Today's Sunshine

Today out in the garden Monster and I were working a free shaping session (the resolution, you know) when we were surprised by a horse in the road on the other side of the fence. Monster has very slight issues with just horses, horses in a paddock by themselves. Horses being led by humans are a big deal however. And horses with a rider is apparently some sort of Threat Level Midnight, and nearly make his head explode even at great distance. Since horses do ride through the village now and then I always keep a watchful (hearful?) ear out for clippety-clopping hooves when Monster's outside, because he will drive himself absolutely insane by the fence, to the point of possibly hurting himself. Not only that, but horses are strange and skittish animals, and may weirdly not appreciate being cursed out by a frothing Cane Corso even if he is on the other side of a fence.

Then there's that whole thing how horses keep trying to kill me. If he did manage to spook one badly, it would probably jump the fence into the garden just to kick me in the head...

See? Mom knows they're demons too!

But today, the giant creature snuck up on us! Neither of us heard it until half a second before we could see it. Monster raced to the fence, drew breath, and...

Nothing. Not one bark. He did bounce up and down on all four, and make prey dives in the direction of the fence a couple of times, but he didn't make a sound. And when he looked back at me(!), who had remained calmly behind (not at all frozen in a combination of surprise and resignation I tell you), I took the opportunity given and asked him where his ball was. He took a step toward me, looked back over his shoulder at the horse, and then went racing to find his ball!

Naturally he got lots of praise and lots of play.

And then we went back inside, before that thing decided to come back and ruin everything.