mugwump Chronicles

Finding What They're Meant to Do II

2013-05-23T12:11:00.002-06:00

I was hit with a new level of understanding about Brockle and his bolt.

When he charges, barks and jumps at a dog, he is doing naturally what is expected of him in Schutzhund competition, except it's not happening at my command and it's not appropriately directed.

When a setter gets out the gate and takes off through the neighborhood for a jaunt, his head is down and he quarters each lawn, actively hunting for fun like he would in the field for his owner. The zig-zag is bred into him, along with the desire to find it and point at it.

A cow horse turned out in a pasture with cattle will work them freely. The stop and turn is bred into him and the desire to boss those cows around is his idea of fun.

Brockle, mixed up mutt though he may be, drives across the fields at those dogs with all of the eagerness, speed and straightness of the competition dogs.

Now I know why HMT wanted me to hold off on the shock collar. If I use a shock collar to stop his drive it will create a hesitation in him. Part of him will be wondering, "When am I going to get zapped?" as he flies along.

What I need to do is shape his direction and control when he gets to satisfy this natural desire. If he's directed correctly (which is where I need help from HMT), I'm guessing Brockle will also understand there's a proper time and place for his lunge and run and wait for me to tell him when to use it.

This will give me the means to redirect him.

I got pretty excited and let this line of thinking roll around for awhile. It's not like shaping an animal's behavior to suit my needs is a new concept. I was thinking about shaping behaviors vs. creating behaviors and when we make roadblocks for ourselves and our animals by not understanding exactly the consequence of our actions.

Then I jumped to breed influence. Shaping behaviors that come from a dog/horse/pig/chicken breed vs. creating behaviors to divert the nature of the animal.

Let's take the instinctive flight/fight response horses come with. They all have it. How we shape it determines the horse we end up with.

Ideally, we want to train our horses to carry us along, go where we point them, stop when we say stop and not kick, smash, buck, bite, throw us into trees, in other words, let us live.

By it's nature a horse will run first, fight second when it feels threatened.

Fight comes first when flight won't fix it. Defending young, territory, mares etc.

My personal thoughts while training a horse are that a flight response doesn't hurt me or the horse, but a fight sure can. So I'd rather not fight.

This is why I always offer an escape to a horse. Even one that's securely tied to an iron rail with a rope halter has the option to move it's hip away from me and get a release of pressure.

Having an escape available for a horse is so automatic for me I don't have to think about it anymore, but it took a lot of years. I rarely get in fights with my horses.

All horses have a flight or fight response and I have chosen my path to begin all horses by shaping the flight response to my needs.

Now we can get into the automatic responses created by breed influence.

My first successful reined cowhorse was Sonita, a handful of a mare that taught me more than I can say. She was so geared to work she would cut anything. Llamas, kids, kids on bikes, flags, balloons, blowing plastic bags, dust devils, absolutely any object waving in the breeze that stood out from it's environment was something she would work. This was with me or without me BTW. If she couldn't control it's movement she would lose interest, but it was very clear she had been bred to work cattle.

On the flip side, that same hyper awareness made her afraid of tractors, indoor arenas, anything happening over her head, white spots on walls, odd patches of snow, I could go on for hours. Her breeding had done that too.

Shaping man-made behaviors is both easier and harder than shaping the ones that nature gives all horses. I think it's because we're not as good at it as Nature is. People breed to enhance performance for themselves rather than survival for the horse. We forget that for every spectacular new response we breed into an animal we are going to get a balancing response along with it, which will be equally unspectacular.

It was easy to get Sonita on a cow, it was a near death experience to get her past a tractor.

Man-made behaviors don't always make sense to the horse either, we tend to breed things into them they don't understand. I'm willing to wager Sonita's compulsion to cut a plastic bag stuck on a bush didn't make sense to her. It probably contributed to her craziness though.

Then comes the third response we put into our animals. This is the one that I really started thinking about while working Brockle. This response is all about us, it's the response we want from our animal that has nothing to do with their natural or man-made self. Dog Dancing comes to mind. Now there's a competition made entirely for our amusement. I'm not saying the dogs don't love it, they seem to think it's as funny as we do, but it's based on nothing but our will.

This is one of the coolest training knots I've ever come up with. I'm thinking the clearest, cleanest communication between me and whatever animal I'm training will come from beginning to shape the instinctive behaviors that come with the animal first.

If I can channel an instinctive response to work in my favor it will lay the groundwork for the next step, shaping the man-made bred in responses. The animal will be open to my training in this murkier area because of the clear relationship we've already established. If I'm on the look-out for the balancing behaviors that come during this phase, and don't look at it as a negative, but just another, expected response to shape, will I get a better animal? I don't know yet, but it makes sense.

If I've been successful in all of this shaping and modifying, the third phase should be cake. We should have our minds tuned in enough for my trainee to accept my request whether it makes sense or not, if for no other reason then the trust and understanding built by that point.

I understand horses better than dogs, so my example is equine.

1. Start a colt with the standard round pen type thinking (even though your pen can be any shape or size). Restraint is voluntary, flight is always possible.
As the colt's training progresses, the flight response is honed until a foot step away is as much a release as blowing away from a flag was at the beginning.
2. Bring in the bred in behaviors. Begin to shape the speed, cowiness, elasticity, whatever your breed offers.
3. Now it's time for double bridles, spade bits, jumps that are higher than the horses head, dancing, talking to Wilbur, whatever.

It's going to be interesting sorting this out with dogs...

Finding What They're Meant to Do

2013-05-22T12:34:00.001-06:00

I've been worried about my blog.
When I worry, I float away.
Part of it is evasion, but most of it is letting things percolate in the back of my mind, until they sort themselves out into coherent thought instead of a vague, smoggy cloud.

I've worried about the blog because it's become so much about theory, instead of actual doing. I'm not riding enough horses to come up with interesting problems and solutions anymore. Madonna is pretty much who she is, a decently trained, keen eyed cowhorse. Odin is coming along as fast as my riding time allows, but he's an amiable, competent, easy to get along with horse, so I don't have a lot of stories coming from him.

Riding them is a joy for me, but not particularly the stuff of interesting training knots. I miss those knots. So here's my question to you guys. Should we bring the training questions back to the main blog? I've been neglecting the training page something terrible. If anybody has a training question, they can bring it up here, I'll reach back in the dusty archives and answer as best I can and we'll go from there. We can move conversations back to the training page, chances are I'll remember it's there that way.

Anyway, let me know-- now onto my post.

How often do we read, hear or say,"I have to find what my horse, dog, self, child, wants to do,"?

The theory is sweet, kind and open-minded. Thing is, I also think it's suspect.

I suspect it REALLY means, "What can I find that's easy enough for me to handle?"

Does jumping my warmblood scare the crap out of me? As a rider, if I'm scared, my horse is going to perform poorly. If I don't want to admit I'm scared, it's easy to justify all by saying, "He's much happier since we started riding Dressage."

Which, up until recently, didn't bother me.

Except I've been learning something from my dogs. Actually, I've been learning lots from them lately. This particular instance is finding what they are meant to do, by learning what they were bred to do.

Many of you know, I have four dogs, Charlie, a rat terrier (9), Dinah a corgi/JRT mix (15), Snocone, a mostly maltese (100), and my newest addition, Brockle, a big hairy GSD something or other (1).

Brockle is a wonderful dog. He lives life large, has become my devoted guardian and assistant, and has a wicked sense of humor. He is also a rotten, bumbling, arrogant, dominant, willful teenage boy.

Brockle is not the most dog I have shared my life with -- that would be my wolf hybrid Scott, from twenty years ago-- but he is the smartest, at least from a human perspective. He is still a lot of dog, and in order to avoid the mistakes I made with Scott, I went to a professional dog trainer for help.

I was lucky enough to have made the acquaintance, through my job at the FV newspaper, with the Colorado Springs newspaper's dog training columnist. He's a GSD trainer who specializes in Schutzhund training and I have always liked his philosophy on people and dogs. So he was where I went to for help.

We're a good match, he read Brockle where I couldn't and was able to help me understand how he ticks. He also plays some pretty hard core heavy metal and shouts "Free beer!" every time Brockle does something spectacular. Hard man not to like.

It became clear very quickly Brockle is mentally all GSD. Physically, he moves and responds the same too, so he's been an easy read for my trainer. It's been harder for me, I'm not familiar with the breed, other than admiring the working shepherds at the FVPD. Needless to say, I've been having a blast, because I get to untie knots again, and I'm learning something new.

I have learned Brockle is a sensitive, dominant dog with an unusual focus on all things Mugs. HMT (Heavy Metal Trainer) told me he has only come across one other dog in his career with such single minded focus on his owner. This is good and bad, good because I always know where Brockle is, bad because he is so non-responsive when being handled by others.

HMT starts new training with games and treats. Really, really, good treats. Brockle will play them with him, but slowly, and he looks back at me every two or three seconds. Within a minute or so Brockle breaks away from the task and comes back to me. This makes it hard for HMT to teach me our next step, because like the Big K, he's more of a "show it" than a "say it" kind of trainer.

We're getting it though and Brockle is sharp enough and motivated enough for us to continue on into the actual Schutzund training. One of you guys suggested I look into Schutzhund when I was first wallowing around for training help, whoever that was, THANK YOU!

Anyway, I really do have a point here, bear with me.

Brockle still charges dogs. His recall is perfect...unless he sees a dog. Then his eyes glaze over and he's gone. Straight as an arrow he flies with astounding speed, straight at his target, and pounces on it. He hasn't hurt one yet, but there is a lot of snarling, snapping and slobber involved and completely freaked out dog owners.
Then he spins around and flies back to me.

He's doing really well as far as ignoring them on leash or his 30 foot training line, but I still don't have him off leash.

He understands and obeys "Leave it!" for people, livestock, birds, anything and everything, but not other dogs. It's driving me nuts.

HMT is not a Positive Response only type trainer. Like me, he believes animals need to understand the concept of consequence. He didn't faint, freak or stone me when I asked if we needed to try a shock collar.
He did however, tell me to hold off. I didn't get an explanation, but being well broke by the Big K, I didn't question him, I just did what I was told.

