What’s brown, off-white, and dark bay all over? A dirty Montana! This guy earned the nickname of ‘cat’ last summer for two reasons: he was known to sunbathe on the regular, and he had an uncanny ability to look clean(ish) despite spending so much time in the dirt, almost like he was able to groom himself. But this year, a late shed to his coat meant that the dirt had more area to cling to, and as a result, he was looking a little dingy. We are jumping to take advantage of all the nice weather days we’re having in various ways, one of which is definitely breaking out the hose and giving a rinse to some of our dirtier horses. So when the forecast showed ‘warm’ and ‘sunny,’ we marked Montana down as first in line for a trip to the horse-wash.

Despite the bath running over into his afternoon mealtime, Montana was a champ for all the pampering. We delighted in watching the dirt stream off him, and he enjoyed the warm water and an occasional sip from the hose. It is always a lot of fun to see what change a bath can make in a horse’s appearance, and we think this one really spruced our handsome paint guy up! We are aware it’s only a matter of time before he starts undoing all that work, but hey, as long as he’s happy, so are we… as long as we have photographic evidence to prove he was clean and soft for at least five minutes.