Watching You Watching Me

For a pony who can show great alarm at sticks, vegetation and the occasional crisp wrapper snagged in a hedge, Max is mainly curious about the other creatures that share his world.

Whilst other horses huff and snort past the pigs, giving their riders a twisty funhouse ride, Max stops and stares, only scurrying away if one of them speaks to him. He's also quite tolerant of dogs, especially the ones known to him. He may be a little ruffled by a strange loose dog on the track (as he should be, so am I) but the yard dogs can run under his belly and he'll do nothing more than follow their progress; the puppy who is confident enough to leap up to get my attention by leaning against Max's foreleg receives a sniff from a big whiskery muzzle and nothing more.

Yesterday, under the protective eye of the Ent, Max had a good gaze at a small herd of alpaca that are on one of our hacking routes. Max looked on them, and they looked on Max, and so they all stood for some time, wondering what the other was, I suppose.

Today was fine again, and my yard shift ended retrieving Max from his field briefly. I had let him out for the afternoon in his nekkid glory so he could enjoy the sun on his backside and have a good scratchy roll if he wanted.

I clicked to him as I approached his field and was greeted with a friendly whuffle and immediate approach; there's rarely any need to go and fetch Max from a far corner of his field, once he spots me he comes willingly and, it seems to me, smilingly as well.

As we got back to the yard we met an old friend who had popped in for a visit whilst passing, and so we stood in the sunshine for a chat with another owner, a pack of excited, leaping dogs, and Max showing off his new and improved "Spanish" leg raising. When asked he raised his right leg end extended it out before lowering it with a bit of dramatic flair. To my delight, when my friend asked if he could do his left leg too, Max nodded unprompted, I pointed to his left leg and up it went in a Spanish Walk style.

Now if we could just get him moving forward at the same time! But that will come. The sun shines and everything is now possible.

The yard day ended as it should have, with laughter, delighted Max in the centre enthusiastic, affectionate attention, and then a quiet time with my boy as I rugged him up for his return to the field and then waited as he finished off his hay.

Spring is definitely, finally, almost here, and it's not just a scent in the air, a tree threatening to blossom, the return of the day-trippers with their walking sticks, hiking boots and push bikes; it is a state of mind.