My son helps me take horses out in the evening. Since the flies have died off we turn the horses out any time after they have eaten but it generally is around six o’clock. My plan is turn out horses before I start preparing dinner. This conflicts with my son’s schedule of playing a video game called Warcraft. He admits that he plays the game too much so our battle for his attention starts at six. After extended negotiations I generally leave and start hooking up the leads to the horses. Most of the time he appears shortly after I start so we leave at the same time. Yesterday I was out of the barn before he got there. When he tried to hook up to the second horse, she pushed through the door and both horses got loose. He was pretty mad at me! Although the horses caught up to me, I kept my horses(older mares) and put them in the pasture. My son waited for his horses to quit running, hooked up to them, and took them into their pasture with the other mares.

You might think this was mean of me but I take these horses out by myself and I take the horses out in this order. In a way he was disappointed with himself for not keeping his horses. He thought he was a better horseman. The horses showed him who really was in charge! I am glad both the horses and he were not hurt but this was a cheap lesson in horse handling.