New Home - Day Twenty

My name is Archie and I am a sinner.

Well, my stomach settled down overnight and I woke up raring to go.

The car behaved itself and we set off to the stable. I wore my harness today and it came in really handy for lifting me over the gates. The farm track was iced over and the car couldn't get up there so we walked from the bottom of the road.

The Nippy Wee Wifie had packed some "equipment" with her. Namely my muzzle and slip lead.

Today was the day I would get closer to the horse.

She let me sniff and jump at the stable door for a bit and tried various ways of distracting me, but to no avail.

More forceful tactics were required as I was too excited to pay much heed.

That woman can burst eardrums with her roar at fifty yards. I didn't get the full force of it but I got the message when she bellowed "ENOUGH".
Praise heaped upon praise when I sat still outside the stable.

After a while I was deemed controlable enough to peer inside. My front legs scrabbled frantically in the straw but I was going nowhere on account of that blasted harness and long leash. At least I wasn't wearing the slip leash - I'm sure I would have asphyxiated.

Note to self - using Google as a spell checker for the word "asphyxiation" throws up some interesting results.

NWW made me sit but I kept getting up and tried to lunge at the horse. Each time, NWW pulled me back and put me into a "down".
Horse just stood there. He extended his neck to sniff me but I jumped up whenever hedid that. After a while he just stood there and ignored me.

Slowly, NWW and I got closer until we were right inside the stable. She made me lie down in the straw - over and over and over again.

Eventually I got pretty bored of this game. It was going nowhere. I lay there and stared at the horse. I even took my eyes off him for a few seconds and attempted to scoff on a particularly fragrant and succulent pile of horse poo.
I wasn't successful - it isn't too easy to suck it up through a muzzle you know.

I went back to just lying there staring.

And then horse put his head down to sniff me.

The Nippy Wee Wifie quietly talked to us both. My leash wasn't loose but it wasn't holding me back either. I could easily have lunged forward but I didn't.

Which is just as well because it meant that NWW was able to photograph the moment with her free hand.

She was sooooo pleased. I'm not sure if it was because I was being good or because she got her daily Blip for me.

Whatever, I took the credit anyway and enjoyed all the praise.

After stable duties were done we slid back down the farm track to the car and headed home.

NWW produced a toy for me. An oval rubber ball sort of thing on a bit of rope. I liked it so much that I let her play with it.

We had a complicated game with it.

There were two parts to the game. The first part was called "drop it" and I had to spit the ball out.
The second part of the game was called "thank you" and I had to hold the ball in my mouth and let NWW take it back out again without her losing any fingers.

I wasn't too keen on the "thank you" part of the game and I gave NWW some real evil stares as I gripped the ball tightly.

I soon realised that giving up the ball got me huge pats, loads of praise - and I got the ball back again anyway - bonus.
I think I'm getting to like that particular game.

So all in all, quite a good day really.