A Taste of Freedom

When horses misbehave, it's generally the fault of the humans around them. This was no exception.

Saturday March 5th, 2011

I wake up with a start and flip open my cell phone to check the time. It's 6:15am. I've overslept. I have a vague, foggy memory of turning off the alarm a half hour ago. At the time I thought I'd just doze for another 2 minutes or so. Yeah, right.

I have to leave for work at 7:45, so I'm going to have to do the barn chores in record time if I want to fit in a shower and some breakfast first. I lift yesterday's barn clothes from the heap on the floor, and get dressed as I walk to the mud room.

Out at the barn, I dump grain into the horses' buckets, and muck the stalls while they eat. Thankfully, the stalls are fairly clean, and I figure I'll finish them just-in-time. I'm in Jaava's stall, tossing the last few forkfulls of manure into my wheelbarrow when I hear "clip-clop, clip-clop" on the wooden floor. I crane my neck around and catch a glimpse of Murray's navy blanket as he meanders down the isle. I'd left his stall door open-- as I always do.

I don't panic. I lowered the garage-style door behind me when I came in the barn. Well, I lowered it most of the way. There's a three foot opening at the bottom, but even if my 16.3 hand Murray were to crouch on his knees, that'd be a tight squeeze. All the same, his strut down the isle has the girls quite excited.

Jaava is astounded by the fact that Murray is walking the isle alone. She pokes her nose out the front of her stall and calls to Murray in her ear-splitting, high pitched voice, then she begins dancing in circles and rearing. Her door is open too, but the overflowing wheelbarrow is blocking the exit. I shimmy my way out of her stall so I can nudge Murray back to his before he starts a riot.

Now that I'm in the isle, I see that Murray, like the good-ole-boy that he is, is already making his way back to his stall. But Jaava doesn't seem to notice. She's bursting with excitement and clearly wants to be part of this unusual adventure. And before I have time to move the wheelbarrow and close her stall door, she sits back on her haunches and launches herself into the air. Suddenly, she's whizzing by my side as she leaps over the wheelbarrow. Unfortunately, she clips the edge of it with her hind toe and it, along with its smelly contents topple to the floor with a crash.

Murray is now trapped between a crazed-pony whom he dislikes, a toppled wheelbarrow, and an almost-closed garage door. I don't have a clear view of what happens next, but in an instant, there's another crash and I see the garage door flying violently up toward the ceiling, as Murray's blanketed body dashes out into the driveway. The door hits the end of the track and quickly springs back down again, only to be bounced back up as it hits jaava's round rump. Kicking up her heels, she gallops off in Murray's wake.

With two horses loose in the driveway, it's Maggie's turn for hysterics. She's now screaming in panic, and letting loose with furious, frustrated kicks against the back Wall of her stall. So, before I go after the two freedom seekers, I take some preventative measures. I raise the bars on the top half of her door (which are normally lowered so the horses can look out), to keep her from attempting any ill-fated leaps herself.

Then, I run to the feed room to grab a bucket of grain and the horses' halters. I'm annoyed that the horses are loose, but I'm not really worried. Murray's generally a chicken who's not interested in exploring. So, I figure that he'll loop around the front of the house, then turn back toward the paddocks to be captured there-- and I'm sure Jaava (who can't stand being alone) will follow his lead.

When I finally make it outside though, my heart skips a beat. Murray and Jaava haven't come back. I scan the horizon for a moment before I see them. Murray is standing in the middle of the road in the blind spot on top of the hill. We don't get much traffic, but the traffic we do get generally speeds up as it climbs the hill to keep from slipping in the mud, or ice, depending upon the season. From where he's standing, there's no way that oncoming vehicles will see him until it's too late. Jaava is just a few feet behind him.

I start shaking my bucket of grain and calling their names. Murray takes a few steps away-- down the hill. Jaava follows. Then, they have second thoughts. They turn around and head back up the road toward the driveway at a trot. I hold out the bucket of grain, but they don't even pause to consider my peace offering. Instead of turning down the driveway as I'd hoped, they ignore me and continue up the road. At least oncoming traffic will be able to see them now.

It's at this point, as I'm standing in the middle of the road, helplessly shaking a bucket of grain, and holding two halters, that I pull out my cell phone. I could really use another set of hands to help me round them up, and Dave is inside the house-- asleep. I dial our home number and the phone rings and rings, until the voicemail clicks in. I continue down the road toward the horses, and redial the number....still no answer. I yell into the phone "wake up and pick up the phone"! as Murray leads Jaava off the road and into the woods.

