My Kingdom for a Butt Scratch

This is from my friend Lee on the phone: "Next time we're at the toxic waste dump, we'll swing by." Now that's love. I took Maggie on the trail alone for the first time in a long time. I was feeling brave. I did learn something, and that is you never let a 1400 pound friend that you're riding make any decisions. Once I realized I had to be very strong with Maggie, and then let her trust me, she is excellent on the trail. She says "I'm scared of that big plastic bag. Don't make me go over there. I'm thinking of turning and running away like a crazy woman on fire." She says this by arching her neck really high and looking around for the nearest fire exit. I have learned that under all that momentary fear, she is fat and lazy. So I say "Hey, you're scared of that?? Hey, let's go SEE that, let's go FAST over to SEE that." And I kick her to move forward. She immediately starts rethinking her plan of escaping as soon as there's any FAST MOVEMENT involved. She says, "Wait, wait wait, I don't REALLY want to run off. That bag isn't looking that scary. Please don't make me move faster. In fact, I'll put my head down and stop acting retarded if you stop kicking me to go faster." And that's how we had a very happy and almost relaxed trail ride today, I listened. She listened. We are almost partners. Especially if I give her a really nice carrot and a really nice butt scratch when we get home. Scratches make good friends.