OK, it's official, Quattro is learning English now!

It's official, Quattro is learning English now. The language, I mean.

It always fascinates me how horses pick it up. The more intelligent the horse, the more of it they can learn. HRH Avery's entire vocabulary of English was about 89 words, but he also "knew" entire sentences. When we were out driving and came to a particularly steep hill that he might have trouble getting us up, I would often say "You can canter if you want to." Now, I'm not pretending he knew every word; I think it was more like the old dog joke about "Blah blah blah Rover blah blah blah"; but he sure the heck understood that "Blah blah blah Canter blah blah blah", said in that particular tone, meant cantering was an option he could exercise if he chose, as opposed to "Canter!" which meant "right now or I'll have a boot up your butt."

Quattro, I think, now understands the tone of voice of an interrogatory. Why do I think so? I varied the routine this morning (overslept/overtired, to be honest!), fed him late, and decided to catch a couple more z's in the car outside the barn while he ate, and wait for him to be ready to be turned out, so I wouldn't have to walk back down the hill. I was dozing peacefully in my car and I heard a couple of good, loud, Quattro-sized snorts. I poked my head out and said "Are you ready, Q?"
He answered with a neigh. "You sure?" He neighed again.

OK, *maybe* he just heard my voice and said "Let me OUT, b*tch!" but I doubt it. The naysayers may snork, but think about it: we expect horses to learn *commands*, don't we? If you spend a lot of time with your horse, which I do, and natter on to them a lot, which I also do, there's no reason to expect they couldn't learn other words too. C.W. Anderson said that. Pretty good horseman, if memory serves.

The adventure continues.