January 6, 2007
George the Horse
Many animals (and humans) don't like change. Chickens don't, unless its food, but mainly they're confused by it. Horses are hard to retrain; the milkman's horse continued to stop even when the homeowner was away.
We had the pleasure of knowing George the horse, a venerable thorobred who lived with us the last few years of his life. This horse was amazing, he could jump five foot fences, but he liked everything done the same way every time. The slightest variation -- changing the order of which foot you cleaned first or being five minutes late with dinner -- would start George to worrying. He'd begin to swing his head back and forth, slightly at first but in about ten minutes would gradually escalate to moving his head from side to side about three feet in a huge figure eight, looking more and more distressed. He actually became like an unguided missile, you had to watch out where you walked or he would bonk you with his head. Though George is gone (his photo is on the cover of the re-release of Neil Young's "Crazy Horse" CD) his memory continues.
Now whenever anyone we know has trouble adapting, we refer to it as "doing a George" or a "George moment." It's amazing how fearful people can become when they are unsure of what will happen. But there are only two kinds of fear -- the fear of not knowing and the fear of doing. Not knowing you can cure at the library or on the internet. And the fear of doing is lost in the action.

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This is George, about a week before he passed away.

Copyrighted photo by Greg Allen, all rights reserved