Relative Something

It is finally the last day of October. What took it so long to get here? Geesh. Trick or treat?

I was thinking it would be fun to do a surprising reversal of tradition and visit all our neighbors on this day to ring their doorbell and offer them a treat from us. Great idea, huh? Too bad that is all it is: an idea. I thought of it while tending to the animal-care chores all by myself during the time Cyndie has been out-of-town. Were she here, I could have tested the idea on her, whereupon she would become inspired to bake something incredible, and then the treat-full trick would be on.

Ah, but Cyndie is home now and the animals get to receive her masterful attention once again. I am happy to report that they all survived, mostly unscathed, under my care. The “lowlight” of the time I was the sole care giver was the morning I brought Delilah with me to the barn to feed the horses. She had been so good the day before, I figured she deserved a day off-leash. I had it in mind to do some work that would accommodate her roaming in the vicinity.

I left her enclosed in the barn while I was out under the overhang with the horses. I walked across the paddock to open a gate to the big field so the horses could wander out there after gulping down their feed. The “chestnut-three” were particularly squirrelly during the feeding, startling each other and doing their merry-go-round rotation of chasing each other off the feed pans.

Unbeknownst to me, Delilah was picking up on this through the wall of the barn. I shrugged it off. I had the gates opened that I wanted open, the feed distributed; my work was done here. I was prepared to take Delilah and move on to the next project I had planned. I was not attuned properly to our dog.

I cracked the barn door open enough to step out and Delilah bolted like she was shot from a cannon. She bee-lined a circle around the barn to where the horses were eating, despite my hollering to stop her. If none of the horses had moved a muscle, she would have barked a lot, but nothing would come of it, but the chestnuts were already on edge from their own shenanigans, so they jumped and ran when Delilah showed up. The chase was on.

It is such a helpless feeling when Delilah tunes us out and goes into predator mode. I shouted, the horses neighed, bucked, ran, and kicked, and Delilah barked and chased. The only result of that formula is escalation. Two of the horses headed out into the big field, but that just inspired Delilah more. She picked one out and stayed right on its heels. In the frantic moment, I wasn’t able to notice which horses she was picking on. Luckily, whoever it was, they ran back into the paddock again and I was eventually able to reclaim the dog’s attention and get her to come out of there. I unleashed my meanest alpha dog routine and rescinded her chance at frolicking off-leash that day.

After I put Delilah in her kennel, I returned to the horses to give them my humble apologies. They seemed to have already forgotten the incident. In fact, it appeared to have helped settled down the chestnuts, as they finally parked themselves, each at one of the 4 feed pans, and were now calmly munching away.

Here are a couple of shots from two distinctly different days: