Oops, I almost forgot to post for this week’s lesson before going to bed. I’ve got my first translation project for the new company, and its been taking a bit longer than expect. Plus, today was just theory, so nothing too exciting to report. We ended up having another round of observing herd behaviour, and again our regular instructor was gone, this time due to a family emergency.
We started off with two of the ponies; low-ranking Lisa and her misguided boyfriend, Campino. Misguided because he hasn’t quite realized that at some point in his life, he had some surgery that removed a certain bit of optional equipment. ;P As a result, he’s one of the rowdier ponies in the stable, and apparently he and Dark Digidoo have caused the herd to become less stable of late. They’ve even passed some of their bad behaviour on to other horses; Gamir can no longer be kept with the others because he constantly tries to cover any mares in heat, and even Murphy has figured out how to do that.
In any case, Lisa used to be bullied by everyone, but now she’s Campino’s girl and he protects her. Unfortunately, the two of them alone in teh arena decided to be more interested in staring at the door, hoping to be led back to the stables, than in displaying any behaviour at all. But then we let in low-ranking Spitfire (who is a pretty big horse, especially compared to these little ponies) and things heated up. He used to be a friend of Lisa’s, and Campino immediately turned into a little stallion-wannabee, chasing poor Spitfire around with much arching of his neck, snorting and very bouncy trotting.
In the end, we had to take Lisa out again, because Campino got so possessive. But then he started guarding us instead, making sure Spitfire wasn’t able to come up and say hello. ;P Bossy little thing. Anyway, it was fun enough, as we ended up discussing the herd dynamics in the stables a lot, and those things always give interesting insights into the horses. I missed riding, of course, but it was almost too darn cold. I still don’t have any new boots, so my feet might have fallen off.