Spooks Miss Dolly
This little horse has the sweetest look about her. Some call her a princess, maybe in another life she was.
Statistics - A Description of Dolly
Spooks Miss Dolly goes by the barn name "Dolly". She is a registered Paint mare. Her
registration papers indicate that she was bred and born in 1999 at a farm located in Enumclaw. And
she is 14-3 hands (or 59 inches) tall at the withers.
Dollys main body color is chestnut and matches the color of her mane and tail. She has a blaze the
full length of her face, thinning as it reaches her nose. She has one white sock on her left hind that
goes about one quarter the way up her leg. There are no other white markings on her, so she is refered
to as a breeding Paint or a Paint that ain’t.
The Beginning - How We Obtained Dolly
In the spring of 2002, we found Dolly in a 20 acre grass field. She was horribly fat and difficult
to catch. It required several people to herd her into a stall, where she almost tooks the door off
trying to get out. She followed quietly on the halter and into the horse trailer, where she through
another tantrum to get out.
Dolly was small, only about 13-2 hands (53 inches) tall. She had some nasty habits - like trying to
kick people who entered her paddock, refusing to be caught, and pulling away on the lead. She was so
dangerous that she was almost sent back from where she had came.
Teaching Dolly to respect people took some aggressive round pen work, her will was strong. But
eventually she had a change in heart and then her training moved along very quickly. She proved to
be a very smart horse and with only a little effort, she learned how to lay down on command.
Horse Tails - Funny Things & Stories About Dolly
Dolly had a big challenge in 1998, when she was introduced to the sport of cattle sorting. She was
afraid of the steers, they out numbered her 10 to 1 and they were every where. She was supposed to
guard the gate, but when they came running at her, she froze in fear. She was very relieved when
they ran past her (though the gate).
Unknown to Dolly, the steers were just as scared of her as she was of them. When her turn came to cut
a steer from the herd, she snorted as she approached them. She noticed that they moved away from her
and she thought it was her snorting that frightened them away. So she snorted louder and they kept
moving away from her. Soon she was snorting so loudly that the other horsemen could hear her and
had began to laugh.
By the end of the round, Dolly had actually snorted a couple of steers through the gate. A few more
attempts and her confidence was building. On her last sort, she was so frustrated with the steers for
not moving away from her loud snorts, that she reached out to bite the steer she was chasing while at
the same time kicking at another steer that she was running past. She was quite a crowd pleaser.
The Present - What We Think About Dolly
Dolly has developed into a very affectionate horse and she most certainly loves the attention.
Dolly has been camping many times and used both as a saddle horse and as a pack horse. In the Columbia
River Gorge, she has calmly ridden past several temperamental rattle snakes and stood quietly while jets
roared just overhead.
A few years ago she was care leased to a nearby ranch. She was treated well, but lived a very lazy life
there.
One thing she will not tolerate is another horse riding too close to her hind end. She will shake her
head and flip her tail a time or two in warning. But her next move is to kick at the horse and buck a
bit in joy at being able to kick.
Dolly has always been most comfortable on the trail, where she is greatful that there are no cattle.