I also started watching Schutzhund competitions on Youtube. At first I just watched with my mouth a little open and the thought, I'll never be able to get him to do this. After a while though, I started to really see the dogs work. I watched them over and over, until I felt like I was getting a feel for the energy. I'm not even close to understanding good runs vs. bad ones, unless they're obvious, but I'm beginning to see the forest.

The next time I lost Brockle to a dog launch it was a poor unsuspecting little brown dog and her owner at least the length of a football field away. As he blew off my "Leave it!" and took off like he'd been shot out of a cannon, I had time to admire how fast and true he was flying at the now screaming lady and her dog.

It hit me like a coyote on a cat. Brockle looked exactly like the dogs in the Schutzhund competitions during the protection tests. Straight, powerful and %100 percent focused on the task at hand -- taking out the bad guy.

He wasn't being bad, he was doing what he has been bred to do (however haphazardly), protecting me.
It was suddenly clear to me why HMT didn't want me to use a shock correction and why I couldn't break through Brockle's obsessive need to launch.

More tomorrow, I've got to take Jim to the Doc.

Try, Try Again

2013-05-20T08:51:00.000-06:00

Man, oh man.

Life can sure bite you in the butt, can't it?

I haven't been neglecting only you.

I haven't been writing at all. For anyone, including myself.

I have been almost, barely, been keeping up with my column. At least I haven't been fired yet, but I have been struggling mightily there too, and it's my job for goodness sake.

It's all about distraction.

Any of you who get to live with ADD -- whether in yourself or someone close -- know about distraction. It's not like we ADD folk fly around from subject to subject, jump with abandon from thought to thought, well OK, maybe it is, but not all the time, and usually, there is reason behind all the jumping.

Our mind will skitter here and there when we try to focus on a subject, it will refuse to grasp it and work at it, instead, we find ourselves doing this crazy Vitus dance around whatever we're trying to grasp and each random jerk of our head, or foot, or arm launches us onto another thought, then another...

After living with this unusual way of thinking (unusual for you maybe, same ol', same ol' for me) without medication for more than 55 years now, I have finally begun to get it.

ADD has also given me an incredible gift, known in the medical, psychological, and exhausted friend and mom world as hyper-focus.

When those of us of the ADD ilk sink into the luxury of hyper-focus, our mind becomes razor sharp, and can see only the object or thought in front of us.

When I go there, combined with a mildly obsessive nature ("ahem," interjects Damn Therapist, forever known as D.T.), I live, breathe and function with the thought or object as the only thing I see.

For years, it was learning about Working Cowhorse. The sport, the method, how it affected the horse, the rider, where it came from, mechanics, all of it, everything. It was the only thing on my mind for years.

Think about it, I was what, 40 or so when I got into it, maybe my late thirties, and I immediately learned it was a sport for the wealthy.

A single class at a small, state club-sponsored, NRCHA approved show runs about $180.

This year, the great big, lots of added money, nationally attended show had an average price of $1100 per class. FOR A SINGLE CLASS.

You can see where you quickly find yourself saying, "Oh, good, I can afford this one, it will only cost me $400 or so" That would be for 2 classes on one horse, or 1 class with two horses and gas. No stalls, bedding, trailer fees, overnight fees etc. I was and am a poor person. This was and is an insane amount of money.

Being the ADD person I am, this little hill meant nothing to me in my road to learn cowhorse. I was an open rider, like it or not, because I gave riding lessons and started colts for a living.

This was fine, because I couldn't afford to be a non-pro, the only way I could show was to learn to train it myself. The only way to learn was to ride multiple horses, the only way to ride multiple horses was to go pro....so I did.

This was at the same time I met the Big K. He was 15 years younger than me and had twenty years more experience. As time went by he became as focused on helping me learn how to train cowhorse as I was. Why? Because we're twin sons of different mothers (killer 70's reference for all you youngsters out there).
We are obsessed with horses, what makes them tick and how to tune their tick to ours, and we are crazy intent on riding cowhorse.

I raised my daughter in this environment, dirt poor, scraping together money for show after show, she slept in the corner of many an arena, was "home" with the flu more than once on a cot in the tack room with a space heater and micro-waved cup-o-noodles. We had no money, no insurance,shopped at the ARC and the U-name-it-mart and ate very simply.

She didn't have many video games or extra curricular school activities, but she did have a horse to ride, and lots of time with me. Quantity, not quality, that was my credo. She missed too much school (at least as long as she had good grades) because we were on the road, hauling to arenas in Colorado Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, or New Mexico.

In the end, I got what I wanted, needed, to be able to train a good cowhorse.

Did I o the right thing?

Don't know, hope so, but can't promise I could have put it down, if it had been wrong.

So now I'm on the next chapter and I don't have a focus. Writing was there, my two lovely horses, the dogs, you guys, but I've been jumping, here there and everywhere, my Vitus dance becoming wilder and the ensuing thoughts spiraling off into space instead of telling me where to go.

Maybe it's because I didn't choose this life. I have no interest in paying attention to Parkinson's or Jim's stroke. I don't want to learn to live with my new reality... skitter, skitter.

I have learned over the years to accept and release my distractions. I don't let my hyper-focus go there, because it could be twenty years before I come up for air.

One by one, I let the distractions go, it feels like they seep away on their own, but I've learned that it's me shoving them away. My life becomes smaller and I can start to glimpse the thoughts I need to be turning my attention to.

This last month I was down to bare bones.
No writing, hardly any horses. I didn't go out, started shutting out friends, both on the 'Net and at home, no reading, no cooking, all of my escapes were peeled away and discarded.

These past few weeks I have begun to get my house in order. Setting the priorities I need to balance myself and my reality. Ew. I'm hating that one. But my wise and crazy brain has been peeling away my random thoughts and making me recognize them as distractions until I finally saw what I needed to be working on.

It's falling into place. As I have begun to get things squared at home-- I won't bore you with the details, but it has to do with taking back my life-- Jim and I have been able get on with our new reality.

So, the writing is coming back, I have lots of half-written posts to revisit and share, my horses are getting ridden and I'm bumping up into some collection issues with Odin. I've had some great big leaps in horse/dog training perception, am excited to share and get your input on these, and the stories are finally, finally coming back.

I'm Fine, How are You?

2013-05-02T05:59:00.003-06:00

Sorry guys, it's just real life. Bleah. Back as soon as can.
In the mean time, check this out!
Rumor has it Becky Bean has been secretly breeding these, but she is terrified of being labeled a BYHBB (Backyard Hairy Beast Breeder).

We can actually thank http://www.messybeast.com/history/horses.htm for today's distraction.

Talk to you soon, Mugs.

THE OREGON WONDER HORSES (LONG-MANED HORSES)
Circuses and sideshows often invented exotic stories about their exhibits. For example, exceptionally hirsute men were exhibited as "lion-faced men" or "wild men" along with tales that they had been captured in a remote country, were wild and ate raw meat. Despite the legends that the "Oregon Wonder Horses" had been captured from a legendary wild herd, they appear to have been bred from Clydesdale, Percheron draft horses, possibly with some Andalusian blood as well. Excessively long manes and tails would have been a severe hindrance in the wild and needed a lot of care in a domestic situation.
One of the earliest long-maned horses was a Percheron named "Prince Imperial" who also laid claim to the world's longest mane. Prince Imperial originally belonged to Emperor Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte III (nephew of the famous Napoleon). In 1869, a Marion livestock breeder named Jacob Howser traveled to France and bought the horse for $3,000. Howser exhibited Prince Imperial at fairs and horse shows around the USA and billed him as "The Greatest Living Curiosity of This or Any Other Age". Prince Imperial was credited with having the longest forelock (at 7 ft) and longest mane (at 9 ft 10 inches) in the world, the mane later being described as 14 ft 3 inches at its longest. He weighed 1840 pounds and is believed to have been one of the first Percherons imported into the USA. When not being exhibited, his mane was braided and the braids looped to stop the hair dragging on the ground. Prince Imperial died in 1888, but continue to be a curiosity and money-spinner for his owner. Professor AG Ward stuffed the horse so that Howser could continue exhibiting him. Outside of the sideshow travelling season, the stuffed horse was kept in Howser's living room. After Jacob Howser died, his sons continued to exhibited Prince Imperial. This tradition continued to the next generation, with Jacob Howser's grandsons and great-grandson Jake Howser doing the same. Great-gradson Jake Howser tried to end the tradition and instructed his sons to burn the stuffed horse when Jake died. Luckily for sideshow historians, Prince Imperial was sold to another local family. They cleaned him up and put him on a wheeled platform which they dragged through local parades. He later became the property of Theodore Myers, associate director of the Marion campus of Ohio State University and member of the board of the local historical society. Myers kept Prince Imperial in a travelling case in his barn. Prince Imperial eventually became the property of the Marion County Historical Society and continues to enjoy a degree of posthumous fame as a static exhibit in Marion, Ohio. at the Heritage Hall.

White Wings was a pure white Percheron stallion whose mane was said to be 14 feet long with a tail 17 feet long. A 1902 book of animal life described White Wings as the most beautiful horse alive. He was exhibited by Bostock and Wombwell in their Royal No 1 Menagerie in England. According to Edward Henry Bostock ("Menageries Circuses and Theatres")"Unfortunately White Wing's tail had been cut off by a revengeful groom while the animal was in America, and this had to be plaited on and doctored up for show purposes. But for this defect I might not have been able to acquire the animal.

