Their animation of New York City is incredible and they even went to the trouble of getting the skyline down perfectly. You can clearly see the Plaza and the Essex House, just like you would at the real zoo.
In one scene the zebra stops to talk to a police horse in Times Square and Janet and I howled because we have proof that horses really do talk to police horses in Times Square:
Note how Scout is following proper horse etiquette for equine introductions, and they are blowing puffs of air up each others nostrils.
The photo above appeared on the front page of the New York Times when we were training Scout in Times Square and appearing with our friends at MonkeyDick with Susan and Mike Ault.
By the way, no visit to the Big Apple is complete without seeing a Monkey Dick Show. It's high-energy Improv that makes Second City look like Jack Benny.
Janet and I spend a great-deal of time in Manhattan for my computer work, and we often take a Guide Horse in-training to practice navigating safely in the chaotic city traffic. We trained Dan Shaw and Cuddles in NYC. Below (left to right) is me, Dan Shaw, Susan Ault and Janet Burleson
It was funny because the reporter saw us from the 50th floor of the Times building, used a telescope to see the logo on Scouts blanket, called the Guide Horse Foundation, and then had his call relayed to Janet’s cell phone as we stood on 42nd street, all in just a few minutes!
Anyway, in another "Madagascar" scene they darted the zebra (voice by Chris Rock) with horse trank and then the movie cut to a scene ala “Lucy in the Shy with Diamonds”. The zebra love it so much that he took another dart! How true!
It makes me wonder if the animators owned equines! Several of our Arabs are too hot to handle, and our Farrier (Danny Harmon) required that they be sedated before he will work on them. Our worst is Fire, a real-handful, but with a hilarious conditioned response to the horse trank.
As soon as he sees Dr. Chris loading the needle, he heaves a huge sigh, his eyes glaze-over and his eyelids droop! Once I suggested that Chris palm he needle and just pinch his neck, and see if we would go-calm without the drugs, but Danny did not want to participate! This is Fire, one of our Vaalor sons. Fire is an appropriate name, since he is so hot-under-saddle that Janet is the only person who can ride him:
Anyway we are off to New York City tomorrow to attend the ABA BookExpo America Convention. We are still debating if we should take a guide horse trainee with us!
