Walking the Oversized Dog

I woke up early on Sunday morning and headed into work - only to discover that I didn't work that day because I had agreed to take someone's Saturday shift the following weekend. D'oh!

So off to the barn I went.

It was a perfect summer morning. It had rained overnight and the temperature was cool enough that you wanted to do something outside but didn't have to wear a sweater.

Stitch was greatly enjoying his morning nap when I drove in. He is very much a kid who sleeps hard and does not want to get out of bed when mom says it's time to get up.

Flat out in his circus tent pj's.

I decided that Stitch and I would go for a walk down the road. I wanted to do something with him away from the arena, and since it had rained the gravel road was softer and would be easier on his toes.

So off we went.

This was the first time I had taken Stitch away from the barn and away from his fellow equids. I wasn't sure how he would behave, but didn't think there would be any issues.

Just walking the oversized dog.

I was right. He was a superstar.

He was very brave and defended me from the trained guard boulders that popped up after the tall ditch grass next to the neighbours driveway. He maintained eye contact with the leader, the biggest one, as we passed, and that boulder learned it's lesson and gave us no troubles on the return trip home.

They were very menacing in person.

Another two doors down lives a pony, quite possibly an ungelded one, who to my knowledge lives by himself, and thus gets very excited whenever another horse walks down the road. There is a line of trees between his fence and the road, so we can hear him galloping and screaming, but you can't really see him between the trees. He can cause a bit of excitement as we walk past him.

He's starting to figure out how to pose for pictures.

Stitch saw and heard him, stopped, got taller, and then walked quietly past. I didn't even have to give a yank on the lead at any time.

Work it, baby.

On the way home he called out to his friends a couple of times just to make sure they were still within earshot, but that was the only stress reaction he gave. We had lots of relaxed snorts and sighs, so he seemed to enjoy going out to explore.

Stitch's talking face.

It was a good first time going away from home experience that we will have to repeat again through the fall. I'm hoping that I will have him going enough to be comfortable to take him out into the crop field in October for a hack, but we'll see. It's too hard to walk around it on foot, I would only do it if we can ride it.