In today’s rendition of “Stories”, I am going back a few years to the old house, about a year after we first got Dan, our horse that recently and tragically passed away.  The pasture at the old house was fenced on all four sides and kept Dan in place, but being a standard farm fence, it didn’t do a good job of keeping the dogs contained.  More importantly, the fence could not continue over the creek that ran through the middle.  It stopped on both sides, and continued after the creek.  Dan would not venture into the creek and off the property.  The dogs would. 

The pasture was relatively large.  About 2-2.5 acres from the front fence to the creek, and about another half acre after the creek.  The dogs and Dan could coexist easily and they wouldn’t bother him much.  If they did, he simply moved to another area.  It was large enough for the dogs to run freely, but they had to be closely supervised at all times.  Not only could they escape through the creek, but they could climb fences and had other methods of getting out.  I had to rely on two important things.  My voice, and Holly.  Yes, Holly.  Our resident chief escape artist is also our most loyal.  She also played the part during the times in that pasture as the lead dog.   In most cases, if they were showing signs of misbehaving, I would only have to yell loud and clear “HOLLY!!”  She would turn and come to me, and the others followed.

One day, my sister and her family were at our house, and they always loved to see all the animals out.  As we were all out in the pasture, the dogs were running around as they normally do, but Dan was up at the front fence enjoying all the attention he was getting from the visitors.  We were all there by Dan talking, and not paying enough attention to the dogs.  The next thing I knew, I looked up and noticed the dogs headed for the creek.  They were headed for the side that had the escape route to the neighbor’s sheep.  As normal, I yelled out to Holly.  This one time, maybe she sensed that I hadn’t been paying close attention so she chose to ignore me.  Before I even had a chance to panic, Dan darted off like a bolt of lightning and galloped like the race horse he was toward the dogs.  Humans cannot outrun a husky…but a horse can.  Especially a former race horse.  He headed them off in the corner and turned them around!! 

As they all came running back up, it was all I could do to hold back tears!  I wasn’t sure what I just witnessed.  Was it divine intervention?  Was it simply a horse that somehow understood the gravity of the situation?  We will likely never know.  To this day, my sister tells the story as if it just happened yesterday.  Dan came back up to the fence where we were standing, and after a few hugs and pats for him, he appeared to step back and bow.  He always was the ham, but this time he deserved the accolades. 

Dan is no longer with us, but his memory will live on forever.  There are other stories that I will share on future posts, but this one by far is the most memorable.  RIP Dan.  We (and the dogs) miss you!