I call Dave again...just as Murray sinks up to his belly in snow and begins to flail around. Deciding that "off-roading" is not such a good idea, he and Jaava turn back toward the road. I call Dave again. He picks up. His slurred sleepy voice asks "what's going on?" and I know he's just seen us outside the window. "GET OUT HERE NOW AND HELP!" is all I say before hanging up the phone. I look up to see Murray and Jaava trotting back toward me. Again they ignore the grain, but thankfully turn into the driveway. This time, they head straight down the lane, through the open gait, and into to the pasture. Dave arrives, wearing rubber boots and fleece pyjama pants, just as I close the gate behind them.

At least he tells me that he'll handle the rest of the chores (including cleaning up the contents of the toppled wheelbarrow), so that I can make it to work on time.

Maggie on the Lam

Murray had his taste of freedom, I guess Maggie deserves hers as well.

There's just one problem with letting the horses run into their stalls from the attached paddocks. The inner stall doors need to be closed, or else they can run right out through the front of the barn and into the driveway.

It's supper time and Maggie, as usual, is waiting outside her door to go in to her feast. The door that leads from her paddock to her stall has to be opened from the outside, so, I go outside, crawl through the space between the fence boards (too lazy to open the gate), and open the big door. As I swing the door back, I can see through her stall to the inner door. And I see that it's open. It's too late for me to close it though, Maggie's already shoving her way into her stall.

For a moment, I think that she might ignore the open door and choose to eat the hay that's already neatly piled in the corner for her, but no, her natural curiosity propels her out the door, out the barn, and onto the un-mowed grass immediately behind the house. I head toward her thinking that at least she's much easier to catch than Murray, but she's got a green-grass buffet, and she's not anxious to give it up. She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, and trots a few steps further away, without ever lifting her grass-mowing muzzle from the ground. I head back to the barn to get a bucket of grain.

Inside the house, Dave is sitting in the rocking chair by the picture window. Suddenly, he sees something large and black on the lawn. His first thought is: "Melissa must be taking Maggie out for some grass, that's odd though, 'cause it's supper time". His second thought is: "That's odd, Melissa's taking Maggie for some grass, but Maggie doesn't have a halter on". His third thought is: "Melissa's taking Maggie for some grass, but she doesn't have a halter on and, Melissa's not there". At this point, he puts down the laptop and comes outside.

Dave comes outside just in time to see me standing on the lawn, wrestling Maggie into a halter while she has her nose shoved into a bucket of grain. "What are you doing?", he asks. I glare at him and ask for some help.

Murray on the Lam

I should know better, but sometimes it's easy to forget.

It's mid-afternoon on a Thursday, and a sudden downpour sends sheets of rain cascading off the roof. I rush outside to open the doors to the horses' stalls so they can avoid getting drenched. As soon as the horses are in, the rain stops. The sky is still grey though, so I figure I'll wait a bit before putting them back out.

I leave the door to Murray's stall open (the one which leads into the barn, not out to the paddock) while I move to Maggie's stall to spread some fresh bedding. Murray moves forward so that his toes are just touching the edge of the doorway. Standing like this, he can stretch his neck practically the entire width of the isle. I say "Murray", in my deep, meant-to-be intimidating, don't-you-dare voice, and he backs up a step or two. I consider closing his door, but I'm almost finished, and as I look up at the big garage-style barn door, the one that leads to our driveway, I see that it's pulled down halfway. He'd have to duck to get out underneath, and I can't see why he'd bother. So, I figure that even if he does leave his stall, he'll only wander the isle ways for a few minutes. I am wrong.

Now, I should point out that I leave Murray's stall door open on a regular basis. It's something I've always done, and something he's always accepted. He's allowed to stick his head out of his stall and look around so long as his hooves don't cross the threshold. This is quite disconcerting to people who don't know him. They see me leave his stall with his door open, they see him advance forward a step, and they rush to close the door before he can escape. My explanations are generally met with skepticism--until people see his manners for themselves. Over thirteen years, Murray has only disobeyed the rules twice-- that is, until now.

The first time he "left" his stall was only 18 months or so after I first bought him. I stopped at the barn on my way to a night out with friends. I was in a hurry. It was summer and I was wearing a long blue skirt and matching blue sandals. I opened Murray's door, fed him a treat, and walked around the corner to write a note for the stable owners. Suddenly, I heard the muted sound of metal horseshoes making contact wtih wooden boards. I turned to see Murray's lanky legs strolling down the isle, and out the open barn door. He sauntered into the nearest paddock-- a small one, just about the size of three box stalls-- and stood there looking at me. I grabbed his grey nylon halter, lifted my skirt, and walked purposefully toward him. He promptly took off, cantering round and round in tiny circles just out of my reach.

