Love me, Love my horse

Chapter One

Love me love my horse

Chapter One

  My mobile rings and I answer it quickly only to knit my eyebrows closer together after realizing that there was something odd for him to be calling me so closely after work.  Normally he would have waited for me to get home because I was only about 45 minutes away especially in prime time traffic.

 “What’s up?”  There is a pause, a heavy sigh and then he asked me, “Where are you?” Glaring at the phone, I answer: “I am in the car on my way home and shouldn’t be answering my mobile even though stopped at a red light. Why is there something wrong?” He continues cautiously, “You coming strait home or to the agistment? I was planning on going home actually”, I countered. Another loaded sigh, irritated I grumbled and still glaring at the phone I just repeated “what’s up?”  When the reply came I just had not been expecting this at all. “Morgan has been attacked by a pit” was all he managed to say flatly.

“Damian”, I cried, “what happened is Morgan alright?” “Drive carefully and meet us at the agistment.” The line went dead and I just flipped off my mobile in time to see the light at the intersection come green. I pressed the accelerator expertly and managed to make it at the Agistment in 30 minutes flat. Quite pleased with myself I launch myself out of the car and passed the gate to my beautiful bay standardbred standing there quite quietly and staring at me with the possible thought of what took you so long plastered on his face.

 The woman that I had hired to tend to my horse while I worked long hours was in tears with her hands all marred with rope burns and just begging me to forgive her. I looked at here intently and simply stated while giving her a hug that “he’s fine and we will deal with this one step at a time.” “Jewels, what happened?” She sighed heavily and shuddered because she was still re-living the trauma of the events that had just happened some 3 hours ago.

 “Morgan and I were walking in the reserve just past the property when people were walking their dogs. They had 2 smaller terriers on a leash but the pit wasn’t. It came at us barking and growling and jumping and bighting. Going after poor Morgan’s legs and thank goodness he was wearing his blanket because I can’t imagine how his claws would have shredded his sides. He has some puncture wounds on his legs and I managed to stop the bleeding but the sad part is that the owners of the dog couldn’t control it or stop its attack. Morgan was beyond beside him self, striking and bucking and just trying to defend him self.  I tried to yell at the owners telling them to get their fucking dog away from my horse but to no avail they just stood there helplessly watching while their puppy was playing with the pretty horse.” Venom dripped from Jewels voice as she continued. “They had the nerve to wait until the dog was so tired that it gave up and laid down. By then Morgan was dripping with sweat and bleeding on his legs and just with his poor wide eyes and huge nostrils snorting and grunting profusely trying to get away from me, the situation and just trying to do what horses do best when under attack. Flee like their life depends on it. Good reason for that. In this case it almost did.”

 Shocked with the story and the tears of my dear friend’s story I just crossed my arms and kept checking Morgan for any more signs of trauma or injury. After getting the iodine soap and a bucket ready, I approached my once calm and stoic boy and cleaned his legs and then bandaged the affected leg and with Damian’s help got some more antiseptic, gauze bandage and fixed him right up. Satisfied with my handy work, I just sighed and turned around to Jewels and Damian and simply stated: “I don’t blame you and don’t even blame the dog; I blame the people for being so stupid and not realizing that this was an accident waiting to happen. They got off quite easy if you asked me. Luckily enough Dame or myself weren’t around when this happened because I would have done more than try to calm the horse I would have stood my ground, pull a little Cesar Millan and made the dog go away as best as I could. But then again I wasn’t there so this is just a for instance.”

Damian piped up, “That is pretty much what I told Jewels here but she couldn’t get it that it was not her fault until she heard it from you Tab”.

Hugging my dear friend she really was still shaking about the whole ordeal and with everything going on in her personal life I am quite impressed that she didn’t fall apart on the spot.   After putting a few flakes in his feed bag and getting his tea ready I just bustled with the thing I needed to prepare for Morgan’s nightly feed I was getting also the equipment needed to tend to his wounds and trying to calm my dear friend.  The odd thing is how Damian kept quiet throughout the whole thing.  I just couldn’t figure him out. I still had more pressing issues on my hands and left those thoughts aside so I could analyse them later. I knew that the antiseptic spray was going to be a chore to put on Morgan’s maimed legs as he doesn’t like the sound of spray cans but can put up with back hoes and rustling tarps. I don’t know everything about the inner workings of this horse but I know that in his previous career he had a bad accident and must have had to have several treatments with the antiseptic spray because as soon as I aimed the can without any pressure on the nozzle,  not only did he side step wildly he jumped up a little too.

“Woah boy” I cooed. I just want to put this spray on. I was cursing under my breath because I should have purchased the liquid antiseptic. I chided myself with this oversight.  Once the leg was thoroughly cleaned and sorted I wrapped some gauze and bandaged it for the night to keep the dirt and the mud away from the wound. Once Morgan was calm and evidently his heart rate was checked and it was so slow that you would have thought him sleeping I knew that he was calm and no longer traumatized. I spun around and thanked Damian for his help with handing me the various lotions and bandages and even though keeping his distance because he wasn’t a fan of horses I was grateful for the extra hands.  He simply smiled at me and was cocking up an eyebrow looking at me with a satisfied grin on his lips. “Tab why are you working in a call centre and not full time with horses? You’re so in tune with their needs and wants.”  I stopped dead in my tracks and thought about it for some time and said “I wish it were that simple, people want to much for nothing now a days”.

 I had been told this many a time by many people but I know that I just can’t care for random horses and for random owners. I care too deeply about these creatures and would happily take on a troubled horse but not deal with a troubled human being.   Simply enough horses let you know where you stand all the time. You just have to be in the moment, present and willing to see the signs and the non verbal communication that they offer and you would see how much they do communicate with you if you just took the time to see. I think privately people can be too complicated and hide everything behind everything else and that is just too darned difficult sometimes.

 “Tab, hello I was talking to you just now weren’t you listening?” Chided Damian. “You and your damned horses. If you would pay half as much attention to me than you do to them we wouldn’t have so many fights”. “ I hate horses”.

 I stopped dead in my tracks and looked up at him and for the first time in 5 years I asked him to leave me alone and not talk to me again. That my friend is my deal breaker; love me, love my horse has always been my motto since I was younger. I had lost many a boyfriend because they asked me to choose and I thought since this guy was supposedly different that it would be different. So much for that theory.  Jewels was so shocked that she couldn’t believe her ears. “Did you just tell him what I think you did?” “Yup” was my only reply. She just shook her head and with a tight look on her face just walked away.