The horses for which we have the best "career records", however, are Linus and Linus II.
Books and magazines contain photos of 3 different horses, with different facial markings and different length white socks, all of whom claim to be the famous Linus. According to one postcard ("famous Oregon exhibition horse"), Linus' mane was 14 feet long (with 10 feet forelock) and his tail was 12 feet 3 inches. Another source gives his mane as 18 feet and the tail 21 feet. Other photos supposedly of "Linus" appear in the the 1902 book "Animal Life". These photos are actually his son Linus II and a similar, but unidentified, horse that might be either Aurelius (a brother of Linus II) or Montezuma (a possible son of Oregon Beauty). "Animal Life" (1902) claims a tail 17 ft long and a 13 ft double mane (circuses and sideshows are well known for exaggeration). One of these was Linus II who, at 8 years old, had a mane 13 foot long (with 5 ft 6 inch forelock) and a tail 19 foot long. At 11 years old, both measurements had decreased by 18 inches: mane 11 foot 6 inches; tail 17 foot 6 inches.
Many of the photos of the various Linuses are cabinet cards showing the attractions of circuses and travelling freak shows. There was also a promotional leaflet produced with a fanciful legend about Linus's ancestry which reads like a prequel to the My Friend Flicka/Thunderhead/Green Grass of Wyoming saga. This leaflet mentions Linus and Linus II. There are photos here of Linus I and Linus II and of a third "Linus" - undoubtedly related, but with different facial markings. The legend used to attract the public is as follows:
The story of the long haired Oregon horses
"In the early history of Oregon traditions of a herd of magnificent wild horses that roamed at will over her mountains and valleys were told the settlers, and, like many other tales of like character, seemed beyond belief. It was said this herd was led by an enormous chestnut stallion, whose mane and tail were so abundant and of such length as to almost envelop the entire animal in a wealth of flowing hair. For years this" Wild King of Oregon Wonder Horses" roamed over the country, ever alert to stampede his followers and flee with almost the rapidity of the wind at the approach of a human being. So subtile was this wild leader of his race that it was only at rare intervals that the best hunters were able to even secure at a distance a glimpse of these marvelous equines. Frequent hunts were inaugurated by those who had heard of the surpassing beauty of these horses for the purpose of capturing them to be placed in subjection and used for improving the breeding of the settlers' horses; but, though all the advantage that the intelligent hunter could command was brought to bear, added to which were large rewards for the capture of the magnificent leader, or some representative member of the herd, for years the intuitive cunning of this remarkably intelligent horse rendered his capture, or that of his followers, impossible, though for some unaccountable reason there was no apparent increase in the herd, which was later accounted for, as this wild king would brook no rival, and killed every male born to his equine harem.
Surrounded by his bevy of beautiful mares, who, like him, possessed in a marked degree the hirsute adornments that caused the settlers to seek their capture, this" uncrowned king" of the Pacific Slope continued to evade civilization until his demise, leaving sixteen beautiful mares to mourn their lifelong protector, but with apparently no means of perpetuating the race. Many, in fact most, of these mares were aged, for they, too, had followed the footsteps of their leader and fought among themselves for supremacy to such an extent that only such rivals as were imbued by nature with extraordinary powers of endurance were enabled to rear their female young; and possibly none would have survived but for the probable interference of the "wild old king," who saw in this bitter war of extermination the loss of opportunity to surround himself with the choicest of equine beauty, and so in a few instances must have insisted on allowing some "to live. At all events, of the sixteen mares but one was ever captured that was possible to breed, and she possessed extraordinary powers for perpetuating the peculiarities of her race, for, as shown in the second, third and fourth descent, all the leading characteristics of this marvelous mare are not only found, but in each instance strengthened and increased by careful breeding, so that now the "Oregon Wonder Horses" have become in captivity what they were in their wild state, a distinct and beautiful breed, exhibiting to a high degree the intelligence that enabled them to retain their liberty for so many years while pursued and eagerly hunted by the most famed scouts, cowboys and hunters the great West could command.
The capture of "Oregon Queen," the youngest surviving mare of the wild herd, was hailed with pleasure by those interested in improving the breeding of horses, both in Oregon and the entire Pacific Coast (for their fame was widespread), and when it became known that the "Queen" was to bear a foal by the old leader of the herd, offers of fabulously large amounts were made in advance of its birth for the offspring; but all were refused by Messrs. Rutherford, who had, by early purchase from the captors, secured the much-coveted prize. In the early spring of 1870 "Oregon Queen" became the dam of "Oregon Beauty," the first of the Wonder Horses born in captivity. This filly was treated with the utmost care, and soon developed into a marvel of beauty (hence her name); and when five years old, and after the birth of her first colt (Linus), was placed on exhibition, and proved one of the greatest drawing cards for fairs and museums ever known, until her death at Coney Island, where she was killed by lightning in the summer of 1887. Happily Linus, her son, who not only resembled his dam, but possessed even a greater development of tail and mane, was able to succeed her as one of the most attractive exhibition animals ever placed before the public.
Linus was sold in 1890 to Messrs. Eaton Brothers, of Boston, for $30,000, and proved a splendid paying exhibition property for several years, so much so that $60,000 was refused for him by his owners, who retained possession of him until his death in 1894. In the meantime, by careful and judicious breeding extending over a period of twenty-five years from the capture of the first mare, the Messrs. Rutherford have succeeded in establishing this breed of "Wonder Horses" on a secure foundation; and, though guarding with utmost jealousy all the progeny, they carefully continued their line of breeding until they possess to-day absolute control of a distinct breed of horses, the like of which has never been seen in all the world, nor will it ever be reproduced, since the wild origin is now extinct.
The" Wonder Horses" of Oregon are remarkable for the great growth of hair in mane and tail, which for length and thickness is not equaled in the world; and since these horses have been bred in captivity this growth of beautiful silken hair has increased with each generation, as will be seen from a comparison of the photographs contained herein. The wonderful endurance and intelligence of this breed of equines is at once apparent to anyone familiar with horses; and now that all trace of the wild nature has bowed to the gentle care and treatment meted out to these animals, they exhibit the utmost gentleness and court the attention of those who come near them. Another remarkable characteristic of this truly wonderful breed of horses is their color, all of them being rich chestnuts, which goes far to prove them a distinct breed, able, by reason of their thoroughbred origin, to perpetuate their blood from generation to generation.' No doubt the "Oregon Wonder Horses" are the truest descendents of the first horses brought to America by Cortez, the conquerer of Mexico. Probably some escaped at that early period and established this breed hundreds of years ago remaining wild and uncaptured.Linus II is pronounced by eminent horsemen as the most perfect type of equine beauty in the world, and his proud bearing adds much to his natural grandeur, for he carries himself as a worthy successor of his wild old ancestor, the King of Oregon Wonder Horses, in whose place he now stands as leader of his race."

The true origins of the Oregon Wonder Horses is more mundane. According to a report in the New Zealand Observer "The first of these long-maned Oregon Wonders came to light in the [eighteen-]eighties, being worked on a farm in Oregon. He was then taken East and put on exhibition, dying in Coney Island in 1887. His son Linus was the only colt sired by him of which there is a record that he had the same superabundance of hirsute [hair] and Linus II was likewise the only one of the sort got by his sire." That farm horse was actually a mare named Oregon Beauty, who produced a son, Linus, in 1884. Oregon Beauty was indeed exhibited and the New York Times reported that she was killed in a fire on June 17, 1888 at Coney Island (a popular exhibition venue) when "Lightning struck the gable of a roof and glancing off, set a heap of rubbish on fire 10 feet away. It then went through the stable, setting it on fire and killing a very fine mare belonging to M.E. Reid of California. The animal was the celebrated Oregon Beauty, a beautiful dark chestnut, 9 years old. She possessed a fine, large, bushy tail and a heavy mane 10 feet long. She was valued at $15,000. She was well known throughout California and Oregon, having been exhibited in all cities and towns of those states, and her owner had brought her to New York to exhibit to the admirers of horse flesh."
This original Linus is known to have been three-quarter Clydesdale and one-quarter French (Percheron) and his weight was advertised as 1435 lbs. He was bred in Marion, Oregon, about 1884, then acquired around 1890/91 by brothers CH & HW Eaton from Calais, Maine. Linus was sold to the Eaton Brothers for $30,000 in 1890, but died in 1894 at the age of 10 years. By then, he had sired Aurelius (born Oregon June 1890) and Linus II (born 1894). Aurelius was exhibited at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles as one of the "Oregon Wonder Horses" and was 16 hands tall with "a luxuriant mane and tail". Some photos of Linus II can also be found labelled as being Aurelius (mane 7 ft, tail 8 ft) who was two-thirds owned by LA Cole and JK Rutherford.
The Eatons became the most successful promoters of the horse. "When about four years old his mane and tail grew so rapidly-often as much as 3 inches a month -that in three years they reached their present astonishing length. His body colour is a glossy golden chestnut, he has white hind feet and a white face, and his mane, tail and foretop are of a soft flaxen colour. His hair, which is 'done up' when he is not receiving visitors, continues to grow, though now very slowly. Linus is certainly a beautiful animal. He is proud, carries his head high, and enjoys admiration with all the intelligence and pride of his race. The mane is 14ft, the foretop 9ft and the tail 12ft. When spread and drawn out to their full extent, the display of the beautiful locks is quite impressive. It is washed out with cold water, no tonics being applied to it. Before the horse is placed in his stall the hair is drawn out and divided into several thick strands. From his mane four such strands are made. Each strand is then tied around once every six inches almost to the end. It is then rolled up and put into a bag. For his mane and foretop alone five bags are required. He is exercised in the same guise, a blanket or sheet, if necessary, being thrown over him to conceal the pendant bags. He is exercised every day, either in a ring or out of doors under saddle. The owners will not permit him to be taken into the upper floor of any building for fear of some accident."

Linus was featured in Scientific American in 1891 where he was described (incorrectly) as a Percheron stallion (Percherons are grey, Linus was chestnut): "He is 16 hands in height, weighs 1,435 pounds and is of chestnut color. The mane is fourteen feet, the foretop nine feet, and tail twelve feet long. When spread and drawn out to their full extent, the display of the beautiful locks of bright hair is quite impressive. The greatest care is taken of the hair. It is washed out with cold water, no tonics being applied to it. Before the horse is placed in his stall the hair is drawn out and divided into several thick strands. From his mane four such strands are made. Each strand is then tied around once every six inches about to the end. It is then rolled up and put into a bag. For his mane and foretop alone five bags are required....During the last two years his mane and tail have grown about two feet."

