White Stallion

I went to a farm today. At evas work they were having various different workshops, one of which was "animal therapy". This is just like a regular therapy session but it takes place on a farm. Throughtout the therapy you build a trust relationship with the horses. It starts whith petting them, then we go on to brushing them, and then we lead them... alone with the rope. The whole point is to find out how dominant/passive one is, and to analyse how you lead, because the horse will not follow properly unless you are the "alpha dog". So the women who was leading the "animal therapy" took the horse around a box at the other end of the property and then came back. She came Straight up to me and and gave me the horse! I did as she had done in the demo...unfortunatly It didnt quite go as planned. First the horse walks into me and pushes me off the "runway" track.

So I try to make him walk the other way but he doesnt. In order to get him to turn i have to do a 360 degree turn to the right. For some reason he refused to turn left. By this time im back on the track with the horse. We walk a ways and then he suddenly starts pulling me into the stables. Im stuggling and he luckily stoped. Once again hes off track so i turn him in a circle to the right again. we finally get to the end and turn around to head back to the group. We're half way their when he suddenly sees a stack of hay.

He pulls me over again, so i do one last 360 degree right turn to get him back on course. Well, once on course he tries to run off again. By this time im fed up with his stubborness, so instead of turning him 360 degrees again i get close to him and try leading him in the direction i want...which is left. Well, guess what happened! I got just a little too close to the big guy. He steps on my foot, and since im essentially pinned to grownd, i cant move Forward. So the damn horse just keeps standing on my foot! I take my whole upper body and pull the line forward while my foot is stuck under the horses hoove. It worked and he walked forward. I limped quickly to the the next person and practically threw them the line to get ride of the white beast!

Words od wisdom...If you ever lead a horse...please use CAUTION! Objects may be closer than they appear! They may look cute and harmless, but if they step on you it hurts like hell! Their was a doctor their who looked at my foot and she said it could very well be broken cause it was very blue and swollen! So when we came home to Vienna, we went to the hospital to get an x-ray. Luckily though, it wasnt broken.

While at the farm, we also saw 1 and a half week old pigs! They were the cutest little things, just the size of a tiney kitten. They were playing with each other...it was the mos adorable thing to watch. The women who lead the workshop also showed us some dog tricks...or should I say "pig tricks" that the mother pig could do. She sits, lays down, etc on command! It was increabibale. I had no idea pigs were so smart.

Today i fed some fish in a pond. I swear they were like 1 and a half feet long! They were giants. Then a family of ducks swam over. Their were ten or so little ducklings...none of them ugly, but instead very adorable. Gotta love spring time!