|
 To gentle a horse, he explained, you give them something to
booger at, and then talk them out of it. You keep coming up with new
boogers and calming the horse until screaming fire engines and jet
exhaust are no problem at all.
He rode up to the Campbell house and saw Anita, Dud's wife,
shaking out a throw rug. The young horse began blowing nuclear snot
all over the front yard and his eyes bugged out.
"Anita," Steve said, "would you mind coming over here with that
rug for a minute?"
She walked slowly up to the young horse, who was crouched in the
starting blocks, preparing for an elliptical orbit around the sun.
"I don't want to frighten him," Anita said.
"That's why I'm here, actually," Steve said. "Would you let him
smell the rug?"
She carefully and slowly held the rug up to where the colt could
sniff it. He sniffed and snorted, sniffed and snorted … then
sniffed, and sniffed. Then he eyed it carefully and touched it with
his nose.
"If you wouldn't mind," Steve said, running his hand along the
horse's neck, "could you back up about three steps and then start
wiggling it?"
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She backed up and gently wiggled the rug. Snort, snort, legs in
starting blocks. Ready to booger.
"That's it," Steve said, calmly, rubbing the horse's neck. "Now
shake it a little harder."
More snorts. More rubbing.
"Now shake it really hard."
It took the best part of a minute before the horse calmed down
and just watched Anita with curiosity instead of fear.
"Thanks, Anita," Steve said. "You've helped a lot."
She looked up at him. "But why did you want me to shake a rug at
him, Steve?"
"I'm thinking about getting him a job in a carpet cleaning
business and want him to learn the ropes."
[Text from file received from Slim Randles]
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