Our spring family tradition is to go to the Point to Point races held at the historic Oatlands Plantation. We usually take a dog with us, and this year, it was Treasure's turn.
Treasure is our out-going, super confident puppy. She's also very opinionated, often very determined to do as she wishes. The races were an excellent experience for her, meeting other dogs and learning she couldn't go just where she pleased--the food table, especially!
Treasure was unusually interested in the actual races, it seemed she was watching the horses come down the stretch in front of us and knew when each race was finished. She had one especially close encounter with a horse. The race official was visiting the group next to us, getting some refreshments, and walked his horse right up to our row of chairs. He allowed his horse to get closer and closer to us (we were wondering if she was a "lap" horse!). Treasure definitely had to introduce herself! She bounced about the mare, tail wagging, then went into play bows, trying to entice the horse to play. Treasure was especially fascinated with the horse eating grass. She must have thought it was some type of game! She acted like the horse had a tug in her mouth, then she searched through the grass, hoping to find a toy of her own. By this time, the horse was definitely too close to us. I realized the rider's "refreshments" may have been impairing his common sense a bit, and pulled Treasure by my side after the horse started tossing her head and raised a hoof in our direction. The rider assured me his horse loved dogs, but I wasn't taking any chances!
