I had hit upon a plan to reduce the number of horses clamoring at the gate to be let in at any one time. I have two trees in the middle of the pasture. One day when the horses were at the far end of the pasture instead of congregated at the gate I decided to tie Spirit and Prize to the trees. Then I took Rosie in and could go back for them. It worked well so I tried it again the other day.
My only concern about this is that Prize is known to be an escape artist. This is the horse who picked out the threads holding together a web stall guard in order to let herself out of her stall. I know she can untie a standard quick release knot but the rope I had with me wasn’t long enough to tie any fancier knots. But it worked so I naively thought it would work again.
The second time I tied them up I came back outside and they were right where I left them. I think, “Good. She can’t untie herself in this short a period of time.” I’m congratulating myself on my brillant thinking as I walk through the pasture. When I’m about 20 feet away Prize turns and walks over to me dragging her untied lead rope behind her.
Prize: “Oh good, you’re back. I was stuck! To that tree right there. But it’s ok now I got unstuck. I was just thinking about whether or not to get Spirit unstuck. I didn’t think it was right to leave him but you know how grumpy he is. He doesn’t always like it when I help him. He doesn’t even seem upset about being stuck but you need to get him loose.”
She accompanied me over to where Spirit was waiting patiently. She tried to follow me under the branches to the place where his rope was tied. I’m sure she was going to make sure that I knew how to untie him.
If I try this again I’m going to have to bring the longer rope and do fancy knots.
