What is good about having a pet?
I can answer the prompt and share today’s triumph at the same time. How efficient.
I slept last night and that seems to have helped settle my nerves. I think the kitty therapy I’ve gotten the last couple of days may have helped, too. Spending time with Potato, my son’s purry and substantial cat has been quite calming.
What a nice kitty. I’ll be sorry when my pet sitting duties are over, but I still have plenty of animals to exude good vibes and positivity. Yeah, that’s a good thing about pets. They provide companionship with no strings attached. They help you heal.
You may be aware that I consider cockleburs to be a bad thing about having pets. Now that Alfred stays mostly in our fenced-in area, burs are a horse problem. Mine remain covered. I have a plan to eliminate them once it dries up a little. All manual labor, but they’ll join the bur-n pile. Ha ha.
Today I worked and worked, but made it to the horses before it was too dark. I arrived armed with a bottle of inexpensive sunflower oil. In the tack room I found some great gloves I’d bought with plastic on the palms and fingers. But proof? I was ready to find out.
I resolved to de-bur whichever horse I could grab first. Apache had been all friendly all day long (now that he loves his pill treats), but when he saw the bridle, he stood in mud and sort of dared me to come get him. Rather than slide all over and risk twisting my knee again (I did so yesterday and it still hurts), I turned around and put the bridle on Drew, who was politely standing beside me, encrusted in mud and burs.
Drew is still leery of having his head touched, so he looked awful. It was embarrassing, so I didn’t take a picture. Instead, I got out the tools and removed at least one layer of mud from him. Then I donned the gloves and poured oil on his tail and worked it all around the burs that had it looking like a dog tail.
Sure enough, the burs slipped off nicely and my hands stayed much happier thanks to the gloves. I think I even had fun, a little. In the end, he’s had a conditioning treatment and is all smooth back there. I hope I didn’t do some bad horse management, because I didn’t ask anyone before I rashly did it.
There were a lot of burs in that tail!
Then came the hard part, the mane. He wasn’t thrilled about that but was pretty patient. I started from the back and moved forward. Parts of his mane were fine, but some looked impossibly matted. I worried I might have to do some trimming. I was impressed that he let me get all the way up to his ears.
His head owie looks ok but he’s not interested in me doing much more than taking off surface burs. By that time it was getting dark, anyway. I’ll just let the oil soften his front burs.
Tomorrow I hope to work on the spotted mud ball known as Apache since Sara is coming to trim my guys.
PS: anyone who thought Drew couldn’t have been kicked in the head by our mini-donkey Fiona will be interested to know that I witnessed him chasing her with his head lowered, like dogs playing. She did, indeed land some solid blows on him. It’s a wonder he has any brains left. And horse brains are little.
The Hermits' Rest 