Moving Day, Horse Trailers, and the Neighbor's Dog

Today was a very strange, long, busy, never-ending day. It was one of those weird days that you keep thinking is surely spilling over into tomorrow, yet you don't remember ever going to bed.

Of course I got up as usual, did chores, went to work. Work was busy, as usual for this time of year (harvest season being in full swing all over the US), so no issues there. Several meetings and then I left early since there is still a freeze on overtime and I need to do a couple of reports on Sunday for month end (which is no big deal--actually worked out well to get out of work early).

Had lunch with sis at Manny's in the crossroads district. If you've never been, I highly recommend. Thanks sis for buying my lunch! Much better than all the brown bag lunches I've been having :)

So we then went up to the northland to get some things moved from her old place to her new one downtown. We had the usual laughs and pretty much took our time. We've moved each other so often we've managed to make it a pretty fun event!

I left her to get settled in and drove out of downtown and on home, stopping to drop off my rent on the way. I picked up grain in Louisburg and when I got home I had an email about my trailer. Someone just down the road was interested in trading me for their two horse! I sent him my number and told him to come by anytime. He soon called and got here right as I was letting the last horse out for the night.

He looked over my trailer and said he was interested. I guess I should back up a bit. I had gotten a lovely in-line two horse trailer from my wonderful friends the Coles back in February. Well, I had plans to work on it, get it restored and used as my show trailer until I could upgrade, but all in all several things happened that made me reconsider my plans--I needed a useable trailer NOW, so I put it up for sale or trade. I love that trailer, but it was going to take a while to get everything done I needed to and I just didn't have that much time. I have client horses coming in, my own horses that might need to be hauled to the vet, etc--you don't realize how much you use a trailer until you don't have one!


Anyway, long story short, we ended up trading. However, you would think in the mile back to his house and the mile back to mine would be a pretty easy trip, but that wasn't the case.

On the way to his place for me to look at his trailer, a dog jumped out from no where, ran up under his back tire and was killed. I was right behind him and there was not a thing he could have ever done to keep from hitting that dog. I felt absolutely terrible. The kids ran out of the house crying, the parents were assuring him that it was not unexpected, but you could tell it did nothing to help ease his feelings. The dog went into shock and died immediately, so at least it wasn't drawn out. I ran up to him but instantly his gums went pale and only took a few more breathes. I still had some plastic sheeting from moving my sister, so I got that out of the truck and put the dog on it and moved it out of the road. I felt awful for everyone--for my neighbor, who could never have kept from hitting it (I kept telling him it could have just as easily been me who hit it, but you can tell he is a kind man with a big heart who felt so bad for those FIVE kids crying over their pet). It was a bad situation all around. The only good thing about it was the dog went quickly.

We made sure everything was ok, got the dog into their truck and talked to the kids (one good thing about kids is they do snap back quick--they were soon telling me all kinds of great stories about "Harley" and how he used to be a working dog). He sort of looked like this dog--like a black border collie or aussie dog.

We went on to see the trailer, it looked good and we agreed on the trade. We decided to go ahead and he helped me get hooked up, which is a nice break--I'm used to doing that on my own.

Of course this poor, sweet man had had this awful night, so he unfortunately forgot to latch the tongue down on the ball hitch and when I drove over the RR tracks it came right off the hitch. I should have double-checked it--I usually do, but didn't and of course he felt terrible about that as well, although it was really no big deal at all in the grande scheme of things. We got it hooked back up--no damage done--and got the trade done!

What a night. My poor neighbor. They are good people, you can tell, and I feel fortunate to have met them. I really hope that things go better soon for all.

As for me, I'm giving each one of my dogs a great big hug....and you ought to, too! :)