Friends in high places

She has a direct line to the moon. I take her outside now and she has this thing she does where she jumps out ahead and squares off with me and (in her mind) like it or not, we're about to play. She then runs as hard as she can for the four foot length of the leash, spins around to face me and does it again. It isn't new but she hasn't done it for a long time. It's a good sign but I have to say it doesn't go over that well at six o'clock in the morning. It would seem the knees are feeling pretty feisty at this point.

This off-duty police horse (above) tried so hard to make friends with Stella. After some cajoling, she made an effort to get control of her unfounded fear but it was just too overwhelming to do it all at once so she chose to ignore the horse and turned the snarky attitude onto an innocent stick instead. This is one of our old walking paths. At the beginning of last week I started taking her to some more familiar places to do our abbreviated walks. I figured five or ten minutes anywhere but the front yard would be a treat and this one definitely was. We haven't seen the horses out for a long time. When she was a little puppy, we used to visit a horse named Commotion who was always separated from the other horses (because he was bad). He was always happy for company but Stella was a pain then too. The only time she actually seemed to love the horses was that day back in January when we walked for the homeless. Two of them, topped with full-fledged police officers, led us back across the bridge when we went home and I told her we'd get arrested if she acted like a fool that day. Instead, she did her little Tennessee Walking Horse impression all the way across the Cumberland River. Speaking of horses, I commented somewhere that with regard to being off leash, Stella has a tendency to think she is the reincarnation of Spend a Buck. For those of you who missed it or may have been too young to remember, here's a video of one of the most amazing horse races of all time..starring Spend a Buck. [Link]


Off duty police horses out for lunch; Ellington Agricultural Center