“Feed Me! This is the time of the day when you feed me. No, I don’t want the fly mask.” Fancy left the stall. Susan left the barn. Fancy and Susan returned to the barn and the fly mask was installed. “I know you’re going to feed me now.” Susan bent over to get the new fly leg protectors. “No!” Fancy left. Susan decided to fill a water bucket in Delta’s stall. Fancy returned and nibbled on the fly leg protector. Susan went into Fancy’s stall and shut Fancy’s stall door. The Shoo-Fly boots http://shooflyleggins.com/were installed. Fancy and Delta are in day 2 of the Shoo Fly leggings. They are weird but appear to work and Fancy doesn’t nibble them off her feet.
It’s in the upper 70’, bit with 90% humidity. Susan almost backed out of riding. Emma, the German Shepherd, needed Susan to ride. Emma needs outdoor activity. (Maybe WWI is Emma’s fault.) Fancy was told that she was going to get brushed and fly sprayed. “I hate being fly-sprayed. Leave me alone with my pasture mates!”
We walked to the trailer where the fly spray, brushes, saddle and saddle pad live. Fancy was groomed and saddled. We engaged in the mandatory run around to tighten the saddle. We didn’t take long. Fancy got her bridle on, Susan mounted from the trailer fender and off we went. There was bits of balking. Susan used her secret backing weapon to get progress. Fancy made it past the gate when forward movement and backwards movement stalled.
Susan decided it was time to employ the secret weapon. The weapon is “Fancy will wish Susan was riding.”
As Susan gave the signature to return to the trailer, Fancy was snorting in glee. “I won! I won! I’ll even give the loser a nice flat foot walk back to the trailer.”
Susan took off the bridle and put on the halter. WWI engagement started. Fancy was asked to circle me on the 12′ rope as we walked towards the gate. There are puddles to negotiate and that’s when the full battle engaged. Horses can’t tell puddles are puddles. Their eyesight suggests a puddle might be a deep very small lake.
The temperature is mid 80’s with some, but not killer humidity. I won the WWI battle of puddles on my own driveway. We moved to the gravel road with many opportunities for Fancy to learn about water obstacles. Did I mention it was hot? Fancy and I expended a lot of effort. Fancy ended up being will to stand in a water puddle and walk through puddles.
I petted and praised her with words coming from my sweat body. It was similar to the feeling you get after you jump into a swimming pool.
Fancy and I returned home. I believe I won that skirmish.