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I read the Spirit prequel books lately and i have some thoughts;

All the main character horses are separated from their herds somehow. Bonito flees a war, Sierra was spooked by wolf and got lost, Ezperenza was separated by a tornado/a storm.

All the mares seem to become - or end up acting as - lead mares.

I kept getting confused with all the stallions called S-names. Storm, Strider, Shadow.

Paco is my favourite character by FAR. Go little donkey, go!!!

Sierra attacks a wolf and other horses join in and stamp on it until it dies.

Pretty sure Bonita is from Texas. The fighting that led to her being set loose by Maria sounds like the Texas/Mexico border dispute, so that would set the story in 1846. (Had to Google, I am not American!)

Spirit seems to know what a stillborn foal is, and has seen/known a horse carried away by water.

The horse that is whipped by the man when pulling the train (Spirit tried to bite him) is a mare.

Little Creek was washed down the river, too. He also seems to be a young adult, not quite considered an adult (by Spirit, at least.)

The canyon is the Grand Canyon.

The train line seems to be very close to Homeland. Probably closer than we realise.

The railroad was connected to Utah in 1869, and in the movie they are still building it, that with the rough date Bonita was set loose sets the events within a 20 year gap. (I don’t know if the movies have an official time period.) The US cavalry was made in 1861, and spirit was taken there, so it seems to be after 1861, at least.

I'm surprised by how little quite a lot of (adult) people don't know about animals, like how do you not know that deer shed their antlers every year or that horseshoes don't hurt a horse's hoof or that sheep NEED to be sheared for their health or that milking doesn't hurt cows

get mourning doved idiot

bro just add some green onion to that rice dish you’ll be ok. bro? you don’t have any green onion? oh don’t worry bro I saved the butts of my green onions and left them in a cup of water in my sunny kitchen window for a week, and now they are tall and luscious again because growth in inevitable. Here, you can have them bro. I love you.

If there was one animal literacy thing I could change with a wave of a wand, it would be increasing people's understanding of how dangerous megafauna are. I think that in the US (and probably other Western countries too), we're so removed from wildlife and even large domesticated animals that people really have no perspective on how much a big animal can fuck you up. Even if they're "gentle."

This is a discussion going on on Twitter, too, the last few days: there was a thing where an Iditarod musher shot a moose to protect their team, and a lot of people are confused as to why that needed to happen. Apparently this moose had been hanging around the course for quite a while and was becoming quite dangerous to the sled dog teams. Moose are territorial and not to be fucked with. Everyone from Alaska or areas with moose are like "yup, that's just reality."

Same thing with the bison birth I watched last year. Folk really thought the staff should be in the habitat on the ground with the bison herd, helping with the birth. Sure, that's what we do with cows if we have to, but... bison are definitely not cows and, again, will squish you.

People tend to get it more with the predators. Few people will argue that a cougar or an alligator or a bear isn't dangerous. I think people kinda go both ways on wild pigs / boars depending on their experience. But herbivores or things that don't look traditionally pointy... it just kinda doesn't click.

Any large animal is probably stronger than you think and more likely to hurt you than you realize. Be it a dolphin, an elk, a sea lion, or even an emperor penguin... just don't go near them, buds.