This seat is taken

It was Sunday morning. The sky was blue, the wind hadn't started to blow, and I knew the boys would be about done with their breakfast. I grabbed my camera and the new toy I had bought for them. What a great morning for a photo shoot, I thought. I'll give them their new toy and probably end up with enough blog fodder to last the entire week.

The moment I stepped into the corral, all I could do was laugh. Alan had found his own toy to play with.

Alan, bring me back my chair!

Alan ... that chair isn't stuck on your head, is it?

Simultaneously, Hank and I came to the same awful conclusion. We followed Alan to the end of the corral, powerless to prevent the trainwreck that was sure to happen.


Alan was on a mission, walking purposefully to the pipe fence. George was at his heels, ready to provide any assistance required. Alan knocked the chair leg against the gate, trying to dislodge it from his neck.

He succeeded in making a bad situation worse.

Whoa, Alan! Let me help you!
I resisted the temptation to chase after him and tried to calm him with my voice.
It didn't work.

Off he went, leading his own little parade around the fence line. He wasn't in a panic...yet...but I was starting to get real concerned. I kept telling him whoa and stop right there, little buddy and let me help you! He was having none of it. And the whole time, I kept taking pictures. Autopilot is a wonderful thing. Thoughts of how I would explain this to the vet starting racing through my mind.


Then finally, Alan came to a stop in the shade of his favorite tree. One can only imagine all the the choice words George had for him. I'll swear I heard him say "knucklehead" more than once. I walked over to Alan and reassured him that I would be able to extricate him from his predicament. Except I couldn't. I twisted the chair this way and turned it that way, and for the life of me, I couldn't get it off his head! At last I found the right combination of ears and head to chair and off it popped. (The chair, not the head.)

Alan seems to have learned his lesson that chairs are for sitting, not for wearing, but I'll be keeping it out of his reach from now on just to be sure.

Meanwhile, we never did get around to playing with the new toy, so I'll have to save that for tomorrow's post. Smooch will be keeping an eye on it until then.