The sideshow business was highly competitive and as well as Linus, there were several other Wonder Horses. "Santa Rosa, California has the distinction of being the home of one of the remarkable horses of the age. It is Montezuma, a son of Oregon Wonder, the long-tailed and long-maned curiosity of the Nortwest. This horse has a handsome tail over six feet long, and its mane is over five feet long." ("Horses and Horsemen. Notes from the Carriage Room, Auction Mart, and Breeding Farm" New York Times Jan 1st, 1894.) While Oregon Wonder might be another name for Oregon Beauty, it is equally likely that a competing sideshow invented the name so that the horse appeared to be a relative of the famous Linus!
A Wonder Horse exhibited at Fells Waxworks in Glasgow, Scotland was very similiar in appearance to Linus and Linus II, suggesting he was a son or brother of Linus. Marquis was another three-quarter Clydesdale and one-quarter French, at age 7 his mane was 14 ft and his tail was 18 ft long. Marquis was bred at Grande Island, California and owned and exhibited by J A Grimmer and J O Sharp. In 1894, Ringling Bros boasted of exhibiting Prince Chaldean, the long-maned Percheron, with a mane over nine feet long. Bostock and Wombwell had White Wings, claimed to be the most beautiful horse alive and said to be of Spanish Andalusian descent. Another long-maned horse was Jack Allison's Percheron, photographed circa 1880. The Walter L Main Circus boasted a white long-maned horse "Boneito". It appears that the chestnut Oregon Wonder Horses (including Linus I, Linus II, Marquis) were Clydesdale/French (Percheron) mixes while the white ones were Percherons or Percheron/Andalusian mixes. One article erroneously described Linus as a Percheron, rather than a mix.

If a sideshow couldn't get hold of a living Wonder Horse, then a taxidermy specimen would suffice. The stuffed Prince Imperial had a long posthumous career. A stuffed Wonder Horse was exhibited in San Francisco and advertised in a brochure for Chutes Museum (which opened in 1897): "Here may be seen the $3,000, long-tailed and long-maned horse, "Beauty". This animal, in life, was one of the chief attractions of the zoo. In death, he is a permanent interest not alone to those who knew him in the zoo, but to those who now see him for the first time. A more beautiful animal never lived." Despite the name, this was not Oregon Beauty as she was female (the taxidermy was male) and had been killed in a fire (which would have consumed her mane and tail), but is more likely to have been Howser's well-travelled French import, Prince Imperial.
An account of Linus II, son of Linus, appeared in 1899 and detailed the amount of care required to maintain the mane and tail - this immediately rules out any idea of there being a wild race of "wonder horses":
"A WONDERFUL HORSE. The Sampson Among Equines. Lawrence D Fogo.
The accompanying illustration pictures the most wonderful horse in the world - Linus II, son of Linus, a celebrated horse in his day. That his owner James K Rutherford, of Waddington, NY, is very proud of him goes without saying. No photograph can do adequate justice to his superb beauty. In colour he is of a golden chestnut, with a coat like satin. His wonderful mane is double, falling in a solid mass down both sides of his neck and lying about four feet on the ground. In color the mane is much lighter than the horse's body, and mixed with white, very fine and silky, so that it gives a silvery appearance.The tail is even more remarkable than the mane, measuring over sixteen feet from tip to tip, and lying on the ground fully nine feet. It is white, with a dark streak showing in the center. The abnormal growth shows not the slightest tendency to stop. The photograph herewith was taken a year ago. During the short time which has elapsed since then, both mane and tail have made a growth of eighteen inches.
The most painstaking care is taken of Linus II. When not on exhibition, his hair is treated in the following manner: The mane is parted evenly down the back of his neck, and each side divided into five parts. Each part is then braided, beginning about six inches from the neck. After braiding to the end of the hair, it is doubled up and passed through to where the braid began, making a loop about ten inches long. This is repeated until the braid is all looped up, when it is tied and a bag, made especially for this purpose, is drawn over it and securely fastened. The foretop and tail are cared for in a like manner, and thus he has perfect freedom in his movements.Just because of this wonderful growth of hair, Linus has been facetiously dubbed the Sampson of equines, a name that is not wholly applicable, because he has displayed no remarkable feats of strength, though not wanting in powers of endurance for a horse of his size and age. Linus is a large horse, standing nearly sixteen hands high, and weighing 1,300 pounds. He is nine years of age and enjoys perfect health. The noble animal is high spirited, but withal gentle and affectionate, and has become greatly attached to his groom. He has an excellent memory. mr Rutherford's partner, who formerly had the care of the horse, taught him several tricks, for the successful performance of which the animal received candy and apples. Upon his going into the horse's stall, after not seeing his master for three years, Linus immediately recognised him, and began to perform the tricks that had been taught him, and which the horse had not done once during those three years.

Linus II was widely exhibited in the USA including star turns at the American Horse Exchange (Broadway, New York) and Huber's Museum (New York). He also took parts in harness parades and was also ridden. In 1903, or thereabouts, he travelled to the UK and was exhibited in England, Scotland and Ireland. One photo taken during Linus II's tour describes him as "the famous Linus II of Killarney". At that time, travelling animals shows were a major form of entertainment and travelled throughout North America, Britain, Continental Europe, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. During 1905, Linus II was purchased by Bostock and Wombwell for £1200 (though £2000 is also claimed). Linus II replaced their white Perchereon stallion, White Wings, in their Royal No 1 Menagerie in England. EH Bostock wrote: "Another freak of this kind procured for me after many futile attempts was a horse named Linus [Linus II]. This was a horse, chestnut coloured entire [i.e. not gelded], which, while not so large as White Wings, had two distinct manes, one on each side of his neck. Its tail measured 16 feet and was also prolific of hair. Linus cost me £1,200 - four times more than I paid for White Wings - but its drawing powers did not come up to expectations. The reason for this was that the novelty had worn off. White Wings had already been all round the country, and the public were ready for a fresh freak. Linus and White Wings, however, were both animals of which one could well feel proud." In March 1905, Bostock and Wombwell's Menagerie ("Britain's premier travelling zoo") was in the Common Haugh, Hawick, Scotland for two days before travelling to Selkirk and Jedburgh. Entrance to one of the three daily performances cost 1 shilling (adults) or sixpence (children) and the star of the show was Linus [Linus II] even though he was not a performing horse. He was billed as having a double mane reaching 13 feet each side and a 17 feet long tail. It was reported that he had been bought two years earlier for £2000 and the proprietors offered to forfeit £10,000 if his equal could be produced or give £1000 to any local charity if any person could prove that the manes and tail were not genuine.

After extensive tours of America and Britain, Linus II joined the Bostock and Wombwell menagerie in Australia where he was supposed to join their tour of Queensland. This had to be cancelled due to a tick plague in Queensland that would have resulted in the animals being quarantined for six months after the tour. The Queensland leg of the tour was cancelled and menagerie headed back to Sydney and Melbourne. Linus II was billed as one of the star attractions when exhibited at Fitzgerald's Circus Building, St Kilda Road in Melbourne in October 1906 where the exhibition formed part of the Caulfield/Melbourne Cup Carnival. The Argus (Oct 18, 1906) reported: "Among the attractions of Bostock and Wombwell's Circus, which opens at Fitzgerald's Circus building on Saturday next [this was on Caulfield Cup night], are several specimens of livestock, which differ from the class of animals usually to be seen in a menagerie. Chief among these is Linus, a fine bay stallion, whose points of pride are his beautiful mane and tail. Two days off the boat, on board of which he has spent 41 days, Linus, in excellent condition, awaits inspection, surrounded by the plenitude of his hair. His tail lies along the ground for several feet and the drooping flood of his double mane covers the canvas on which he stands. Although his broad back and heavy shoulders show traces of draught blood, his alert poise and cocked ears betray his trotting strain which is transmitted from his mother. He has been exhibited all over England and America. Two friends of Linus are a fine pair of Harlequin danes, fine upstanding dogs of the Great Dane breed."
Thomas Hunt Morgan (Professor of Experimental Zoology, Columbia University) mentions Linus I in his book Experimental Zoology (Publ. Macmillan & Co, London, 1910): A few other cases in mammals, that seem to show discontinuous inheritance, are known. Castle and Davenport [Professor C. B. Davenport, and by Professor C. E. Castle] have both called attention to cases of so-called wonder-horses, i.e. horses with remarkably long mane and tail. In the case of ''Linus I" the mane was 18 feet long and the tail 21 feet. The parents and grandparents of these horses also had unusually long hair, which increased in successive generations. The data are insufficient to show the relation of dominance and recessiveness in this case, but the persistence of the long hair seems to indicate its dominance. The mane and tail lengths are possibly exaggerations taken from promotional literature.

WONDER HORSES AND MENDELISM
Charles Benedict Davenport
SCIENCE N.S. Vol XIX., No 473, Pages 151-153, January 22, 1904.
DR. CASTLE'S reference to the Oregon Wonder horse in SCIENCE for December 11 reminds me that in the autumn of 1899 I corresponded with Mr. James K. Rutherford, of Waddington, N. Y., who then owned a horse celled Linus II. Mr. Rutherford sent a photograph of the horse, taken in 1898. The photograph shows a Morgan horse probably about five years old with a double mane which trails on the ground on either side for a distance of two feet. The tail trails on the ground for a distance of about six to eight feet. Correspondence with Mr. Rutherford yielded the following additional statements: Linus II is the son of Linus I, which had a mane that was single, but at fourteen years old eighteen feet long, while the tail was twenty-one feet long. “The mother also had a remarkable growth of hair.” The paternal grandmother was known as the "Oregon Beauty" and was noted for the mass and length of her hair. My correspondence with the owner of Linus I led to few additional facts. He stated that the long hair had been in the family since importation [to Oregon] and added: "the growth and quantity has increased with each generation"
It will be seen that the data are somewhat inconclusive. Had the father as well as the mother of Linus I been long-haired (recessive, according to Dr. Castle’s hypothesis), then we can understand the long hair of Linus I. The latter was mated with a recessive mare (if "remarkable growth of hair" may be so interpreted) and produced Linus II.
On the whole, it would seem more probable that the long-haired property was dominant, unless, indeed, Linus II got no long-haired progeny. The data are, as we see, insufficient to decide the matter.
[Davenport then goes on to illustrate Dominant and recessive Mendelian factors by discussing polydactylism .]

