My day began, of course, by cleaning the horse enclosure. This winter it seems the horses have upped the amount of manure that they are putting out. We have been feeding them stemmier hay than in previous years, so perhaps in it goes out it goes.

I took all three mares for a walk after breakfast. The word from all three is that they are getting bored and want to go someplace else. So I will soon begin riding them. It was warm, but breezy, and it is going to continue this way the next few days.

Ryder and Shadow

Pete found a website some time ago, the dog aging project, and has been paying close attention to their posts. The most recent one had a cognition test – Pete showed it to me. Essentially you set up a series of three small boxes and put treats in the boxes as you are walking the dog past the boxes. The dog gets to eat the trees placed in two boxes, but is required to walk past the third box, as the handler puts the treat in this, the third box.

The dog and handler return to the starting point. Then the dog takes the lead and hopefully goes to the box with the remaining treat.

There are eight rounds total.

We first did this with Ryder. She figured out that the box she’d been walked past had the additional treat. She had no errors, meaning that she remembered where the treat that she did not get previously, was.

We next did this with Shadow. At first she had a harder time than Ryder. It wasn’t her memory so much that she didn’t know what to do. Pete finally let her off leash and she went right to the box with the remaining treat.

We all had a good time; that is, humans and dogs alike. I will do this with the horses as soon as I have a morning or afternoon off. Pete suggested that rather than use boxes, that we use feed buckets. And he said that we make it so that there are 12 feet instead of six feet between the buckets.

I enjoyed doing this so much. It reminded me of doing horse and dog agility. The problem now, of course, is the weather isn’t conducive to doing either. There is a lot of snow on the ground. And, too, I have been putting a lot of time and energy into the book project. The animals would all say, too much.

I may be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. I went in to get some stuff done, and in short order I was more caught up than I have been in months. I am set for tomorrow’s library book haul. And I am set for Wednesday evening’s open mic reading.

The days are now getting longer, faster. I can’t say we are over the hump, but we are close.

Next: 42. 2/13/24: Temperatures in the 40s