Excerpt from Brad Smith's Shoot the Dog ~

    "The movie takes place in the 1840s." the man named Robb said.  "I'm the director.  What do you call those horses?"
    "I call them Bob and Nelly," Virgil said.
    The one calling himself Levi uttered a soft puff of exasperation. "What kind of horses are they?"
    "Percherons."
    "And they are considered ...um...workhorses?" Robb asked.
    "Today they are," Virgil said.  "I wouldn't have called them that a week ago."
    Levi glanced at Robb.  "We need to talk to the owner.  This guy isn't getting it."
    Robb smiled at Virgil, then spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a child.  "We might want to hire these horses for the film.  You see, the movie takes place in the frontier days, when horses like these were commonly used for --" He stumbled then, searching for uses for bygone horses from bygone days.
    "For what?"  Virgil asked.
    "Well, for work."
    "You mean like pulling a plow, or yanking stumps, or hauling logs from the bush?"  Virgil asked. "Or taking the family into town in a buckboard, or pulling a cutter in the winter, or bringing hay into the barn?  You mean stuff like that?"

~ Shoot the Dog, Brad Smith.  Scribner, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 2013

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