Turkey Trot pt2

Taz turned his head as Phillip stepped over to his stall, saddle in hand. No thanks. He’d already overheard him telling Phoenix about going out to round up something with Glory. He'd much rather stay there and eat, not run around after some creatures he cared nothing about.

Phillip set the saddle down and grabbed a lead. “Looks like you’re going to be stubborn about it today. Guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

The stallion snorted. Hard only to him. For him it would be a walk in the field. When Phillip tried to approach his head, Taz turned to keep his rear in front of the man. Phillip tried going the other way but again, Taz kept his rump in the man’s face.

Phillip huffed. “You’re really going to do that today?” He paused. “Well, okay then. I guess I can take one of the other horses out. I’m sure they’d love the juicy apple I was going to give them afterward.” He pulled the treat out of his pocket. Taz was suddenly all ears. “Taz doesn’t seem to want it, so I’ll give it to someone else. Another loshenka would love this tasty treat.”

He stepped toward the stall door, only for Taz to turn around and eye the apple hungrily.

“Oh? You want this?” Phillip held the apple up. Taz eagerly reached for it. “Nope,” the man pulled it back. “Not unless you let me saddle you up.”

The stallion snorted. Fine. He supposed he could help round up the missing turkeys.

“Good, boy,” Phillip clipped the lead to his halter and gave him the apple. While he happily crunched away, the man quickly saddled up. And before they knew it, he was riding off down the road.

Unlike most of their loshenkas, who were trained for dressage, show jumping and/or cross country, they had attempted to teach Taz some western disciplines, including barrel racing and cutting. Neither had suited the stallion, who excelled at the in hand classes and cross country competitions. Both of the western disciplines had required a bit too much finesse when it came to hoof-work which was unfortunately not Taz’s strong suit. However, it gave him an advantage over their other horses as he was familiar with how to herd animals. He could do a far better job at keeping them in line than Glory, who Phoenix had already taken out earlier.

Speaking of the pair, by following the gobbles of the turkey’s they found the ladies trying to wrangle some of the large feathered friends who wanted nothing of the sort and were causing all sorts of trouble.

A turkey stepped towards Glory, its wings spread out as it made a hissing noise. The pale coated mare half reared and let out a frightened whinny. Phoenix managed to keep her seat, tightening the reins and doing her best to calm Glory down.

“We’d better help them out,” Phillip murmured, urging Taz to go faster.

Taz charged at the aggressive turkey, chasing it off and standing in front of Glory. Stomping his hoof, he snorted in warning. Those turkey’s would be stupid to try anything. The turkey who’d been causing all the trouble eyed him up before strutting off with a collection of sounds, none of which had been particularly flattering. Good riddance.

“Phoenix, are you okay?” Phillip called, now that the commotion was over for the time being.

Phoenix was walking Glory in a small circle, the mare calming down now that she wasn’t faced with the aggressive bird. “Yeah, we’re fine. Glory got a bit panicked at the thought of fighting the silly turkey, didn’t you, girl?”

Glory huffed. She didn’t need that sharp beak near her legs and what if it had jumped at her face. It had wings. It could do it.

Taz neighed softly at her. She needn’t worry any more, he was there.

She snorted, tail swishing. As if she was worried.

He sighed. There was no need to be stubborn about it.

“Are you still able to keep going with the roundup?” Phillip asked.

Phoenix nodded. “Yeah I think we’ll be fine.” She gave Glory a pat. “We’re not running home with our tail between our legs, are we, girl?”

Letting out a huff, Glory’s ears flattened. She supposed not. Might as well get it over with.

“Let’s get going then,” said Phillip, steering Taz back towards the turkeys. “Sooner we round them up, sooner we can all go home.”

Taz circled the turkeys, rounding them up in a group. There seemed to be only four of them here, but that was still more than enough to be trouble. Glory then stepped in to help guide them, without getting too close, as Taz urged them on from behind. They worked together under the guidance of their riders to drive the turkeys back to the truck that they had escaped from.

The driver thanked them for their help, letting them know that there were still more turkeys running around. He said that he would appreciate it if they could help find some of the others.

Glory snorted, stomping a hoof. She had no intention of going anywhere near another ugly bird.

Phoenix tightened the reins. "I think maybe I'm going to go back for another horse. That mean turkey really freaked her out."

"Alright," Phillip said, "take her back to the stable. Taz and I will keep looking for more runaway turkeys. You can meet back up with us later."

“See you later,” Phoenix waved goodbye as she and Glory headed for home, the mare only too happy to pick up the pace and return to her stall. Taz snorted. The lucky things.

Meanwhile Phillip set Taz off in another direction on the search for more turkeys.

“Don’t worry boy. I’m sure we won’t be out here much longer. Just be glad the truck wasn’t holding more turkeys. We could be out here chasing them down forever and still end up with an ecological disaster. We have enough invasive species causing trouble. So let’s get this taken care of.”

Taz sighed but trotted on. He supposed there could be worse things he was doing. Rounding up cows, for instance, would be far worse. Large smelly beasts that they were. He would put up with the turkeys.

For now.