Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Siren Song

No pix o' Sammy today - I got sucked into the siren song of the barn last night. Monday is my night to clean stalls and I like to take Rosso along. I figure it's a good reminder for him about loading and backing out of a trailer and standing politely tied for a couple hours with stuff going on.

There were 5 dogs running back and forth in the alley way, a strange horse there for riding, cars pulling in, people around, poop carts rolling past, horses whinnying for their supper....one mare at the end is squealing, kicking, grunting and pissed at the stall occupant to the right... random yells to tell her to knock it off, dogs barking....

When I pulled in, I noticed this woman, T, from Divide CO was there with her horse and there was all this banging and clanging and commotion coming from the barn alleyway.

I walked around the front of our truck and poked my head over to see if my help was needed, T didn't seem to be in any distress so I unloaded Rosso and walked into the barn to tie him, right next to where the commotion is.

New Moon's stall. She was banging her empty water bucket with a LOT of enthusiasm. Who knew an empty water bucket could make THAT much noise. Hoo-eee. (Her automatic waterer is blocked because she is a hay dunker and it's been causing lots of problems, now she has a hanging water bucket).

She was clearly asking - no - demanding water from T and getting louder and louder about her request.

T had no way of knowing Moon's waterer was blocked off however and wasn't responding to Moon's communication attempt. I had to laugh (on the inside) it's like Moon was trying to talk to someone that doesn't speak the language and just kept getting louder.

We've all seen it. Someone non-English speaking and the person trying to convey a message in English talks louder and slower as if by sheer volume of voice and annunciation the non-English speaker will understand.

I filled Moon's bucket with water. She didn't give me a chance to get in the stall before sticking her head in and getting a big drink. Looks like she'll be getting an add'l water bucket in her stall from now on.

Talk about interspecies communication.....

4 comments:

DebH said...

I can just see it...I bet moon gave you a wink when you got there too!

Tonia said...

At least Some one spoke her language!Lol Thats hilarious! My herd queen will go and stand under a tree when I am out in the pen and Stare at the leaves then look at me... If I dont get it with in the 1st couple of stares she hollers a little and then its staring back up at the leaves. All the other goat pretend they arent watching till I reach for the leaves/branches then they mob us!
But they communicate what they want very well!

Kelley said...

Humans are SOOOO Hard to train! Thank goodness your training has progressed far enough to be useful to Princess New Moon!

Shanster said...

DebH - more like a sarcastic eye roll! grin.

Tonia - they sure do "tell" us what they want don't they?

Kelley - no kidding! heh.