Be Annoying

"I'm not touching you!" *Holds fingers inches from your face*

                                                - Every sibling in history

I enjoy bugging the pets. The dogs have to endure photos with costumes and hats. Same with the oxen. I probably have more oxen-hat-photos than you have oxen photos. Really. 

I also make a regular practice of running hands on the cattle.  A hand around a horn sometimes.  A push of a head. Little things to remind them that I intend to hold my status as the biggest, strongest ox of them all.  As long as they believe it, I'm good. Much of that could reasonably be argued as training.  

But I also have a general propensity to annoy the boys. They have to listen to show tunes when I feel like singing. (In my defense, if there is a bright golden haze on the meadow, it bears mentioning.) 

I also often rub their eyes.  If they've got debris in the corners of their eyes, I brush it out. When we stop for a break, I massage both eyes, my hands rubbing each closed eye while they have to stand and put up with it. Sometimes, I think it calms them down. Others, it calms me and they just have to put up with it. I never thought of it as training. But Cassius has pink-eye.

The vet gave him a prescription.  "A 1/4 inch bead in each eye, every 8 hours, for 8 days." With an 8 year-old, 2000+lb. ox, that sounded a whole lot like: "Aim for some ointment to hit the eye while dodging horns and hooves as the animal dances around looking for an escape route with the one good eye not yet affected by the pink-eye."  

But off I trudged, halter in hand to find the boy in the pasture. "Cassius, head up." Up came his head to take the halter. "C'mon," and we walked to a fence post where I tied him pretty short and tight. 

Then came the moment of truth: He squinted a bit, and would have preferred that I didn't try too hard to hold his eye open. But he stood like a gentleman for both eyes.  

A few days into this, our routine has changed only a little. I've taken to putting his halter on, dropping the lead rope on the ground, and stepping on it.  That little bit of tug keeps him in place. I'm 90% sure that he'd stand for me doing it without any halter, but why risk it? If he never learns he can get away, he never learns he can get away.

So be annoying. And the eye is looking better.