Tonight I decided to take my GSD, Dante, round the farm whilst I rode Neon.
It’s true to say that Neon isn’t the best horse with dogs. It’s true also that Dante has hardly been round horses in the last 5 years.
And so we set off down the hill.
Dante kept running large circles away and back and Neon was arching his neck and uncertain every time the wolf-dog approached. But telling Dante to go and find sticks was working in encouraging him to stay ahead and beyond a bit of piaffing, Neon was doing OK. By the bottom of the hill however, D started to come back more frequently, so I foolishly decided that rather than continue round the big field, we’d turn round and go back.
Turning round caused excitement, with Dante rushing to us, straight underneath Neon and exiting between his back legs causing Neon to leap high in the air. D then jumped up at Neon’s side and then went back underneath, prompting Neon to do an enormous capriole and then a flat out sprint for a few strides.
However he wasn’t panicking and half-paused after a few strides to say:
“OK we ARE now being attacked by a wolf as I feared. What do you want to do?”
Since telling Dante off was having no effect, he was still with us and in fact, jumping up again in both excitement and to get close to his mum; I opted to push Neon on in gallop. It’s a fairly steep and long hill and the Warhorse beat the unfit, nearly 9 year old wolf with ease and pulled up sweetly at the top when asked.
The German idiot, on catching up ,started running tight circles around us again. Neon, clearly at his limits started to piaffe again and I decided it would be prudent to dismount before things got worse. As soon as I was on the ground the wolf-dog idiot calmed down and Neon was happy enough to accept the praise he was due for not having kicked once despite severe provocation.
I can just imagine what he told Foley when he went back out:
“We were surrounded by wolves, snapping at my heels. But I leapt over them and then out-ran them and got her back safely against the odds”
Dante: (sadly due to stomach cancer he died just after Christmas 2009)
Tales of the White Warhorses 