Today's hacking was somewhat eventful and could have been disastrous.....

After the lovely new clip Rocky had done this morning, as a reward for his impeccable behaviour, I took decided to go out for a short hack, just round the woods and home I thought would be nice even though it was raining and miserable but that wasn't going to stop us!

We set off and immediately were confronted by a huge tractor towing an even huger trailer containing Christmas trees all wrapped up. Ok, here we go, only 2 minutes in and already we have questions being asked! I managed to park Rocky on the verge and although he was a little unsure, the tractor passed uneventfully. Phew..

On we went down the track to the woods, the puddles were more like lakes and stretched across the track, ok, we have had some issues with puddles before so leg on positive thoughts and.... Oh we were paddling through! Result! Good boy Rocky said lots of times!

We met lots of pheasants, cows, more pheasants, more cows and lots more lakes, but all was well until one of the "lakes" seemed to be a lot deeper than Rocky anticipated and he stopped dead, just as a pheasant (yes another!!) tried to fly through some fencing and got trapped prompting some seriously frenzied flapping and squawking from said pheasant, and as this happened Rocky , eyes on stalks at the squawking monster, jumped sideways in a nano second and seemingly got stuck where he landed.

Thankfully the monstrous bird managed to get through the fence and left but we didn't go anywhere, I peered down to check why and noticed the reason, my poor boy in his attempt to flee from the monster had landed in a collapsed hedge which had hidden barbed wire running through it and he was tangled up in it.

Omg, don't panic I was telling myself, quick thinking talking quietly to Rocky, who didn't appear phased by this situation thankfully, I leapt off into the water and assessed the barb wire from the ground. Rocky seemed to understand I was trying to free him and stood rock still waiting for me to magic up a plan...

I managed to untwist the wire from his legs and physically picked up his feet one by one and placed them to safety, from where he casually walked away. I closely inspected his legs for injury, his brushing boots had twisted round but there was no visible sign of blood, but there was lots of mud so I couldn't be sure. Rocky didn't seem upset by the situation and so we walked through the woods until I found somewhere suitable to remount.

On our ride back home we came across more lakes and to be fair Rocky had a good look at these again but I managed to coax his through, we had little option as this was the only route home!

On returning home I immediately washed him down and checked him thoroughly for injury, thankfully not a single hair was damaged, unlike his brushing boots which were very badly torn and split.

I know everybody has their own opinion on boots and leg protection but having witnessed what has happened to Rocky today and the damage inflicted on the boots, I can honestly say I firmly believe that those brushing boots prevented injuries that could have been career threatening, or even worse, just from a simple freak spook.