on duty: a painted pony

This morning while I was sitting here reading email and blogs over coffee, I noticed out my window that the painted pony was standing at high alert, looking across the front field and on across the lane toward the neighboring property.

Trusting his judgment, I went right out the front door to see what was going on.

One neighbor's dogs were barking at something I couldn't see, so I stood and listened for a few minutes and, not hearing anything, came back in.

The painted pony moved forward about 20 feet in the pasture, still watching. He smartly placed his quite splashy body next to a big oak tree, so that he was at least somewhat hidden from the lane.

I went back to the front porch. Although the barking dogs were directly across from me, the pony was looking far to the right, so I focused my attention there as well. In the distance I could hear a woman's voice, presumably calling the dogs.

My chief security officer stood tall and alert, pointing my lesser human ears to where the action was. I realized he was no longer looking toward the voice, but had shifted to a spot about midway between the direction the voice was coming from and the two barking dogs that I could see.

After a few moments, I spotted two small dogs, exactly where the pony was looking, but mostly obscured by brush.

We watched together for a few minutes. When the dogs ran off down the lane, hopefully back home, I came inside. He has now determined any danger is gone, and has turned back up the hill to a small pile of hay.

I believe he's going for my Employee of the Week award for the second week in a row. And he will likely get it, as there are literally NO other equines anywhere in the front field checking this out.