Two hours later, with a layer of dust covering my sandals, and a plenty of dirt between my toes, Murray was still lose. A fellow boarder arrived at the barn, and between us, we rigged up a series of lunge lines to form a chute from the gate of the paddock, into the barn. We opened the gate, and Murray darted out. He ran into the barn, tried to run out the back door (found it was closed), then trotted back to his stall as though nothing had happened. I was late for my date.

The second time Murray left his open-door stall was just a few years ago. It was summer again, when the horses are turned-out overnight. I finished riding Murray just as the other horses were being ushered into their pastures. I put Murray in his stall and took off his bridle. I walked the four feet to my locker to put it away. I felt a gust of air brush by my shoulder. I turned to see Murray following his friends out to the pasture with his new saddle still on his back, and his boots still velcroed to his legs. I ran out in front of him and managed to force him to change course. He re-entered the barn, and I herded him back into his stall. I'm sure this only worked because unlike the other horses, he had yet to eat his supper, which was waiting in his feed tub for his return.

I wasn't thinking of Murray's previous misadventures when I left his stall door open last week.

I'm just about to leave Maggie's stall when Murray decides it's time to make a break for it. He thrusts his body forward, and in an instant he's standing outside of his stall, in the isle. I shout "hey", and for a brief moment he turns to look back at me-- his expression like that of a toddler just about to do something it knows it's not supposed to. I try to get out in front of him, to stop him, but Maggie's hefty bulk is in front of me, and since she's eating hay, she takes her time in responding to my "move-over" nudges. I stumble out of her stall just in time to see Murray trotting determinedly toward the half-open garage door. It's obvious to me that he's not going to make it. His towering withers are clearly higher than the bottom of the door. But Murray's either too determined to notice, or too unaware of his own height to understand. He ducks his head and neck, but, as predicted, his withers crash into the bottom of the door, bumping it up an inch or two. Un-deterred, he trots into the backyard and around the tool shed. He's free now and he knows it.

I make a few attempts to catch him, but I know it's useless. I can't catch him in an enclosed area, much less in a wide-open space. At least he heads for familiar territory-- the paddock that he and Maggie had been sharing before she unsuccessfully jumped the gate. He prances around, clearly proud of his mischievous behaviour, and I try to figure out what to do. We've repaired the gate to this paddock, but we haven't put it back on its hinges yet, so it's just laying against the fence. I know I can't catch him, and he's welcome to stay here and be stubborn, but I need him to stay INSIDE the fence. I wrestle with the heavy gate and manage to lift it onto one hinge. It's hanging precariously, but I figure it should hold for now. I make one last, unsuccessful attempt to catch Murray, then I curse him and go inside as the drizzle starts up again.

It doesn't take long for Murray realizes he's alone. Not longer prancing in triumph at his great-escape, he mournfully wanders the paddock, whinnying loudly for Maggie (I've purposely left her inside, out-of-sight, in hopes that it might make catching Murray a bit easier). After a half-hour or so, I try once more to put a halter on my forlorn horse. He's desperate for company, but too stubborn to capitulate.

As the minutes tick by, I start to wonder whether I'll even be able to catch him at supper time. Normally, after pulling a stunt like this, I would say to heck with him, and I would leave him out for a few extra hours and that would serve him right. But today, my good friends Katherine and Wade are coming for a visit. They're picking me up, and then we're spending the rest of the evening in the city. And I'm not keen on leaving my lonely horse outside for hours with only a half-attached gate to keep him there.

When Katherine and Wade arrive, we decide to trick Murray into coming in. First, I let Maggie out into her paddock (in clear view of Murray). We lavish her with all kinds of attention and treats. We put on her halter, we make a big show of parading her up and down the drive. We pay no attention at all to Murray. Inside the barn, I prepare the hay and grain, making as much noise as I can. Murray eyes us all suspiciously. Finally, when we're ready to leave, Katherine leads Maggie slowly toward the barn for supper (even though we could have just opened the outer door to her stall). I walk up to the half-on gate of Murray's paddock and wait for him to come to me (which he usually does at supper time). It takes a minute, and I end up having to meet him partway, but eventually he reluctantly turns himself in, presumably deciding that freedom is no fun without food or company.