Lydia's Wild Ride: White Dog Farm

The rest of my vacation was spent at White Dog Farm, a 21 acre horse farm in Alpharetta, Georgia, right outside of Atlanta.

To get to White Dog Farm, we had to drive through mountains in Tennessee, which my Mom keep telling me to look at. I had more fun making videos on the iPad with my new horses. I did take these pictures though.

White Dog Farm is owned by Miss Betty and Miss Anna, family friends of my Mom.

The first horse my Mom ever rode was Star, Miss Anna's horse a long, long time ago.

Miss Betty and Me

Miss Anna Feeding her Horses

Miss Anna has raised and trained horses all of her life. At one time she took care of Polo horses. She named the farm White Dog Farm because she has three of these:


This is Pax. Jane and Narnia are a little more camera shy

She also has a Jack Russell Terrier named Slider.

My Mom and I wanted to take Slider home with us, he is such a sweetie.

There are also two goats on the farm.

Lilly

Star

Miss Anna also some kitties but I think they were inside sleeping most of my visit.

Almost all of Miss Anna's animals including the horses are rescue animals that made their way to White Dog Farm. I can tell the animals love living on the farm and they all get along really well.

It didn't take me long to figure out that owning a horse farm is a lot of work. Every morning, before the students arrived, I walked down to the barn and helped Courtney sweep and rake the inside of the barn.

I also helped feed and water all of the horses. We had to do this twice a day.

Riding in the back of the pickup truck was so much fun!

Miss Anna's barn is very clean!

Hay for hungry horses

Miss Anna has all riders groom their horses first. Since it is spring, the horses are shedding like crazy!

Coco wins the prize for losing the most fur every day!

Bags with curry combs, brushes and hoof picks

At home I ride with a western saddle (which is a heavy saddle with a horn on the front), and I use an English bridle and learn English reining. Miss Anna uses English saddles which a smaller and lighter than Western saddles, and she uses bridles with no bits which are the metal pieces that go in a horse's mouth. I loved riding with an English saddle but found it a lot harder to direct my horse with a bit-less bridle. It was really good practice!