basically afraid of him and just wanted him gone. He WAS very loved by his original owner but with financial and medical issues, she was forced to re-home him. Thinking she was doing her due diligence in placing him, she was dupped by a local small horse trader who jumped on the chance of a free horse that came with lots of nice horse goodies. The trader sold the goodies and dumped the horse. The story gets blurry after that until he made it to Kristy's.

Bonnie, Kristy's sister was the designated rider for TJ and they had a few bolting adventures along the way.  (he had a bolting issue).