With the departure of Laura's horses for home, Dude has gotten direct access to an outdoor paddock from his stall. His stall has a split back door, which will be nice for ventilation in the summer, and through that door is another stall with an open doorway to the paddock. On Friday afternoon after the vet visit, I turned him out that way for the first time.
He went right outside as soon as I opened the door, tripping over the threshold of course. (Even after several days of this, he continues to trip over the threshold. Mr. Graceful.) April and Spot were outdoors in the adjoining paddock so all three had a little meet-and-greet with a lot of nose sniffing and very little squealing. Then they all started happily working their way down the fenceline, nibbling at grass shoots. Pretty anticlimactic after weeks of partial turnout.
I stayed outside with him for a bit, picking up piles of poop left by the departed horses. Then I went in to clean his stall. A few minutes later, Dude wandered back in, took a quick look around, then went back out. He must've done that a dozen times while I was there. Like he wanted to be sure he wasn't missing anything. A few times he peered out through Ben's window and whinnied as he spotted Bestie, who didn't even raise her head.
It's the understatement of the year to say that Dude's new arrangement is working out. He LOVES it! When I get there to the barn, he comes in to say hi, then goes back out. Then comes in again to see what I'm doing, then goes back out. I'm still hopeful that at some point with all these ins and outs he'll learn to pick up his feet, but given that we're at day five tomorrow ... I don't know :).
One other good thing about this new turnout: there are no cows on this side of the barn!
The only bummer is that Spot and April are moving on to new quarters next weekend. They're good neighbors, very "whatever" about pretty much everything and therefore positive influences on Dude. He'll get a new buddy next door when they leave.
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