There was also "Chief" the long-tailed pony: tail 13 feet long, height 3 and a half feet, weight 300 pounds.His exhibition equipments consist of fine blankets, brass exhibition stand and suspended tail rest, which gives the effect of tail floating in the air, and the satin sashes, banners and flags make up the most unique and beautiful equipments of any pony of horse travelling. He has travelled over the greater part of the United States and Canada and is engaged to go to Europe. He was in a railroad accident, in which there were seventeen cars wrecked, fifty horses, twelve men and many wild animals killed. In the car he was in there were four men and twelve horses killed, and as he was in between a camel and a water buffalo and a large elephant back of him it was a miracle he was not killed; but neither he nor his attendat, who is in the picture, was hurt except being pretty well shaken. Everyone admits he is a wonderful little horse and we challenge the world to produce his equal in beauty, intelligence, and size, with the lenght of tail.
In modern times, some examples of the Florida Cracker Horse boast manes and tails that reach the ground and which may reflect Andalusian blood. Andalusians may also have manes and tails that reach the ground. Outside of travelling exhibits, such as the 19th Century menageries, circuses and sideshows that exhibited Linus and his ilk, such long hair is impractical.

Dobbie The Disgusting

2013-04-25T06:13:00.001-06:00

I promise, there's a post coming, but I had to share the latest bit of dog psychology I have been given the pleasure to watch in action.

I have been reading about dogs and their amazing sense of smell.

Dogs can smell another dog's poo and tell if that dog is big, small, male or female, neutered or not.

This of course points out the incredible difference between dogs and us. We don't smell poo beyond the fresh and not fresh stage, even though our noses are essentially non-functioning compared to our dogs. I wonder if poo would smell better if we simply understood it's complexities, like learning to appreciate the difference between a Shiraz and a Merlot.

Dobby, the kidlette's dog has quite the nose, and in many ways, he is the ultimate definition of why people hate small dogs. He is shrill, shivery, nervous, jumpy, a notorious marker of chair legs and curtains, and carries a huge Napoleon complex on his tiny little shoulders. He also smiles and walks like a man, so he can be very unsettling. (recently learned Mugs Fact: small dogs mark in the house more often than large dogs because they have a smaller concept of territory).

Smile for Grandma!

He is a rescue with an unknown background, so who knows what baggage he's carrying.

Dobby has improved so much since the kidlette adopted him. He comes when called, is well-behaved off leash, heels like a Schutzhund graduate and only pees on stuff when we aren't looking.

"You can't look at Dobby as a dog," and ex-boyfriend of kidlette's explained to the non-Dobby loving current one, "it's better if you think of him as a creature. I did, and we got along fine. Besides, if you want to love Clare, you have to love Dobby."

She's a kid after my own heart, she is.

The kidlette and I were on a walk with our dogs yesterday. Our mini-power- pack consists of Charlie, my middle-aged Rat Terrier, Brockle, my large and boisterous GSD mix and Dobby, the kidlette's Italian Greyhound/ Min Pin cross.

Dinah and Snocone are dodderers and dawdlers, so they walk with Jim.

We like to play along Fountain Creek at Monument Valley Park.

There's a trail below the actual park, part of the homeless highway that winds through the city. We can safely let the dogs loose and stay out of trouble. Neither the police or the leash-law abiding citizens like to hang out down there.

It's fun to watch, because the tiny terrors attack poor Brockle with incredible fury. Charlie will actually grab his collar and choke him down if I don't keep an eye out. Dobby barks and bites, barks and bites. I would feel sorry for Brockle if he didn't clearly think it funny. He teases them to a complete frenzy then jumps into the icy water, knowing the little sissies won't follow. As soon as they calm down he jumps out and launches at them, going scooter-butt at 100 mph until they're nuts again.

We were walking down our favorite trail when the dogs flew by. First Brockle, with a huge grin and a wicked glint in his eye, then Charlie, honing in on his collar like it was a baby pigeon on it's first flight, and then...no Dobby.

We turned to look behind us and saw Dobby rolling in something.

"Oh no," the kidlette said.

"I'm sure it's something gross," I replied.

"I know what it is." The loo on a girl's face while watching her boyfriend puke in the alley behind a bar was plastered on the kidlette's.

"Brockle dumped a giant smelly load back there."

"It was too big for my plastic bags, I couldn't pick it up," I said. Nothing like being busted for ignoring my dog's poo during Earth Week. I knew I was destined for hell.

"Oh, it's getting picked up, Dobby's rolling in it." (recently learned Mugs Fact: small dogs will roll in large dogs excrement so they smell "bigger" to other dogs).

We watched in horror as the little troll stood up, gave himself a satisfied shake and came running towards us at full speed. The smell hit a good twenty five yards ahead of him. There is a price to pay when you run out of your regular dog food and buy a cheap bag of whatever to hold until you can get to Big R. A very high price. Brockle's unsettled stomach had delivered a mother load of runny, hunter's orange, mud bath for Dobby. Yep, I was going to hell and not getting to serve my sentences concurrently.

His white chest had turned orange, he had a clump of Brockle poo hanging from one ear. There was poo smeared and caked all over his harness and collar. The little ogre had a huge grin and proud strut as he trotted, sneezing, past my two dogs. Neither seemed bothered, but I didn't see any sign of, "Hey, check it out, Dobby's as big as a Rottweiler!"

He's just started doing that," the kidlette said with a sad shake of her head. "I don't know what his problem is."

We finished our walk, dreading getting into the car. Dobby pranced, danced, and attacked Brockle with enthusiasm. Before long he had long tufts of Brockle hair hanging from his chin and stuck to his chest. He was almost insane with delight over his warrior costume. Clouds of poo perfume hung in the air around us.

Please note the tufts of Brockle hair glued to his chest and neck with poo.
Sorry about the photo quality--it was getting dark.

We carefully maneuvered Dobby into the car and tied hi down. I then drove a good 10 mpg over the speed limit to get the kidlette and her gross little Gollum home and into the shower. I figured any cop who pulled us over would take one whiff and give us an escort. As we rolled the windows as far down as they could go I realized that there would be no waiting. I had already entered hell.

Hi Guys....

2013-04-22T10:03:00.002-06:00

Here you go Becky, this is the Tim you guys will meet and ride with. There's very few of us who
get the scary face (ahem).

Missed everybody.

Life has been a little over the top lately, good and bad.

So here's a share and some thoughts to get things kick started again.

PART 1

3 yr old Amber Champagne Dun Tobiano Gelding - $750

Driver is a beautiful 3 coming 4 yr old gelding. Has been started and will continue to be trained until sold. He is not registered because his mom is grade but his dad and grand parents are of some awesome old race and cow lines (Three Bars, Custus Rastus, Leo, Easy Jet, Jingles Hurrah, Snazzy Man, Top Deck, Sonny D Bar) His mother and grandmother were both proven winning rodeo horses his dad is currently being trained for barrels and will be on sight to be seen as well.. Driver has a ton of potential but I just don't need a 3rd rodeo horse so he has to go as he is the youngest. He is quiet and well mannered. He did put his front left foot through a fence and now has an ugly scar on it but it has not seemed to bother him at all. He should average 15+hh. His mother is 15.2hh and his dad is 14.2, grandma is 16hh, and grandpa is 14.3. I think that he has a great future in either english or western. He is going to be an excellent horse for that person who is ready for a horse who will take them to the next level...with proper finishing of course. He has had a slow start due to me having a baby when he was ready to start.. he does tie, pick up his feet, and bathes...been a while since he's been bathed but he's very quiet so it wouldn't take much to re-introduce it to him and I will be working on all of the basics with him as well as putting some more training into him.. he will also be started on barrels as soon as I feel he is ready for that step up and once that happens price will slightly increase. Will only sell to knowledgeable horse people. This horse is too nice to be sold to a green horn.. I hate to sell him but I just don't need him. My loss is your gain.
1st and 2nd and 6th pics - Driver
Black and white horse is his mother, Palomino is his Dad, and sorrel is his grandmother. His grandfather is identical to his dad. --- Craigslist

This is an example of BYB that doesn't bother me in the least and why I can't jump on the hate all BYB's bandwagon.

This grade gelding is clean limbed, a pretty color and started right. From the look and sound of the ad he is out of a proven mare and stud from running lines. I'm talking local, gymkhana and Little Britches stuff here.

He's a great price and seems to have been started right.

There is a good market for a well trained horse like this. I would look at him and buy him if he was sound with a minimum of behavior issues.

In 90 days I could sell him, more than likely without advertising, just word of mouth for $1500 - $3000, depending on who he turned out to be.

His biggest fault is his neck, but I think it would come around with the right training.

There is a market for horses like this.

PART 2

Then....this is what I did a week ago Saturday. First NRCHA show in 5 years!

Not fast but very pretty spins

Our stops were blah, but I just asked for with a "Whoa," -- she only had shoes on for a week.

She got underneath herself by the stop and back...

Correct position on the fence

First fence turn, just at the end marker, exactly where I asked

Got a little behind on our right turn, but still at the marker.

good right circle

good to the left

Mugs be very happy with Madonna

We were (are) very rusty...I sent my video (no you can't see it) to the Big K and his only comment was, 'You'll be fine, FOCUS!"

I didn't remember I was actually at a horse show until we were 1/2 way through the pattern. Madonna was high headed and anxious, but kept her feet where they belonged, and I was very happy with her.

We were good enough to place fourth and to pull a check, so, watch out world, we're coming back!

PART 3

Because the up and coming clinic is very different for Tim and I and we still have some open slots, I wanted to throw open the door for suggestions.
Remember, we're open to green horses and riders and you don't have to work cows, although trust me, you'll want to.
What would you want to learn from me over the course of three days? I am healthy enough to give about 2 hours a day of my undivided attention, the rest will be either Tim, or the both of us.
How about from Tim (Big K), what do you want from him?

Talk to you soon.

Enough Already! Mouthy Monday

2013-04-01T09:02:00.002-06:00

Tim says, "Janet?! You are thinking too much.
Stop it and go ride your horse, you have a clinic to get
ready for!
(we still have slots for horse and rider combos)

Cindy D sent in this story Mouthy Monday--

I'm always tickled by a great rescue story.

herdlife.blogspt.com

The Christmas Gift.

This story happened almost exactly one year ago.

At my house we had 2 dogs. We had just lost Dugan, Tom's old Collie a few months before. It was a hard blow for Tom as he and Dugan had been together for many years. Dugan went everywhere with him. They were buds.

Truthfully except for the part of missing Dugan terribly, it was kind of nice only having 2 big dogs to care for. I really had no intention's of looking for another.

The two dogs I had left came from my Mom. She has been showing and breeding labs since I was a young girl, and is now one of the top breeders in the country (you can see her website here) and is very very particular about which of her dogs get bred. Both of mine were dogs that had very minor genetic defects. Even minor defects eliminated them from the gene pool so they got to come and live with me. They are Mason and Smarty Pants. Mason is deaf and Smarty has a minor heart defect.

Anyway back to my story...

The way our house is set up, is a big chain link fenced dog yard off the back of the house, and then a drive through gate going back into the pasture. Then we have a man gate on the side that goes to the open front yard. The person who put these fences up, did not do a great job, all the gates are crooked, and chains (around the poles) are required to keep the dogs from getting out of them.

A year ago someone who will remain nameless (her initials are Cindy D) went through the big gate and forgot to rechain it. My very bad horses, with eagle eyes, immediately saw their chance to get into the dog yard where all the best grass is. All they had to do was push on the gate, pop the latch, and walk right in. So naturally while they were all in there filling their big fat bellies, the dogs also saw their chance to escape the confines of their yard and go on a little walk about.

My neighbor saw Smarty trotting down our road and got him and put him back in the yard. She did not realize that the big gate was open, but luckily he chose to stay in the second time. I suspect that there were horses between him and the gate and he still is leery of them. They are awfully big ya know.

Animal Control picked up Mason about half a mile from our house. He is microchipped and so they called me before they even had him back to the pound. I got there right away (in hopes of not having to bring home a dog that smelled like the pound) and they told me to go back and find his kennel and bring them the paper off the door.

So there I am strolling through, just minding my own business looking for my big fat yellow dog. Of course it makes me sad to see all those dogs there, but I am pretty much a Labrador girl so it kind of makes it easier for me to keep walking....until I saw this:

Now here is what I know beyond a shadow of a doubt. Old dogs do not very often get adopted. The paperwork on this dog said he was 5. If that dog is 5 then I am 20 (I haven't been 20 in centuries). I knew that this old guy didn't stand a chance.

I stood there for a minute, he barked at me, but then wagged his tail. I talked to him, he sat down and wagged some more. I went on to find my dog, but could not get that face out of my mind.

When I asked, they told me he was a stray. I said, "You know that dog isn't 5 right?"

They ignored that question and went on with the paper work on Mason.

I asked how long he had been there.

"Not quite 2 weeks"

He would not be adoptable for a few more days.

When I got home I told Tom about him, he reminded me that we didn't really need another dog.

I showed him the picture.

He frowned at me.

I said, "People don't adopt old dogs"

He frowned again.

He said, "Do what you think is right."

I struggled with this decision for 2 days. What if he doesn't get along with the other two? What if he has medical issues? What if, what if, what if. What if no one else adopts him? No one is going to adopt a dog that old.

I went back to the pound and they let me take him out for a walk. I said "sit" his butt hit the floor. I said, "down" he laid down. Hmmmmm this dog was some body's bud.

He had an elbow that was gnarled and twisted, which caused him to limp. He had the classic rear end of a dog with hip displaysia. His teeth were rotten and his eyes were full of cataracts. Yet he wiggled and squirmed like a puppy when I scratched his butt, and then he smiled. You know...how a dog smiles.

I finally decided the right thing to do was to give this guy a forever home for Christmas.

I paid the fee and took him out to the truck. I said, "Do you want to go for a ride?"

He jumped in.

We named him Butch and he smelled like the pound. I took him to the tub and said, "get in the tub." He jumped in the tub! Once he had a bath and smelled ok, I let him meet the other two.

That part didn't go so well. Controlling three intact males can get a little dicey when introductions are first made. There was a lot of fighting and growling, and lots of me trying to distract with cookies, and all my dreams of saving this dog started to go down the tubes.

I could not let him outside without the other two with out a fight starting. While I was gone to work I had to keep him in a separate kennel up by the house. I could bring them all in together but had to watch them constantly.

I cried each time I had to break up a fight. I didn't know what to do. I could not take him back. It was just a mess.

Christmas morning Smarty got sick. Emergency visit, days and days of trying to figure out what was wrong (turned out he swallowed a pacifier from Tom's grandson and had to have it surgically removed) but in the midst of that, I had just made another attempt to put them all out and saw poor sick Smarty sitting at the door with a sad and scared look on his face and Butch was in his face snarling, growling, and trying to provoke a fight.

I admit it, I snapped.

I went out and laid into Butch. "YOU...STOP...FIGHT...ING...WITH...MY..DOG!!!!"

That was it. I have never had to say a harsh word to him since. I have never had to break up a fight since, they all share one big dog house, and are best friends. Sometimes he and Smarty lay right next to each other. Butch is the one dog I can leave in the house all day when I am at work. He goes down each night and lays with my son Simon. He stays there all night. Ne never gets in the trash, he never once has had an accident in the house. He is the only dog that comes when I call.

When I brought him home and took him in for his first check up, I said to my vet, "This is not a dog I will pour a lot of money into." In less than a year, I am pouring money into this dog. He has an infected eye, and 400 dollars later we are still trying to get it healed. We buy Rimodyl for him all winter, he gets special vitamins and joint supplements, and the works.

He is such a special dog. I cannot imagine how nobody claimed him. How could you not miss a dog this wonderful? If he got out today, I would not stop searching till I found him. So in my attempt to give the gift of a new life to a dog, I found that God gave me the biggest gift of all.

I truly believe that God had a hand in helping me to the pound that day.

Closing In On It...

2013-03-27T10:32:00.003-06:00

When I think about our relationship with dogs, I truly feel our two species are meant to be together.

Feel free to credit God for this coupling, or Nature, or my Great Aunt Harriet. Why we're together doesn't matter much to me, I'm just grateful for my dogs.

Dogs were designed to comply with human needs. They change shape, attitude and athletic ability within generations to fit into our lives and our laps. Petting a dog releases serotonin, prolactin and oxytocin, and decreases our levels of cortisol. Dogs experience the same chemical release we do, so they’re all over the petting deal too. They are the Narcissist's dream, a real genie in a bottle.

Bloodhounds - 1910

Bloodhound - 2013

The ability to morph into the dog of our dreams is because dogs possess uniquely malleable DNA that allows specific genetic traits such as size, temperament, snout shape, tail length, etc. to be easily altered by selective breeding. Dogs lend themselves to genetic manipulation for lots of reasons, including their large number of chromosomes — 78 (humans have 48) — and their inability to stop us from setting them up on blind dates.

Pug - 1850

Pug - 2013

Combine this with dogs unending devotion to the human race and we were given a species we can change to fit our needs within a few generations. I don't have a problem with this, like I said, I think this is how things were supposed to work.

We began to get breeds within the species early on. Sight hounds, guard dogs and a few fiesty lap dogs were the first. Then the spaniels, bloodhounds and herding dogs appeared. All of these breeds, even the lap dogs developed with a purpose (foot warmers).

German Shepherd Dog - 1895

German Shepherd Dog - 2013

Things didn’t get crazy until the introduction of the Victorians. The Victorian era was an intellectual mess. Theories abounded without the science to support them. The weight of religious beliefs, Darwinism and class distinction led to an age of justification (this is where my opinion comes in).

Bull Terrier -- 1900

Bull Terrier - 2013

“Survival of the fittest,” a phrase often credited to Darwin, was actually coined by English philosopher Herbert Spencer, who first used it in his 1864 book, “Principles of Biology."

Darwin’s theory of natural selection is that "only the most well-adapted individuals in a population will survive and reproduce."

Spencer's phrase took into account social factors like wealth and power. Spencer believed that individuals who possessed these traits were more fit, and hence, more likely to survive.

Golden Retriever - 1912

I'm completely confused. When did hydrocephalus become
a desirable trait?
Golden Retriever - 2013

This became the mantra for the Victorian era, justifying the suffering of the poor because they were unfit for a better life. Form became more important than function.

I know, I know, what does this have to do with dogs, or better yet, horses? Bear with me, I’m moseying down a trail here that should take me full circle.

Labrador Retriever - 1908

Show Labrador Retriever - 2013

Here's an interesting twist. In order to still be able to use Labs for hunting, they are breeding these.
Champion Field Labrador - 2013

During this same time, those wily Victorians created dog shows. Imagine how exciting it was to find out how easy it was to create breeds with in the breeds. New breeds sprang up like crazy, along with rewards dependent on how each breed met a criteria based on looks.

Basset Hound - 1900

Basset Hound 2013

This was a perfect forum to prove the rightness of class distinction. If it was pretty and cost a lot of money, it was better.

Boxer - 1900

Boxer - 2013

We haven’t quick messing with our breeds since. It is almost impossible to find a breed that looks anything like it's forefathers. We tweak, and mess around and in the process have created dogs that can't hunt, dogs that don't guard, dogs that won't herd and dogs can't breath, walk, or live for more than eight years without cancer.

Rough Collie - 1878

Rough Collie - 1910

This deaf and blind blue merle collie sired, not one,but two of the collies
in this years Westminster Dog Show, including the winner.
He is what is throwing the current, desired collie.

Personally, I’m thinking we are all nuts.

There is another theory on the evolution of dogs gaining momentum.
The thought is that dogs did not evolve from wolves, but from dogs, a species in themselves.
Even though dogs share 98.8 of their DNA with wolves, there are differences the science guys can't quite sort out.
One is that dogs and wolves don't cross breed by choice. Yes, it happens, but at a very low percentage.
Another point, the one that peaked my interest, is that when dogs are allowed to breed without human intervention, they turn into these:

Not these:

I'm not even going there. My poor head is banging. I'm sticking to my original thought though, we had better hope we still have some of those pariah dogs around when all our careful, responsible breeding collapses like a St. Bernard with advanced hip displasia. If we keep it up, we're going to have to start over.

What Happens When We Butt Out

2013-03-26T11:39:00.002-06:00

I love the thought going into the comments.

