NOT SO “DUMB” AFTER ALL

You can work with that baby. He’s a dummy foal, so he’s a slow learner,” my friend Jen told me. “Nobody has really done anything with him.” She gestured toward a leopard Appaloosa colt, not quite a year old, standing alone by the gate. Early spring sunlight bounced off the baby fuzz of his white, spotted coat as he sleepily swished flies.

Even after 30 years with horses, I had never encountered a “dummy foal.” I immediately started asking questions about what the label meant and why it applied to the spotted colt. Jen explained that his mother, Ladybug, had delivered him in the wee hours of a cold Michigan morning when no one was around. The poor little fellow had slid across the icy ground under the corral fence. He lay there, in a tangle of legs and wet hair, while his mother paced and called frantically from inside the enclosure. It was a stroke of good luck that Jen’s roommate, a healthcare professional, happened to be leaving for work in the early morning. When she heard the mare’s whinnies, she