Do you have an Inner Animal? Of course you do - we all do. Sometimes it's just a little tricky to figure out which animal it is. Pierre Trudeau was a slam dunk - a Siamese cat. Or perhaps a wolf. Paul Martin was more of a beagle. Don Cherry? Junkyard dog.

Some professions have honourary Inner Animals. Judges get owls; policemen get bulldogs; politicians get weasels. Lawyers? That's too easy.

I, too, have my Inner Animal. His name is Shane. He is a buckskin palomino with a black mane and glinty eyes, not real high, but stocky. I first met him when I was just a pup and Shane was not much more than a big colt himself. I remember our first encounter well. I grabbed a big tuft of sweet green grass and walked up to Shane, preferring my gift. He swung his great head down, chuffed noisily, then whisked my grass bouquet out of my hand. I stood there while he ate it down.

Then he swung his velvety muzzle over my head and began to snuffle in my hair. "He likes me," I shouted excitedly to my friends.

Then Shane lifted me off the ground. By my hair.

It hurt quite a bit, but it was at least a frank introduction to Shane and his wily, unpredictable ways. He was a horse you could never take for granted. And he was always testing, testing.

I remember the time a farrier was cleaning out Shane's front hooves. He had the horse's left front foreleg securely between his thighs, and he was facing astern. This is the classic farrier position for cleaning front hooves. The horse is effectively immobilized by having one foot off the ground. In such a position there's nothing the horse can do to retaliate or resist. Usually. Shane waited until the farrier was thoroughly engrossed in his chore, then leaned over and gracefully bit the farrier's ear.

Horses don't bite people on the ear. Shane did.

The expression 'pushing the envelope' was invented for Shane. He could always surprise you, no matter how familiar you thought you were with him. I looked after Shane as I was growing up, feeding him, bedding him, grooming him. I figured we were pretty good pals. Then one day when I was shoveling out his stall I got a little impatient because he wasn't moving over fast enough to suit me. I gave him a little bunt in the haunch with the handle of my manure fork.

I can still summon up the vision of that rear hoof whizzing by at eye level just millimetres from my head. It was one of the few times Shane missed.

We could never figure out where Shane got his attitude. He wasn't a stallion, but he acted like one. Put him in with a herd of strange horses and in no time he was in charge, rounding up the mares, bossing the foals around and settling the hash of any other geldings or even stallions that dared to question his kingship.

Then there was my personal Shane moment of truth. It was a sunny winter afternoon. I had finished mucking out the stalls. Shane was outside in the corral. What a perfect day, I thought, to ride him - bareback.

He bucked me off twelve times and I only lasted that long because there was a foot of snow on the ground and the landings were relatively soft. Weird enough that I kept coming back for more - Shane did too. He would actually come and stand in place so that I could mount him more easily - and he could buck me off again.

The thirteenth time I climbed aboard he was as gentle as a hamster and sashayed me around the corral as if I was driving a Cadillac. I don't know if he was tired or bored or just being careful not to discourage me from future exciting afternoon outings. You could never be sure about much of anything with that horse.

Our lives diverged and I lost track of Shane. I heard he got sold a couple of times, finally ending up on a dude ranch riding stable north of Toronto. The very last thing I heard came from a cop I knew who told me about his weirdest emergency call - a buckskin palomino leading a herd of horses down Highway 27. "Damndest thing," the cop said. "Most horses jump over fences to get away, but this palomino, he just went around leaning his big bum against the rails until he found a weak spot. Then he not only escapes, he takes the whole herd with him. It was like a prison break." Had to be Shane.