At this point, I don't have prepared answers, my opinions jump back and forth, but I'm sure coming up with some interesting observations and the input from the comments are adding fuel to the fire.

Once the dog/wolf decided to commit to a partnership with humans and being just a dog, the changes just kept on coming.

Humans spread across the world, in spite of being weak, slow and, compared to most other mammals, pretty much naked. Our big brains and adaptability saved us. We relied on reason and thought over instinct and strength and it proved to be a success. We also used our dogs. There are theories out there supporting the idea that dogs are what secured the success of the human race.

When people adapted to colder climes with sealskin boots, blubber and polar bear zoot suits, their dogs grew hair and curly tails. The fluffy, curly tails made it easy for mushers to keep track of their team. At night, when the pack curled up to sleep, the tail provided a face warmer for the dogs noses against the cold.

Dogs helped on the hunt. Some became fine trackers, calling out as they went, so their slower people could find them. Some showed the where the game was by freezing and pointing, "Here, you big Dummy, right here!"

As sheep and cattle were domesticated, dogs learned to gather and guard them. They did everything they could to help their humans. In gratitude, many cultures ate them. Obviously, culling the troublemakers continued.

The years passed. Dogs continued as our faithful companions. They evolved in sync with our needs.
Dogs weren't spayed or neutered, they just did their own thing. They evolved in two ways, through survival of the fittest and survival by figuring out what we needed.

There are a few parts of the world with truly primitive breeds of dogs. Dogs which have not been changed by the deliberate hand of man, but became who they were on their own.

Indian Pariah Dog
8000 BC

Australian Dingo
5000 BC

New Guinea Singing Dog
3500 BC

Afrikanis Dog - 4700 BC

Potcake Dog
Bahamas

All of these dogs evolved trough natural selection. No matter where they come from they seem to always be well proportioned, black and tan dogs with primarily crop ears and short coats. Reading up on each breed told me they are healthy, pretty much free of genetic weaknesses or illness and long lived.

These dogs look like variations of the same breed.

If we had simply stayed out of controlled breeding is this what all dogs would look like?

In the colder regions, dogs looked like this.

Siberian dogs might have had longer hair, but they pretty much look like fluffy versions of the other ones.

Don't get me wrong, this wasn't the only type primitive dog, but natural selection does seem to produce a specific type of dog when left to its own devices.

While I was searching for primitive breeds, I looked at the dogs raised as meat in other cultures and had a bit of a shock.

Yes, these dogs are somebody's dinner.

This one is being bid on...to eat.

These dogs breed at random. I guess it is close to natural selection, since they are prey and not vaccinated or assisted. There are actual meat dog facilities, set up much like our puppy mills. There is a new trend to cross St. Bernards and Great Danes into the meat dogs, they grow fast and provide more meat in a shorter amount of time.

Excuse me for wandering off track, my actual point is, look how much the meat dogs look like the primitives.
I can't help but wonder if this type of dog emerges every time dogs are allowed to breed at random.

Here in the USA the closest we have to natural selection are the reservation dogs. You want to read about what happens when dog breeding isn't controlled in any way, just read a little about these populations.

While I was looking at the feral population on the reservations, I could clearly recognize breed crosses.Pit bulls, border collies and labs seem predominant. BUT...when I scoped out the mutts. The your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine dogs, they turned into some very recognizable dogs.

Give him another generation or two...

It seems to me, without our interference, dogs would all pretty much look the same. Sure, they would evolve and change with their climate and our needs, but if you give them twenty generations or so, they head right back to prehistoric times. Those primitive breeds have the same appeal as the newer models, they have pretty faces, eyes that talk right to me, nice hair coats and size.

I wonder if we were more appealing back then too.

Diving Into the Gene Pool

2013-03-23T09:57:00.000-06:00

Wait! I can't stop!

You guys are now getting a peek into Mugs tightly, yet so loosely wound brain.

This subject, which began as a leisurely wagon train of thought has evolved into a steam engine with a cowcatcher in the front.

Some call me obsessive, I consider it curiosity.

This subject is really grabbing me by the throat and giving me a shake.

Mustardly, I think we may be kindred spirits, we certainly have a similar take on things.

Part of my train of thought -- combined with the thoughtful blogger input-- has really got me looking at this breeding deal we humans are so caught up in.

So hang in there, I may be ~~obsessing~~ dwelling on this subject for a while. It’s fascinating me.

I’m studying dogs over horses right now, because the development of the dog has been so fast and so varied it’s easier to look at. My eyes have also been opened even further on the subject of how big the human ego is and what flaming idiots we actually are.

I’m looking at horses too, I’m just not ready to write on them quite yet.

Paleontologists have pretty much agreed that when dogs first decided to hook up with humans, they were man-friendly wolves. Or, at least, they liked the trash we spewed all over the country-side enough to tolerate our presence.

Whether we talked wolves into not eating us by feeding them some juicy bits of Bar-B-Q, or they quit eating us because they couldn’t crack the recipe for our yak rib rub, we’ll probably never know for sure. The thing is, as soon as we partnered up, the wolves began to change.

From the first tail wag at the sight of a new steaming pile of human refuse, wolf/dogs started to work for us, play with us, guard our homes and turn into pleasing shapes, sizes and colors.

When did we, the human race, begin to breed dogs for a specific purpose?

My guess would be when Urg, the matriarch of the Ug Clan, realized the wolf/dogs with the white spot on their chest were the least likely to stalk her children after they dumped the trash. Being a straightforward and protective kind of gal, Urg began to club all the wolf/dogs without a white spot. A few wolf/dog generations later, her kids could walk to the dump site without an armed entourage.

A short time later, her mate, Og, came home with a litter of pups he had found. He thought the white feet and muzzles were pretty and the big brown puppy eyes were cuter than the little yellow eyes most of the other wolf/dogs had.

Urg and Ogs children played with the pups, and as they grew, some of the pups became cranky and grabby and bit the kids. Urg immediately solved the problem with her club. The remaining pups were either smart enough to not bite the kids and stay cute, or so dumb they stayed juveniles - cute and cuddly on into adulthood.

So began the human practice of culling and the evolution of the dog/wolf continued.

"Oh. Look at dey Kyuut Bebbis...." Og said.

As humanity expanded and developed, so did their dog/wolf buddies. I don't know about you guys, but y dogs spend most of their spare time trying to figure out how to get in my bed. If they manage that, they start working on getting under the covers. If that works out, they want to curl up as close as possible, better yet if it's between me and my husband.

My personal theory is that this is one of the very first unique dog traits. To never be satisfied until we wear them like skin.

Poor dog/wolf! If he had thought things through, he would have known that for every new deal struck with humanity, a high price is eventually paid. Now that we were hanging 24/7 it opened the door for even more selection on the part of Urg and Og and less say so on the Dog/Wolf's side.

When Og noticed some of the dog/wolves chose to accompany him on hunting trips, he held back two who seemed to find the most game. They produced pups who found game too. Some of them were just as talented as their parents and some were better. Some were no good at all.

While Og was out hunting, Urg noticed some of the dog/wolves who had stayed behind, came with her when she went carb gathering. These dog/wolves protected her from the other animals who still had no problem eating humans. When she came home, she found a few more guarding and playing with the children.

Once the mighty hunter returned, Og and Urg had a conversation. Within moments, Urg's club was swinging and the only dog/wolves left were the protectors, the players and the hunters. The pups were tested and if they weren't an improvement on their parents, well, you know. Urg and Og were now in the breeding business. The resulting Ug's High and Lo Carb Kennels became the It Spot of the steppes.

The Ug's weren't completely successful with their culling. Some of the dog/wolves were too smart or too fast to be felled by Urg's mighty club. These dogs not only continued to hang around the dump site, they periodically bred with the Hi and Lo Carb dogs.

When the quick thinking Urg realized the resulting pups made the Hi and Lo Carbs even better, she began to lure the smartest and fastest in with lots of Bar-B-Q. Once they made friends, she promptly evaluated and culled them too. So began OC training.

Tune in for more of Mugs look at the development of human ~~interference~~ breeding practices next week.......

Purebreds and Crosses to Bear

2013-03-21T10:01:00.001-06:00

Pintabian Stallion, $10,000
OK. He's pretty bad, this proven, homozygous, pointy-butted mess.
The only thing he's proven is he throws 100% color. He might be a cute gelding, I guess.

Yesterday I wrote about coming out of the Krazy Kolor Klozet.

Some of you fell into the "Old Krazy Kolors Bad! Only Plain Jane's Good!" trap.

Silly people. Don't you know me by now? I was laying the ground for the subject I'm REALLY thinking about. I'm a tad disappointed you mustangs didn't smell the bait trap before you galloped on in.

If you truly read what I wrote, I just said I like pretty colors and lots of hair. I never, ever mentioned breeding, in the backyard or for color. Not once.

I have been thinking about breeding though.

I've been reading the coolest book, "Dogs, Describes in a Practical Manner the Training, Handling, Treatment, Breeds, Etc., Best Adapted for Night Hunting as Well as Gun Dogs for Daylight Sport," by Oliver Hartley - first printed in 1909.

Despite it's wordy title, this book is short and to the point. It's the approach a respected hunting dog owner took to breeding his dogs.

I learned an approach to breeding that made SO MUCH SENSE, I was blown away.

Hartley bred his dogs for his own use. He knew what he liked in a hunting dog and that's what he bred for.

He set his basic need. He wanted a dog to stay on track, bay when it treed or cornered the prey, and stay there until he got there.

Rabbit dogs were bred to hunt rabbits.

Squirrel and coon dogs were bred to hunt those.

Deer dogs were bred to hunt deer and so on.

So. He would take a purebred foxhound and cross it with, say a collie, to hunt deer.

Maybe beagle and foxhound for rabbit.

The neighbors good mongrel coon dog and foxhound for raccoon an squirrel.

His years as a hunter told him what he needed and he bred that. He did like foxhounds, but not in their pure form, unless he was hunting fox.

This wasn't an unusual concept back then. It was pretty standard. Dogs were bred which were suited to do the job at hand. Conformation was developed along with, because if the dog didn't have big, strong claws and well developed legs he couldn't get up in the trees. If he didn't have the deep lungs needed for distance, it was crossed with another breed that did and so forth.

