The "field trip" after lunch turned out to be to a place that Tony had not been expecting to see. David was leading him around to a completely different and relatively distant part of the Costa Caballo training facility: the horse training section. This was where people who wanted to be police horses were brought. It was also where normal horses were trained to be police horses even if they had not ever been human. The scents of the equestrian stables flooded into Tony's nostrils and threatened to overwhelm him! However, given some time, he started gradually making some headway into sorting it out. Instead of a tidal wave of barnyard stench, Tony was able to start picking out individual smells from within it: particular horses, small mammals, birds, hay, equipment, fuel, and so on.
"This, this is a lot, it smells like there is a lot here," Tony said, sniffing the air and looking around.
"Yes, there is, isn't there," David said, "Have you managed to pinpoint anything specific?"
Tony started naming the things that he thought he could recognize the scents of, but he realized that he was still actually pretty unsure about some of them. David nodded and let Tony off his leash to go explore some of what he was smelling but insisted he stay close enough that David could see him. Tony nodded and eagerly ran off sniffing.
One of the horse stable employees came out to greet David.
"Hey, David, how are things going? Got one of your new pups with you?"
"Hi, Cynthia. Yeah, his name's Tony. His sniffer's starting to come in, and I thought this would be a good place for him to practice picking out lots of unique smells in a crowded olfactory environment."
"Not a bad idea," she said, looking rather flattered. She had already noticed that David seemed to have a habit of inventing frequent reasons to come to the horse area and talk to her. She had to admit this was one of the more plausible excuses, if that's what it was.
"Also," he continued, "I thought it might be a good opportunity for Tony to meet your stable dog to practice working around other canines."
"You mean ole Trusty?" Cynthia asked. She whistled out loud, "Hey, Trusty, come 'ere boy!"
Tony instantly snapped to attention at Cynthia's whistling. He realized that she was probably not calling for him when she said "Trusty". He still thought he should go down and see what was going on and see who his friend David was talking to. He had found some weird scents that he wanted to follow into the stable house, but those could wait.