Rodney Channels His Inner Brat

B is for Brat. If you are joining me from Blogging A To Z, welcome! Since the blog is already daily, with topics for each day [About: Schedule], there is no specific A To Z theme. I may even skip a few letters. Gasp. Clutch the pearls. The goal for this year is less crazy, more visiting. [Ze State of Ze Blog 2014]

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To reward Rodney for being good the previous day (we recreated a tiny bit of our lesson [Dressage]. Yay!), I decided to have him stand at the side of the ring while Milton worked, We’ve done this before. It counts as saddle time, but is not mentally taxing.

Rodney was awful.

He was being driven mad, mad it tell you, by a few early spring flies. I don’t think he had all four feet on the ground for a minute straight. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. In between, he wiggled. He shifted. Stomp. Stomp. He tried to drift back to the barn. Wiggle. Shift. Stomp. Drift.

And yet, he did all of this without an ounce of tension. No head flinging. No teeth grinding. He didn’t get nervous. He didn’t tune me out. He knew exactly what I was asking. He responded with Don’t wannnnnnna. Ain’t gonnnnnna.

I have never been so simultaneously annoyed at and pleased with a horse in my life.

The next morning, Rodney barged past me into the stall just under Milton’s nose [Daily Routine]. I had to yell loudly to stop Milton from following. (Loudly enough that Greg heard me from the house.) If those two were to get in the stall at the same time, it would be frogs in a blender.

I tied Milton up, went in the stall, and chased Rodney out with prejudice. I wanted to be crystal clear that he was not to behave this way again. He did not run out of the stall screaming that the sky was falling. Instead, he sashayed out with a look that said, Well, ya can’t blame a horse for trying.

Who is this horse?

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott