Walka, walka, walka

The simple truth is that this blog had existed for 9 months without a Fozzy the Bear reference, something which could not stand. That situation has now been remedied.

So yesterday was spent by myself and the Birthday Girl trying to work some of the kinks out of the rookie show animals. Magnanimous for his part showed that just like his older sister, Lilah, he could walk just fine at attention on a completly slack lead but would then absolutely slam on the breaks — picture an anchor person in a serious game of tug-o-war — whenever he reached a place that was new or even slightly uncomfortable to him.

“Sure I can walk around the door yard of the Main Barn, through the cars, and around the perimeter of the round pen but whatever you do for the love of God DON’T TAKE ME DOWN THE HILL! THERE MIGHT BE PUMAS DOWN THERE!” In fact there are field mice down there. And mud. Lots and lots of mud.

Fortunately I have a not so secret weapon when dealing with such animals: Jen. It was with great patience and the aid of of a rubber tube between her and  Mags’ lead line (it takes the abuse so your rotator cuff doesn’t have to) that she gently went to work on our boy. She described this breakthrough moment in the afternoon when Magnanimous, after standing there stubbornly for several minutes with neck down and his rear legs dug in, finally walked through the the tower of our kids’ old swing set at the bottom of the hill and realized that the world was in fact not going to come to an end. He put his ears up and looked around as if to say “I guess that wasn’t so bad after all!” He then calmly followed (even jogged at one point) Jen back to the barn. If only all the tough nuts were that easy to solve! We celebrated with cake.