Max's Diet: Today, I have been mostly eating...

Organic Beetroot!

Met a friend for dinner last night, and as she is also a friend of Max, she kindly brought a bag of organic beetroot and carrots from a local farm shop (I think so, anyway, as they were in a farm shop bag).

Having worked with horses before, she often told me about taking beetroot to them, which the neds just went loopy for, and then watching with delight as they chomped and developed frothy purple lipstick.

Well, today Max tried too. No hesitation, no sniffing. All the new tasty stuff so far has been ace, so he’s quite prepared to try. Oh yes, he likey! But no purple frothy lipstick… who’d have thought Max is a delicate eater? My fingers are stained though. It washes off, right?

As for my friend, I’d love to tell her that the message from Max is, “Thanks so much for thinking of me and ta ever so for root veg. Much appreciated!” In fact the message was more like, “What? Finished? But I hardly even had any! No more? Really? Well how short-sighted! I’m a big horse! Pah.”

I’m still feeling a bit dragged down by the cold that will not leave, so took Max out in hand today for a very long walk.

True to form, he got all jazzy as soon as we got into the fields and away from the lane and only showed hesitation and confusion when he thought we were on the way home, and instead I turned him in another direction and kept going. He was game to keep it up though, and we were hill walking for about two hours. I rode the last little bit bareback, and as the air was quite chilly, it was lovely to suck the heat out of my boy and warm myself up!

I’ve often joked that Max is more like a big dog than a horse, the way he insists on sniffing the ground like a bloodhound as we go.

Today, we came upon a big lump of wood in the middle of the path. It almost looked like driftwood, although I know it can’t have been. Max put his head down and I assumed he was going to sniff it.

Nope, he picked it up in his teeth and carried it along for a little while. Didn’t try to eat it, just held it and shook it.

Fjord X Arab X Retreiver?

He eventually dropped it. Wonder if I should teach him to fetch? Maybe get him a Frisbee this summer?

I think I remember reading somewhere that it’s quite an Arab thing, to pick things up in the mouth and shake ‘em all about, so I suppose he comes by it naturally.