Tuesday, February 27, 2007, 23:53

A Heart-Stopping Moment

Just like I do every morning, I walked down the path toward Isabelle's pasture to give her some grain Tuesday morning. When I had dumped the grain in the black tub that Isabelle eats from and set it inside the fence for her, I turned around and headed back down the path toward the barn to give my old Morgan-Arab cross his own breakfast of grain.

I had no more than turned around when it happened.

Every morning, Charlie, our springer spaniel, likes to sniff around the horse pastures. When I turned around Tuesday morning to head for the barn, Charlie chose that exact moment to slip under the fence into Kajun's pasture.

Every morning, my old horse, who is 25, waits by the gait in the lane for me to go toward the barn.

As Charlie slipped under the fence, Kajun lunged forward, struck at Charlie with a front foot and knocked the dog down.

I watched in horror as Kajun stomped on the dog who was yelping and rolling around under his feet, trying to get away.

There was too much snow and too much distance between us for me to be able to help Charlie by chasing Kajun away or turning his head or walloping him with a bucket.

So I did the next best thing.

I yelled.

"STOP IT, YOU OLD BASTARD. QUIT THAT!" I roared at the top of my lungs. "LEAVE HIM ALONE!"

Kajun paused, and Charlie saw his chance to roll under the fence.

"Charlie!" I said. "Oh, Charlie. Are you all right?"

The dog made his way up the path and onto the driveway.

"Charlie!" I said. "Come here, Charlie."

I hurried over to the driveway where Charlie was sitting. He was trembling from head to toe.

"Oh, Charlie," I said as I knelt down beside him.

I looked the dog over carefully, but I couldn't see any blood or obvious wounds. I looked at Charlie's ears, too. From where I was standing, it appeared that the horse's hoofs had struck his long ears several times, too.

After a couple of minutes, I concluded that I couldn't find any sign of wounds.

"Just take it easy, Charlie," I said.

Charlie stood up, turned around and headed back toward the house. I couldn't see that he was limping or anything, so I headed for the barn.

Kajun, who had been waiting outside, trotted into the barn, nickering.

"YOU OLD BASTARD!" I yelled. "WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR? CHARLIE HAS NEVER, EVER DONE A THING TO YOU!"

Kajun stopped short, head up, ears perked.

Suddenly, a worried expression appeared on his face.

"If you think I'm giving you any grain after you did that and tried to hurt Charlie, you'd better think again," I said.

Kajun backed up a few steps. He definitely looked worried now.

I picked up a couple of flakes of hay and crawled through the fence.

Kajun backed up farther away from me.

"You'd better back up," I snapped.

I threw the hay outside, and Kajun went out to start eating his hay.

For as long as I've known him, I have known that when Kajun gets grain, he is like a kid on a sugar high. It has been a fine balancing act to give him enough grain so he holds his weight, especially now in his older years, but not so much grain that he acts stupid.

I'm thinking that maybe he has been getting a little too much grain lately.

Kajun, it seems to me, knew that he had done a bad thing, too.

Under normal circumstances, if I walked in the barn and did not give Kajun his grain, he would be pestering me for as long as I was out in the barn, begging for his oats.

The old bugger never came back in the barn once, and when I went outside to clean up piles of horse manure, he watched me with a wary eye.

I took the dogs for a walk after I finished feeding the horses, and Charlie seemed to be moving all right. Over the next few days, we will have to keep an eye on him to make sure that he doesn't show signs of internal injuries or rib injuries. It's possible that because there's quite a bit of snow on the ground, the snow cover cushioned the action of Kajun's feet. If Charlie had been knocked down on a hard surface, he might have been injured quite badly.

I hope Kajun has been enjoying all of the grain he's been getting this winter. Because he's not going to get that much after this. . .

LeAnn R. Ralph