More Like a Puppy Than a Horse...
I went down to the barn this morning to hang out with Zydo before my ride to school arrived. I love going to visit him in his stall, because it is time for us to just chill without the pressure of having to get tacked up and ready to go out.
Sadly, Zydo doesn't like to have his picture taken indoors and tends to prance around a lot when I do so. But this morning I got there and his eyes were all dozy, with sleep in them. His hair was mussed up and tousled, full of straw and standing up on end. He looked at me briefly before he opened his giant horse-sized mouth and yawned with his tongue sticking out.
Then he took his big, giant horse head and rubbed it up against me so that I flew back and was pressed between his cuddly nuzzling and the chain link of his stall; I was stuck there being squished and squashed, laughing and trying to maintain some semblence of an ability to breathe.
And suddenly, so suddenly, I had sympathy -- and better yet, empathy -- for Emily, the girl who owns Clifford The Big Red Dog. All Clifford wanted to do was play with Emily like a normal puppy: He wanted to play fetch, and accidentally fetched her a telephone pole, and when he wanted to chase a spool, he stole a spool of telephone wire from the phone company.
And Emily looked on in horror as her giant dog terrorized the neighborhood, and wondered how she would teach this dog that he was special.
I understood where she came from and so much of my early childhood suddenly made sense.
And only then, in my bleary first-thing-in-the-morning stupor did I realize, wait a minute! I don't have to teach this dog that he's special! I don't have to teach him to play different games than other dogs!
HE'S A FRICKIN' HORSE.
But sometimes, he's just so damn cute and cuddly that I can stop for a minute while he nuzzles and plays, and just be a girl and her horse. Species appropriate behaviour, be damned.
Sadly, Zydo doesn't like to have his picture taken indoors and tends to prance around a lot when I do so. But this morning I got there and his eyes were all dozy, with sleep in them. His hair was mussed up and tousled, full of straw and standing up on end. He looked at me briefly before he opened his giant horse-sized mouth and yawned with his tongue sticking out.
Then he took his big, giant horse head and rubbed it up against me so that I flew back and was pressed between his cuddly nuzzling and the chain link of his stall; I was stuck there being squished and squashed, laughing and trying to maintain some semblence of an ability to breathe.
And suddenly, so suddenly, I had sympathy -- and better yet, empathy -- for Emily, the girl who owns Clifford The Big Red Dog. All Clifford wanted to do was play with Emily like a normal puppy: He wanted to play fetch, and accidentally fetched her a telephone pole, and when he wanted to chase a spool, he stole a spool of telephone wire from the phone company.
And Emily looked on in horror as her giant dog terrorized the neighborhood, and wondered how she would teach this dog that he was special.
I understood where she came from and so much of my early childhood suddenly made sense.
And only then, in my bleary first-thing-in-the-morning stupor did I realize, wait a minute! I don't have to teach this dog that he's special! I don't have to teach him to play different games than other dogs!
HE'S A FRICKIN' HORSE.
But sometimes, he's just so damn cute and cuddly that I can stop for a minute while he nuzzles and plays, and just be a girl and her horse. Species appropriate behaviour, be damned.
posted by Amanda at 23:23
1 Comments:
It's the great mofo delurk day (see my blog if you don't know about it already).
I'm hardly delurking on this site but I have a personal goal to comment on at least 25 blogs today so off I goooo!
PS - I've never read any of the Clifford books. Am I deprived?
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