Everyday I find something to be proud of my kids for. Whether it is just getting their homework done without nagging (from me) or balking (from them), cleaning their rooms, helping each other when one of them needs it, or watching them grow and become responsible people. Sometimes the pride I feel is heart swelling.
Yesterday the kids and I were out in J-Town to take care of Snazzy. She had had a little mishap over the weekend. Somehow she had cut her lower eyelid on something...god only knows what...I think she was just really missing Dr. Chase and felt she needed to do something in order to for us to need to call him out emergently. Anyway, we needed to go out and clean her eye, put more antibiotics in her eye, and give her another dose of banamine. Cate knew where all the supplies were and what we needed to do and was happy to get everything set up. She then went out to the pasture to get Snazzy to bring her in for her treatment. Upon coming into the barn, Snazzy immediately knew what was up...and she had decided that she wasn't going to have any of it. She had decided that she really didn't like having her eye messed with whether it was for her own good or not. So Catie went to put her in the cross ties so we could get started. Snazzy ran right over Cate and had apparently decided that she was going to use all of her brute strength to bully Catie into just giving up.
Here is where heart swelling pride comes in for me. Any other time a horse has done this to Catie, she has given up almost instantly and let her horse win. She has walked away with tears in her eyes, offended, and defeated. Somewhere in her 10 year old brain she has thought that because she was kind to her horse and she loved them that they would always be kind and loving to her...meaning that they would always willingly do what she asked them without any balking or disobedience. Something that I saw in her yesterday let me see that she has learned the lesson. She did not give up. She did not walk away offended and defeated. She was firm with Snazzy. She did not let Snazzy bully her into giving up. After about 3 tries to get Snazzy into the cross ties I stepped in to help her, this time not because she was giving up or defeated but because it was becoming a safety issue. I took Snazzy and Cate and I outsmarted her. We just cross-tied her backwards with her butt in the arena and not in the tack up area. Snazzy was surely upset that we had won the battle. Catie and I proceeded to take care of her eye with a kind and gentle hand and when were done Catie walked her back out to the pasture and still gave her a carrot.
This has been a lesson that has been hitting Catie over the head over and over. The lesson that horses are very intelligent animals who live in the moment. The lesson will keep presenting itself to Catie. This I am sure of because it is the nature of the horse. They are flight animals. This time Cate decided to stand up to her horse and not crumble. She understood that Snazzy was acting like she was because she was scared and knew that something was coming that was not altogether pleasant, NOT because Snazzy didn't love Catie. Catie walked away knowing that she still loved Snazzy and Snazzy still loved her and she was not offended.
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