Death Defying Dog

This past weekend Tai and Buttons and I had a lovely walk around the lake at MHC. Tai, riding on my back in the ergo, enjoyed frequently pointing out the water and occasionally suggesting that Buttons should "pee-pee." Buttons enjoyed trotting around off-leash, sniffing the smells left behind by other dogs, and taking a drink from the lake. We even ran into a long-lost doggie friend and walked with her and her parents for a while.

Since we were having such a lovely time, I decided we should take a little side-trip up the path that leads to the MHC stables, where all the Alexises keep their horses. We've done this a few times before and Tai always enjoys it.

So we said good morning to all the horses who were hanging out in their fenced-in pens. Each horse had its own space, separated from the others by a fence made of three horizontal planks, the bottom one being about 18 inches off the ground. We took about 10 minutes to walk all around and visit each horse. Several of them came right over to the fence as we approached hoping I had bought them their breakfast. Tai was having a blast and Buttons was being so good. She stayed near me, though occasionally ventured right up to the fence for a sniff and then returned to the middle of the path, with me.

And then it happened.

Apparently, the allure of tasty horse shit just on the other side of the fence was too much for Buttons. So she ducked under the bottom rail, into a pen that contained a horse. She immediately regretted her decision. The horse whose pen she had infiltrated was not pleased. Each time I replay the scene in my head it gets worse, so by now I can conjure up an image of the horse with fire in his eyes and smoke billowing out his nostrils as he reared up in the air directly above my dog.

It wasn't actually quite that bad. But the horse was clearly agitated and did start trotting back and forth a bit, and then started moving closer to Buttons. (Who was right up against the fence, frantically running back and forth, trying to figure out how to get back on the other side, and looking at me for help.) I, of course, was yelling for her to come to me.

After what was probably only 60 seconds, but felt like much longer, she remembered how to duck back under the fence. Of course, she ducked right into the next horse's pen and got that one fired up before taking a hard left and ducking out into safety.

After we hastily descended the hill back down the path around the lake, Buttons immediately ran into the water and took a quick swim. Then she got out, shook the water off herself, and looked me straight in the eye, and I'm sure she was thinking, "did you see what just happened? holy shit!"

Luckily, she was not hurt and I did not have to get yelled at by some stable boy about how I shouldn't have had my dog up there in the first place. I guess we got off easy and learned our lesson.