Don't Be the Jerk

The weather is gorgeous, not a cloud in sight, with dry trails and perfect footing. What's the problem then? It's almost January and the roadsides still look like this:

That may as well be a photo from August! Here's a photo from this time last year, and we thought last year was dry:

Anyway. I hadn't ridden my own horses in way too long and my plans were stymied by random cold grey weather yesterday, so Scrappy and I enjoyed a relatively brisk 10 mile tour around the local dirt roads in the sunshine this a.m. It was pretty quiet, we were only passed by about four cars and a motorcycle. Chilly enough to goosebump your skin in the few shadows where the sun hadn't hit yet but quite warm enough that I was sweating in just a long sleeve shirt jogging along. 

 Oh, you're wondering about the post title? I'm referring to a neighbor, of course. Well, relative neighbor, since they are on a dirt road about 5 miles ride from here, but still. They, like many, have dogs that charge the fence line barking, but their dogs are the only ones that come *through* the fence and actually charge me on the horse. They are the type of dogs that see a horse charging them, coz I will and did while going by today, as a fight and in this case charging them did in fact make them come at us even worse. I was yelling as loud as I could at the dog and pretending to throw rocks which kept it mostly at bay,  but every time I managed to take a few steps past the stupid thing would come at us again. Roaring at the dog and keeping Scrappy calm was all I could do. I heard the people yelling for the dog and apologizing, the dogs retreated and I thought we were good, then here comes the worst dog again. I was almost past the place but the dog was still coming after us and I heard the people say "Just go past, just go past!" I yell back "IT'S CHARGING ME" to which they reply, "too bad, you're on it's property, just go" and made no further attempt to stop the dog. Okay, fine, so the county put a road through the middle of your land, or whatever, I don't think that makes it okay to let your dogs basically attack passerbys. GRRRR!!!!!!!!!

Fortunately Scrappy is a saintly guy. This was also driven home as we were making our brief paved county road crossing on the way home and a plastic bag swirled out of the bushes on the right edge we were hugging as a car and Harley roared by on our left. Scrappy sort of sproinged all 4 feet a few inches off the ground but didn't surge to one side or the other. Thank god.

 I don't know if I should admit that the silliest reaction out of my saintly Rushcreek all day was when we passed cows? LOL

Fortunately a few miles from home I passed a lovely old couple heading out of their driveway in their ancient Ford with their happy yellow Lab hanging out the back. They greeted me most jovially and admired the weather and wanted to know Scrappy's name. I absolutely love neighbors like those. They are the only kind of people I want to be around. The people that let their dogs attack us had horses, who knows, they could have controlled their dogs and we could have had a nice conversation like that.  It's so pointless and poisonous to behave the way they did. Please people, whether you live in a place big or small, urban or country--just *don't* be the jerk neighbor. Just don't.

Besides "Trot outs that aren't Possibly Toward an Early Grave: 101" Scrappy and I are working on a very important part of his education: The Selfie. If he is to star in this little blog of mine, he's going to have to do better than this dubious near-mare-face:

At least *I'm* stoked!  ;-)