Maverick ran away to join the circus. Or at least he tried. Our wonderful neighbor came over to do some bull dozing in Mav and Junior's pasture. The previous owner had tons of dirt brought into fill in some ruts and flatten some places out, but never got around to actually doing the work. Our neighbor has a bulldozer and enjoys destroying things (even if it's just piles of dirt), so this worked out fine. The problem is that he left the gate wide open when he left the other night. DUH. Junior was out in the yard grazing loose as he does every day. He lost a lot of weight when I had to separate him from his woman and free choice grain (he limits himself to about 6qts a day) and the lush grass in the yard are helping to put some weight back on and he no longer looks like the poster child for the Equine Rescue League. And since he's a thoroughbred, he's showing no signs of laminitis or founder. Whew.
But Maverick was still in the pasture, at least until he realized the gate was open. Then he packed a small hobo bag with some grain and his shedding blade, tied it to a stick, and wondered off down the road. I was in the garden (yes, barefoot) and the dogs alerted me to the fact that Maverick was no longer where he was supposed to be. By the time I rounded the garage and got a look at the road all I saw was a brown and white butt disappearing around the curve. Had this been Junior, Semi, or Kita, I wouldn't have worried too much. They would have gone around the curve, realized they couldn't see the rest of the herd anymore and come running back to the safety of the yard. We have very little traffic on our road, and what traffic we have goes slowly because the road is such a rutted mess so getting hit by a car is not a big worry.
So I grabbed the lead rope hanging on the porch and a bucket of grain and didn't stop to call the dogs in or put on some shoes. I got to the top of the driveway and looked behind me to see three dogs and two cats close on my heels. I'm not sure how the cats thought they could help, but it's their horse too and I guess they wanted to make sure he returned home safe and sound. Or maybe they wanted to join the circus too.
At this point Maverick has a good lead on me and is just swinging along at a nice little walk, totally ignoring the gravel under his feet. I'd like to say I was able to ignore the gravel under my feet, but um, not so much. I'm sure I made a heck of a picture at this point and I'm almost positive I could hear Maverick laughing at me and wondering how long he should torture me. Luckily, after about 1/2 mile he turned around and gave me this surprised look like "hey, have you been behind me the whole time??" His second thought was also obvious, "you have FOOD!" He walked back to me, buried his face in the bucket, and didn't look up until I had the lead rope around his neck.
The cats were whining by this time, complaining because we'd gone too far, the rocks hurt their feet, it really wasn't all that much fun, they were hungry, yada yada yada. Maverick followed me obediently all the way home and went back in his pasture without a fuss. As a reward I unpacked his shedding blade, scratched all the itchies and gave him a little more grain.
I'm a total atheist so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the 10 commandments "beat thy neighbor with a bag of bricks if he leaves the gate open"?
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