Last week Chico and Dakota and I went for a ride. It was the day that I discovered that the Lady Slippers are blooming.

I show you the above image because the Lady Slipper pic I took from atop Dakota looks like this:

No, really, that pink smear just left of center is the flower shown above. Sometimes Dakota isn’t very good at standing still.

We rode to the top of Bunker Hill Road, and past the Red Horse Hill horse farm, where the resident dog, MJ, joined us.

There’s MJ. She’s a now-very-grey Lab.

MJ will go with any horse, and her owner has asked me to shut the dog in a stall in the barn if she tries to follow me. On this day, we got permission for MJ to join us. Her owner was working outside and promised to keep MJ home when we passed by on our way back to the barn.

Chico, Mister Not the King of Social, did great. MJ made no moves to make friends or investigate Chico’s personal space. She trotted along next to or behind the horse. Chico did his thing.

Which mostly meant staying out ahead of us.

But not always. Here he’s looking at me while he runs around MJ (who’s tail end you can just see. She’s busy sniffing something).

I’d say that this is as close as the two dogs got. And Chico is clearly nervous about either the horse or the dog behind him. Look at his eyes, and the way his ears are listening to what’s happening behind him.

I love the way Chico chose to avoid interaction with MJ. For him, that’s huge.