So I've always had this theory that God make animals cute in proportion to their bad-ness. Take Rylie Boo for example, here is a picture of her as a puppy:
That has got to be the cutest puppy in the world, she doesn't even look real! If I had only known what was to come!
Poodles are very intelligent dogs, second on the list of smartest breeds after the Border Collie. This is a double edged sword however, because she learns quickly, but she also requires constant stimulation, or that little brain starts thinking up impossibly messy, expensive and naughty things to do! She has chewed up rugs, panties, shoes, pens, pencils, cups, pillows, all her toys, three cell phone chargers, brand new glasses with transitions lenses, mirrored mosaic christmas ornaments gingerly removed from the tree, I could go on forever. She has also "made it snow" by taking two rolls of extra toilet paper from the powder room, dragging them into the living room and shredding every square into tiny pieces. She actually arranged the mess into a "nest" of sorts and was sooo proud of herself when I came home! She prefers to poop indoors at her leisure and only on expensive rugs when I am either in the shower or asleep, and REFUSES to be kept in any sort of captivity, but the crate training is coming along so hopefully that won't be an issue much longer. The point is, if she wasn't so darn cute and sweet, I would have made her hide into a nice little throw pillow by now. God knows what he's doing, because her little poodle mind is constantly hunting for the next thing to do, jump on, chew, bark at, destroy, or demand. Hanging out with her is pretty much the highlight of my day though sometimes so it's worth the work! Doodle is absolutely beautiful too and comes with another set of problems, (she's basically autistic) but I've written about her before so you know the deal on that.
Now, there's a new lovely addition to the mix. Spencer is a seven year old 17.2 hand gorgeous black Irish Sport horse sent up to my friend Betty's barn for training. (to the non horsey's 17.2 hands means HUGE. Like, if I were standing on one side of him and you were on the other, we couldnt see eachother) He is the kind of horse I used to dream about when I was little and draw pictures of. He looks like Black Beauty from the movie. He is perfectly put together conformationally, with a sweet face, great hair, and great feet. (If you are not a horse person, this just means he is built perfectly, sort of like a male Abercrombie model but in horse version) I have the opportunity to train him, which is great! The more I ride him, the more he fits the theory... which makes me laugh daily. While Spencer is a wonderfully cute name, I usually call him "mule" and now pretty much everyone that handles him calls him that as well. Before he arrived a few weeks ago, he hadn't been handled in 14 months and was basically just thrown out in the pasture to be a horse. So he has NO manners. He stepped on my toe the first time I worked with him and broke my toe. He doesn't know about personal space at all, which most horses get, but he hasn't been handled so it's not really his fault. He also has a very sweet and funny personality most of the time; the first day I rode him, he picked up my saddle with his teeth from outside his stall and threw it across the aisle. He can untie himself and let himself out of his stall and he often knocks down the jumps in the pasture and kicks or carries the barrels around. This, to me, is hilarious and charming as far as horse behavior is concerned because he has so much personality. Luckily for him, he is gorgeous, because his charming personality only gets him so far. Yesterday, we took him to a Hunter Pace (10 mile long trail ride with jumps) and Sarah rode him and I rode Tucker (the wonderfully sweet and obendient horse I am leasing). Spencer decided that he was going to jump ONE coop and that was it. Sarah is a VERY capable and lovely rider and tried and tried to get him to go back over it. Spencer tried all the usual tricks, stopping dead in his tracks, backing up, kicking out, weaving around in circles being unresponsive to rider aids, pretending to buck etc. Finally, Sarah was exhausted since Spencer is HUGE and way stronger that any human so I got off Tucker, handed him to Sarah, and hopped on hoping Spencer would give up the fight and just jump the dang jump. He is used to me riding him and he has been fine jumping before, there was just NO reason that he wouldn't jump this coop! He refused to walk, he refused to trot, he backed in circles, he tried everything in the book, so I got the crop. Everytime I popped him, he bucked (don't worry non-horsey's this doesnt hurt him). Oh he was naughty! Finally, I walked him to the fence, stopped him in front of it and asked him to step over it. He's really big and I knew he was plenty capable of walking over it. He sat back on his haunches and launched over it instead, which was fine. At least he did it. I gave him back to Sarah and we continued our ride. As we cantered along, the "cuteness in proportion to badness" theory popped into my head again and I giggled to myself. He was an angel for the rest of the ride. He also flat out refused to get on the trailer when it was time to go back home and kicked out at Sarah with both back feet when she walked behind him with a broom. Another point for the theory! There's really nothing you can do to move a 1200 pound animal when he decides to be a mule. Spencer is just the kind of horse that I have always wanted though. He has the looks, he has the breeding, the size etc. and I'm pretty sure once he gets trained he will be worth all the work and I will end up falling in love and buying him from his owner who seems to not care about him anyway. Today when I rode, he refused to walk in a straight line or just walk at all in favor of walking backwards, refused to trot to one direction, and would only continue when one of his other herdmates went ahead of us (herdbound!). There was absolutely NO reason for this besides the fact that he enjoys being obstinate and lazy. Between his random fits of mule like behavior he also jumped with no issues at all and jumped the barrels (which are a little scary looking to some horses) without batting an eye. There's a great horse in there, but the theory is ruling hard for now! Every day when I pray I thank God for creating the horse. I think they are his most beautiful creation of all, and I think He might even giggle a little bit every time an especially gorgeous one like Spencer is born, because you just don't get to be that pretty without having some naughty thrown in. I will post some pics soon so you will see what I mean. Oh I love my four legged children.
PS- the crate training is especially useful when trying to prevent drive-by "nickel lippings" - that ones for you J and D! :)
