During any elk hunting adventure, we always tried to meet up for lunch somewhere so we could compare notes and exchange tall tales of the morning adventures. The horses wanted lunch, too. We would hobble up their front legs in good feed, and they would hop around filling up their bellies. Most of the time when Sonny, (one of my favorite big bay horses) was along, he was more interested in what we had in our lunch sacks than anything else. He liked to hop over and put his big brown muzzle down into your lap and nibble at your sandwich but most of all, he loved Lay's potato chips. He could hear a potato chip bag being opened a half mile away and here he would come: hop, hop, hop until he was in your lap. Now, Longhunter and I had learned long ago that it was important to share; it was very simply because if you were stingy with your potato chips, eventually Sonny would wind up and blow his nose in your face. We knew the lunch time routine.

One day when Longhunter was riding Sonny, we were lunching way up high on a bench next to Devil’s Mountain. When we gathered together, we failed to mention the lunch routine with one our our clients -a feisty young police officer from Ohio. He was sitting on the ground cross-legged just discussing the state of the union and enjoying a freshly opened pack of Lay's potato chips . . . . . Longhunter and I saw things developing with the hopping of the big bay, but the officer was unaware. Very soon he had a big, brown muzzle dropping in over his shoulder, headed for the chip sack. He was not prepared for this maneuver and, in surprise, moved the bag of chips away, proceeding to scold his new lunch buddy . . . . . . . bad decision. He soon had a good coating of horse snot all over his $350 camo jacket. Ha aha ah ha ha ah! He rolled over cussing and fuming and Sonny stayed right with him giving him a second dose of green goo.

Who says horses don’t have personality!