As a draft cross, I am likely the only horse in my barn who doesn’t mind a few single-digit days now and then (although I’d be much more in the winter spirit if my Human could figure out how to ration hay better—it’s THIRTEEN flakes in my field please, not THREE). I gather however, that my Human doesn’t feel the same way about it.

With all this time spent cooped up indoors though, Madame Lardrump has grown more flabby than ever and since the ground has been frozen for several weeks, I haven’t had time to whip her into shape. (There’s no faster way to tone the upper body than a few good bolts across the arena, and certainly no better way to firm up those buns than to fall on them.)

In fact, I’ve had to get creative in my methods for keeping her as lithe and cheerful as possible during this gloomy season, and I’ve developed a five-point checklist to make sure all her needs are being met. One way or another.

• Water: Humans tend to drink less water in the wintertime, I’ve noticed. This could be because they have a somewhat irrational fear of their tongues sticking to chilly surfaces, or it could be because they’re too busy opening their mouth to complain about the weather to consider putting fluids down it.

  I’ve found the best cure for a reduced water intake is to dehydrate them until they actually notice they’re feeling thirsty. The best way to do this is more work. I leave my buckets full to give the bipeds around me more to haul. With all those winter coveralls (Wimp Wear, as I call them), they’ll forget the thermometer and start drinking out of the spigot again.

• Frostbite: Good circulation staves off frostbite, and nothing keeps the blood pumping like lifting blankets and taking off those hand socks to do up buckles and snaps. Huffing and puffing between the hayloft and my pasture will also do wonders for their blood pressure.

  The sudden loss in blood pressure (and consciousness) that tends to happen when she opens the resulting hay bill was of course, not what I had intended through this exercise. Or maybe it was.

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• Sufficient hair care: That isn’t snow in your Human’s hair. Winter is the time for dandruff. Gross. My coat is too luxurious for such a horrifying illness.

  Moisturizing is the only solution for dry skin, so in sub-freezing temperatures I try to nudge her toward as much water as possible. A good hip pop by the water trough, some extra slobber on her gloves at cookie time, a firm sneeze in the direction of the frizz she refers to as hair…all good hints that it may be time for a conditioner treatment the next time she hits he spa.

• Calorie intake: I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Humans standing around at fall festivals, bratwursts in hand, joke about “storing up for winter.” Provide a sense of perspective by nabbing whatever food item she’s munching on and giving her one of those “I see through your Wimp Wear to your clogging arteries “stares. She didn’t need that pizza, anyhow.
• Proper vehicle maintenance: It may seem abstract to worry about my Human’s car, but ever since I heard her joke about just riding me to the grocery store, I’ve begun to take that bizarre, humming machine a little more seriously. I still don’t get the whole ‘horsepower’ thing, though—what horses were they using for measurement? Clearly the engineers at Toyota had not met me when they wrote their advertisements.

  From what I’ve read on my HoofPad, most vehicles don’t do well when sitting for long periods in the cold. I make sure that thanks to me, my Human has plenty of places to drive it—to the blanket repair man, the feed store, the supply store for supplements, the blanket repair man, the supply store again for bedding, the blanket repair man, and the supply store again for dandruff spray and cookies. That should keep the engine warm!