Steaming earth walk

Today Mag confirmed something I've been suspecting. He enjoys going out. His rambunctious behavior that is so annoying, is simply his best-contained joy at being out. The guilt I feel is deep, cuz I see him jumping in front of those two cars, nearly colliding with both.


     


But today he had a halter on and he knows it's Wednesday so he stood at the gate staring at my house, despite having already gorged on his breakfast feast. Before I walked outside, I saw him actually pawing the gate. Pawing the gate to the street, not the pasture!

Oh my.

As we walked up our street, I could hear his hooves tap-dancing behind me, not a jig, but a very, very light walk. I turned to look and sure enough, his tail was over his back. I stopped and said, "Let's just look around at everything and enjoy it together. And you can put your tail down."

I found 6 rolls of barbed wire lying directly beside the trail and I had to remove them. I carried them 2 at a time to a nearby fence and just hung them up on 3 posts, where they cannot catch a horse. How odd for someone to purposefully dump neatly coiled wire in the woods, when we have metal collectors who drive by weekly.  Mag flipped his head in the air during the process impatiently.

Ani was 20 minutes late and Mag was perfectly content to stand motionless beside me, occasionally grabbing the leadrope in his mouth. As usual, there were no other trail users today so no training opportunities.

But the woods were amazing. It was both foggy and sunny, and one mossy hillside was steaming from the sun! We walked through nature's sauna, the steam wafting around us.

Only an hour, but it was perfect. I said good boy Mag dozens of times today.

Although it's stressful for me, taking him out into traffic, it helps to know on some days, at least, he really wants to be out there.

Look what came in the mail: