The Day Soonie Almost Got Eaten

Had to meet the vet this afternoon for Soon's annual dentist appointment, so I left early and decided to go hacking before the vet showed up.  It's balls hot, spring went AWOL and now we're just stuck in early summer suckfest.  So what better way to beat the heat than a nice, relaxing walk down the road?  It was lovely, Soonie even thought so.  That was up until the flies started biting.  He was SO unbelievably polite too, it was adorable.  Such a gentleman walking down the road and enjoying himself in between bouts of Itch of Death.  We'd walk, stop, I'd scratch just behind his cheek and he'd turn himself inside out, and then we'd continue walking another 75 feet and repeat.  It was almost as if he was trying to tell me, "Ma'am, while this is indeed a lovely hack, I wanted to let you know that I'm going to throw myself on the first object I find with a proper scratching edge on it, because the flies are biting and I very well might die out here."

"IT ITCHES AND I'M DYING!"

And that's exactly what he did. We  wrapped up our ride and were nearly back in the barn area when he launched himself at the bale and rubbed his entire front end all over it.  I had a good chuckle over that.  And when we got back to the barn, and he was on three legs, reaching back to scratch his side with his teeth, I just about fell off laughing (do you know how delicate the balance is when you're sitting on top of a horse who's on three legs with his face behind your leg?).  This POOR HORSE was SUFFERING TERRIBLY one itch at a time, and I was just hysterical over it all.  I scratched behind the girth, all over his neck, his jawline, sides, chest, and the whole time he had the "OHH THAT'S GOOD!" lip going and even tried to groom my boots to return the favor.  He must have something special in his blood, because the flies treat him like fine dining.

He got a nice, cool bath and surprised me with some extremely vocal nickering when it came to Carrot Time.  He knows Carrot Time is immediately after grooming and/or bath time following a ride, and when he turned around with that "Hey I'm cute now carrot me" look, I stepped across the aisle and grabbed the carrot from the grooming bucket, and asked him "Oh do you want this?  Carrot time?" To which he loudly nickered and half whinnied very enthusiastically.  Like he had just wandered through the jungle and emerged victorious, and wanted a medal.

Soonie loves carrot

Oh, and for the third time in the last week, we didn't get his teeth done.  Frustrated at the scheduling issues.  I just need his teeth floated already!  Ahhh!