Monday, April 4, 2011

Personality Plus

That describes Tico. If they cast a new Mr. Ed, he could do it in a heartbeat.

Yeah, he's gray... but how many people remember Mr. Ed was a palomino? Was it even in color? I wouldn't know, since we didn't have a color TV until well into the 70s, I think.

Tico can be really fresh with me, I think because he knows it makes me happy. Yes, I know that sounds really demented. He's never dangerous. It's more like play.

When we're trotting around in the indoor and he tosses a little happy buck in, transitioning into a canter, it makes me grin. When he expresses an opinion that he really doesn't think I should keep him from galloping back to the barn by getting slightly light in front and tossing and shaking his head (sometimes augmenting the opionion by whacking my head with his tail), I laugh at him and he ends up having to walk. Of course, it's his "turbo walk" - We'll be 20 feet ahead of everyone else in a heartbeat - but he's walking. It's a compromise, and we're both happy.

A few days later he'll be doing a lesson with a nine year old little girl, and be a perfect little gentleman, taking care of her and when she asks "correctly", doing what she asks. He doesn't do that many lessons - just enough to keep him from turning into a complete Great White Whale - but the lesson kids who ride him are in love. He charms them all. He loves people.

When I got to the barn Saturday, the girl who gives lessons, Jess, interrupted her current lesson to tell me what a star Tico had been on Wednesday.

You'd think I was his mother, I'm so proud of him sometimes. :)