Why is There Always Drama?
As some of you may know, my "young horse" (not so young anymore, but nevermind) Ricky has been fighting a mysterious back problem for the last couple of years. He has had acupuncture, chiropractic, and steroid injections multiple times, none of which seemed to make him better. However, slowly, he seems to have healed up. He used to hitch visibly with his left hind when stepping over a pole, even at the walk and it was quite apparent at the trot. But I watched him gallop up to the gate and swap leads along the way the other day and thought "by cracky he looks OK". So I started cautiously riding him, just walking around, which is about all I'm good for anyway right now. Then some friends came out and we watched him go and Lo! he is OK. My vet gave me a go-ahead also.
So I decided to ride this morning, put him on the cross-ties, and noticed that he kept kind of looking behind him at the open door, but didn't think much of it, tacked him up, led him out, and...the barn cats have evidently decided to turn into a pair of panthers. They had caught and killed a full grown rabbit almost as large as themselves and dragged it up to the barn door and were trying to decide how best to eat it. Of course, they had a full bowl of cat food, but it's not the same as fresh caught, I guess.
So I led Ricky out, eyeing the rabbit fur scattered on the grass, and got on. By this time, the cats' antics had attracted the attention of a buzzard, who proceeded to circle above my head for a while, then perched on the fence. Pip spotted the buzzard, and decided that some stalking was in order and started slinking s-l-o-w-l-y across the grass to sneak up on the buzzard (who was sitting on top of a 5' fence, so good luck) Eventually, she got too close for comfort and the buzzard took off, flapping heavily across the ring just over my head and Pip returned to her kill.
Luckily Ricky is a very quiet horse, but he's till pretty green and this huge bird overhead was a bit too much ("those things eat horses, Ma!"). He started getting nervous, I know when I'm beat, so I rode for a few more minutes and got off, took him back, cleaned him up, put him away, and found that the cats had dragged their rabbit into the barn and were lying next to it, like some kind of illustration of lionesses with a kill. Too bad I didn't have my phone, but it was a bit grisly, anyway.
Why me?
So I decided to ride this morning, put him on the cross-ties, and noticed that he kept kind of looking behind him at the open door, but didn't think much of it, tacked him up, led him out, and...the barn cats have evidently decided to turn into a pair of panthers. They had caught and killed a full grown rabbit almost as large as themselves and dragged it up to the barn door and were trying to decide how best to eat it. Of course, they had a full bowl of cat food, but it's not the same as fresh caught, I guess.
So I led Ricky out, eyeing the rabbit fur scattered on the grass, and got on. By this time, the cats' antics had attracted the attention of a buzzard, who proceeded to circle above my head for a while, then perched on the fence. Pip spotted the buzzard, and decided that some stalking was in order and started slinking s-l-o-w-l-y across the grass to sneak up on the buzzard (who was sitting on top of a 5' fence, so good luck) Eventually, she got too close for comfort and the buzzard took off, flapping heavily across the ring just over my head and Pip returned to her kill.
Luckily Ricky is a very quiet horse, but he's till pretty green and this huge bird overhead was a bit too much ("those things eat horses, Ma!"). He started getting nervous, I know when I'm beat, so I rode for a few more minutes and got off, took him back, cleaned him up, put him away, and found that the cats had dragged their rabbit into the barn and were lying next to it, like some kind of illustration of lionesses with a kill. Too bad I didn't have my phone, but it was a bit grisly, anyway.
Why me?