Annie's Dark Side

Poor Annie Horseperson. She has to put up with Ginger's royal bossiness all the time. Not only does Annie get kicked, chased off, bitten on the butt, and not allowed to shelter in the barn sometimes, she has to give up her own food if she is not finished before Ginger the Horrible comes over to claim her Supreme Bitch rights to the best of everything. It makes me mad at Ginger. I know it is simply horse society, but it is so unfair to Annie.

Annie is not a downtrodden spirit, though. She gets her licks in wherever she can and against whomever she can. She chases ol' Duke around, and he is getting to be an old grandpa dog. She has knocked me over with her shoulder several times when I have been leaning over filling her feed bucket. It always seems like a bit of an accident - just a tiny little bump against my hip. If she could speak, she would sweetly smile and say, "Oh I say, did 1000 pound me just knock over little ol' human you?"

I can never be mad at her. She has not had it so good in life. She was sick and skinny and no one cared about her fate when she was sent to the sale barn. If it had not been for Frank or Careen, Annie would have been on the truck to the Texas slaughter house. When she came to Spirit Creek she was still so weak that I could drag her around by the halter. Just for the record, I can not budge that horse now if she does not want to move.

I have been picking up her front hooves in an effort to get her more trustworthy and cooperative with the farrier. Yesterday morning she easily let me pick up her front left hoof. When she tried to set her foot down, I held it and she allowed it. I gently let her hoof down and patted her neck. When I turned to walk away, she followed after me and somehow stepped on the toes of my left foot, even though my back was to her. I still do not know how she managed it. Very sneaky, Little Orphan Annie! It hurt a lot - not on the twelve-letter obscenity scale but right at four-letter obscenity intensity, with one or two son-of-a-B's tossed in for good measure. I had to hold on to the gate for a minute. Annie just looked innocent. Yeah, right!

The only damage is a couple of black and blue toes. It could have been much worse. My uncle's horse, Patches, never missed an opportunity to step on my feet when I was a kid. It happened so often that it could not have been an accident every time. She would not move, preferring to ignore all the pounding on her shoulder and the screaming and the crying and the flailing about, sometimes even grinding my foot into the ground more. My beloved Lady, on the other hand, only stepped on my foot one time and as soon as she realized it, she moved. Patches was somewhat evil. Well, actually, she was a lot evil. I hope this does not mean Annie comes from the same dark sisterhood as Patches.

I will just have to work harder at winning Annie away from the Dark Side. I would hate to think she might turn out to be the Darth Vader of my two horses - except - just once - I wish Annie would use The Force to kick Ginger's ass.