A few days ago I hurt my back and have since been moving around much slower than usual. I've been walking with a stick and generally kind of babying myself a bit. Dozer has noticed this and has been the consummate gentleman. No longer do I get shoved aside when I'm putting food in his bowl, nor are the other dogs allowed to be rambunctious around "mom" unless I'm "apparently safe" in a chair or on the bed. But Dozer took this defense of me one step further the other day.. and I just had to tell you all about it.

I was out feeding the horses and putting them back in their pens (they just run loose into the stalls when I shake the bucket) and was half way to the gates when the horses saw me and came a charging. Now, for the uninitiated it appears that they are going to run you down and trample you into the dirt. They won't, and Dozer has seen this happen so many times by now that he should be used to it. But 2 days ago, he was my valiant protector. He launched himself at the chest of the lead horse, and when that didn't do anything other than slow the horse down (in a confused sort of way) he tried to start biting at the horse's neck. That, as you can imagine, pissed of the horse to no end. So Shay (the horse) promptly spun around and kicked Dozer in the side. And this is the horse that lays out in the sun with Dozer sniffing him all over, sharing watering troughs, and everything else. I of course am moving to slow to stop anything, and the horses speed right past me and into their pens where they always assume that I've somehow teleported the feed into their buckets ahead of their arrival. So here I am.. Dozer "ki-Yi-ing" back to the house and I've still got to close the gates on the horses and get them fed or else I'm just going to have to repeat the whole process again. So I walk the remaining 30 feet to the gates, dump in the food and slam the gates closed avoiding my normal careful inspection to ensure that the gates have actually locked. At this point I hobble myself down to the house porch where Dozer has taken up position at the top of the steps and is apparently telling off the horses at the top of his lungs. He finally shuts up and comes off of the steps when i'm about 3 feet from the bottom. Sniffs me all over.. then runs to the stall gates and tells the horses off one more time barking, growling, snuffing.. etc. I just wish that I could have understood what he was saying to them. When I finally get Dozer to come back to me, Jeff has arrived outside the house trying to figure out what the huge commotion is. So now we go through the full body search, make sure that Dozer is ok, that he hasn't done any damage to himself, etc. And the whole time he is ignoring us and staring at the horse pens like he is expecting the demon horses to leap the gates and charge down on his people again. He is unhurt.. other than his pride of course and a bit of dirt on his rib cage. And of course now... he gets to stay in the house when I put the horses up for the night!