Maverick and Keiki.
I can't help but smile when I look at these two. Maverick and Keiki are starting to be buddies. (Maverick is on the left and Keiki is on the right.) During the summer, when Lady is at our house, Maverick only wants to hang out with her. He'll even let Lady eat out of his grain bucket, so it's obviously true love. But, when Lady is gone Keiki fills in.
We've decided that Maverick's great at math. When the horses are all getting treats he's ok with sharing, as long as he gets two treats to everybody elses one. If he senses that for some reason somebody is getting as much as he is, he puts back his ears and everybody scatters, (even Lady.) (Sometimes us!)
How he manages to keep exact track of how many treats everybody is getting we don't know, but he's good at it. One time he felt he was being cheated and took a kick at another horse and ended up knicking my mom. He kicked her right in her front pocket, where she had her cell phone. The cell phone didn't survive the incident. How the smallest horse on the ranch got to be the boss we don't know. But it's fun to watch him think he's making all the decisions.
Maverick's not the speediest either. But if you canter him next to any other horse, he just can't stand to let the other horse get ahead. He'll increase his speed just enough to make sure he's in front. It's actually the best way to see any real speed out of him! When you ask him to canter he let's you know that he'd really rather not. It takes just the right convincing to get him to canter, and we've been working on his transitions, which have gotten much, much better.
On the plus side he's not afraid of shots. In fact, last year, we don't think he even realized he was getting his shots. He had no reaction. The rest of the horses kicked, reared and tried to bolt away. Not Maverick. He just stood there. What bravery!
He's a great horse and we love him. He never fails to let us know exaclty what he's thinking!
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