It is just blasted hot here today. I tried to beat the heat by starting to mow grass here pretty early in the day, but the heat still caught up with me before the mowing was done. Blessedly, the mower ran out of gas about the time I ran out of energy. As it sputtered to a halt, I noticed that there was a big buckskin mare in my driveway, accompanied by her mom Laura, who was taking her out for her physical therapy walk. I took a break while the mower cooled down to talk, and commented that it would probably be a good idea to get Dublin out for a walk too. He's been here 6 months now and has only been on my property and in Laura's pasture. We want to pony him out on the trail so it would be good to expose him to some new environments.
I haltered Dublin and brought him out to follow Lady on a walk around the neighborhood. Lady and Dublin have seen each other but haven't really interacted. We hadn't really given this much thought, but Lady was in heat, and apparently had never seen anything quite so stunning as the tall dark Thoroughbred that suddenly appeared in her space. She immediately fell head over heels in love with him and we found ourselves with a "situation".
Our plan had been for Lady to lead the way, as the wise older experienced neighborhood horse, to reassure Dublin that there was nothing scary on the walk. But Lady was so deeply enamored of Dublin that she couldn't lead the way. She could only behave in a most slutty manner, displaying what she considered her best attributes and stopping to pee every couple feet. Dublin, who was gelded about a year ago, is apparently completely over the love thing and was not impressed. He couldn't figure out why we kept stopping.
Finally, in the interest of progress, we put Dublin in the lead and Lady behind. This worked much better. Dublin was intrigued by all the new sights, sounds and smells and very happily strode down the lane. Lady also was striding quite happily, intrigued by the sight of the big dark Thoroughbred butt leading the way. And so we uneventfully made our way back to Laura's, put Lady in her paddock (nickering enticingly all the way), and got Dublin back in his pasture at my place.
You would think that would be the end of the story, but Lady has been bitten by the love-bug and is still mooning over Dublin. When Dublin came over for his afternoon grazing session in Laura's pasture, Lady perked up and cantered around her paddock making little cooing noises whenever she could spot him. She even abandoned her dinner to tear around because he was in sight.
Eventually Lady will come out of heat and things will return to normal. Thankfully, the attention has not gone to Dublin's head and he is still the same loveable goofball he always was.
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