Purebred dogs weren't considered the holy grail, they were just a solid, reliable ingredient.

He didn't call them designer dogs, he didn't fight about bloodlines, he just bred the dog he needed.

His approach wasn't unusual, because he talked about other hunters preferences and why they bred differently than he did.

This really got me thinking. Before the first Westminster Dog Show in 1877, there really weren't that many dog breeds. In the last 150 years the dog has become the most varied mammal in the world.

Those crazy Victorians took all that suppressed sexual energy and started creating dog breeds. Then they started showing them at dog shows.Around 1870, kennel clubs were established in the United States and Britain and stud books were created and closed.

Pre-dog shows, breeds were divided in groups.Pointers were a breed, setters were a breed, spaniels were a breed and so forth.These dogs were defined by form an function. Post dog shows, these groups were divided by type and defined by parentage.So instead of pointers, you had Vizslas, German Short hairs and Weimaraners.

Dog shows were primarily about looks. How the ear curved, how far the jowls hung, what color they were, and so forth. What didn't matter was how brave a guard dog they had, how sharp their sheep dogs were, or how sensitive the nose on their hunting dogs. What mattered was if the dog fit the visual standard created by the dog clubs.

Writings about animal breeding from the late 1800's to the early 1900's are full of demands to "eliminate the weaklings and invigorate the race by maintaining the purity of its blood. How creepy is that?

Leon Fradley, a renowned and respected dog expert of the times wrote The Complete Book of Dog Care, This is the Ccker Spaniel, Bloodhounds and How to train Them and How to Breed Dogs. He also wrote The Case for Sterilization, expressing his belief in the benefits of eugenics (essentially "line-breeding" people to create desired traits). Are we creeped out yet? The guy even got a fan letter from, yeppers, you guessed it, Hitler.

Once we started breeding for form instead of function, all kinds of crazy things began to happen.

Being people, we couldn't be happy by screwing up dogs. We had to expand to horses. we weren't breeding for looks, not just yet, but we were certainly changing the way horses looked while we changed the way they rode.

Thoroughbreds were fast, but we needed them faster, because horse racing is the Sport of Kings. Originally, the majority of the preeminent stallions and mares were controlled by some of the oldest established families in the US – the Whitneys and Woodwards, the Bradleys and Wideners and the Klebergs and the Mellons. A fundamental rule that these families abided by was to improve the breed from a practical standpoint, speed, stamina and soundness.

Ultimately, theses solid breeders lost control and breeders began to focus on speed alone. The trouble started with the immortal Native Dancer. The beautiful gray horse retired with 21 wins out of 22 starts. He retired early, by the time he was four, because of a chronic inflammation in his ankles. Native Dancer had developed osselets (bony growths).

After retirement, Native Dancer became one of the most influential studs in Thoroughbred history. Today, almost 75% of Thoroughbreds trace back to him. He passed on his speed, and also his weak ankles. Every year, the Thoroughbred has become more fragile, with the incidence of breaking down becoming higher.

The Quarter Horse Industry has taken some blows too. Personally, I think we deserve it. Tell me these horses are examples of the same breed.

AQHA Cutting Horse - all grown up and ready to show
14hh and 750 lbs.

AQHA Halter Horse - 16hh and 1300 lbs.

I'm sorry, but ew.

AQHA pleasure horse - 16hh, 900 lbs

I am so confused.

AQHA has allowed so much screwing around, our QH's don't even come close to looking like the horse originally recognized as a breed in the 1940's.

People started dipping their sticky little fingers into breeding animals with no understanding of genetics. The more we learn, the deeper in epileptic dogs and cow horses with HERDA we're going to be. The worse part is, nobody seems to care much. Impressive bred horses are still spitting out babies with HYPP. Thoroughbred horses are considered so disposable they only have to win a few races to be a success. Who cares if they're crippled as a three-year-old?

None of these horses were bred for color. They were bred for speed, muscle, pretty gaits and cat-like turns. Look where it got them.

This is where all this studying and thinking has brought me. Back in 1909, Hartley didn't think about shows, blood lines or back yard breeding. He hunted and knew what he wanted. He believed in breeding for ability and had no problem crossing breeds to get what he was looking for.

If we pass enough laws to eliminate indiscriminate breeding we could eventually weed out the mutts and scrub fuglies we see on Craigslist. Of course then we would have to buy from "responsible" breeders.
Look where responsible breeding has gotten us. Dogs who have brains to big for their skulls, horses whose skin falls off the first time they are saddled, blindness, deafness and early death. I can't wait for the day my only way to have a dog or horse is to buy one from a breeder. Not a neighbor with a small program who breeds animals he deems useful, those folks will be considered backyard breeders and shut down. Wont be able to pick up a pup from a local rancher's good cowdog either. She was required by law to be spayed, since she wasn't registered.

Eventually we might figure out we can't breed for any one, specific thing, because you never get just the one. If you breed for speed, you get shattered ankles, breed for cow sense and you get a pony with birdy bones.
Breed for a gorgeous red coat and get a barking dumb blonde joke. Every trait comes with some others we don't know about.

I can't help but think we'd better hope some of those BYB's hang around, and there are still some irresponsible people in the world who don't spay and neuter. We'd better pray there's a pintwalkogoosa or two still around. It seems to me we're going to need those mish-mashed bloodlines some day, and we'd better hope nobody with sense bred them.

Coming Out of the Krazy Kolor Klozet

2013-03-20T06:48:00.001-06:00

I'm 'fessing up. I like those krazy kolors. I just can't help it.

I mean, c'mon, you knew I had a problem, right?

Who wouldn't want this horse?

Or this one?

And a lonely little girl knew exactly which dog would fix everything.

Well, maybe this one...

So I grow up, a big ol' struttin' horse trainer, with lots of theories and sage advice....practical and realistic about what it takes to be a kind and educated horse owner. Preaching the philosophy, "We need to be color blind, a good horse is a good horse, no matter what color they are."

Yet these are the horses I decide to retire with.

...and here is my dog....

Mighty suspicious is all I can say.

So I'm going to come clean. Below, is a Walkaloosa. I think he's awesome. I like his spots and I like the idea of riding his lovely gaits on a trail. Maybe an endurance ride, or a sun dappled path on a trip through the Rockies.

How about a Paintaloosa? Tell me this horse is not the coolest thing you've ever seen, and I'll yell "Pants on Fire!"

This farm, http://www.dreamfriesians.com/, doesn't even try to apologize, I say, "Good for you!"

They have one of every sparkly, flowy haired breed there is and they like to play mix'n match.

This is a Friesian crossed with an APHA, head hanging, weird Western- hunter type horse.
I like what happened with that cross. I think it produced a flashy, yet useful a animal.

Appaloosa/Friesian cross anyone?

How about hair? We can go ahead and be honest about loving the hair.

Here is lots of hair for you, plus some Krazy Kolor too.
Want to know a secret?
About six years ago, I helped an area trainer break out several, newly imported, just out of
quarantine, Gypsy Vanners. They were lovely, every single one of them. Good minded,
people oriented, smooth, to die for gaits, and easy, easy, easy to start.
They also had broad, cushy backs....

Just in case your dream was to play Sheena of the jungle.
Becky Bean and I decided the realistic way to own them would be to be wealthy enough to hire
"feather washers."
Not only did this thought inspire us to keep writing, it also made us wonder how "Head feather washer," would look on a resume.
My favorite, fantasy, dream horse?
Here he is.
He's mine, don't touch him.

Yep. He's red. Flaxen mane. Lusitano. Why?
Because he's a fairy princess horse who can work cows, that's why.

Ignore the fact that the first, and most influential horse movie in my life,
My Friend Flicka,
(the REAL one)
featured a lovely sorrel filly with a flaxen mane and tail,
who's heart could only be tamed,
by an awkward, spacey, lonely little kid,
just like me.

Mouthy Monday

2013-03-18T06:32:00.004-06:00

Russinka wrote in, a long time reader who had a story to share. She was unsure of her writing -- which I thought was quite strong -- I am so glad she didn't decide not to send it.

How many of us have had horses drag us up from the dark? Sometimes I think about how many troubled souls have kept their footing because of a good horse. Why are so many of us trapped in our minds attracted to horses?

Of course then I think, how sad is it more of us can't find horses and the benefit of soft, sweet, hay scented breath whuffing our cheek on a cold winter day.

Thanks Russinka

Jimmy

Ruby - 28 years

I hope to hell that my parents never discover just how much they owe my horses.

Mostly because it’ll mean yet another councillor type person poking around in my head for the next six months, putting band aids on my mental wounds before the sessions get shorter and further apart. In twelve they’ll have stopped altogether, in eighteen months the band aids will have fallen off leaving the unhealed marks behind and I’ll be in another dark place with no one I trust to lead me out it.

Multiple councillors have taught me that I can’t trust them. Partly because I seem open and honest enough that they never dig any deeper than the surface and partly because in the beginning I don’t trust them enough offer much more than the surface scratchings.

Though to be fair I don’t think that the first three honestly thought that a girl my age (eight, ten and twelve respectively) would actually consider killing herself. Especially one who, aside from being bullied at school, grew up in a loving family environment with lots of support from her parents (who were shielded from most of what went on).

I was that awkward horsey girl who had no friends and desperately wanted to fit in but lacked the social skills to do it. Horses were the only thing that kept me going in that time, a once a week lesson with the daughter of one of my father’s friends was my only bright spot.

I couldn’t stop the other children from hating me or the dark clouds which often came over me but I could make Pancho like me with a few carrots and scratch behind the ear. On his back I could chase the clouds away, even going at his slowest riding-school-horse walk. It was the closest thing I’d had to total serenity even when he was being a naughty pony.

The lessons stopped about a year after they had started. Pancho was getting old and his owners had decided that it was time to retire him. The girl who was teaching me had a very green anglo-arab and a very old retired mare. There was nothing for me to ride and because my parents could barely spare the ten dollars a week they paid for my lessons as it was a professional riding school was out.

I retreated into books after that, mostly horsey and a bit of fantasy. The library was my safe haven. Somewhere to escape the cruel playground and somewhere to (sort of) connect the horses I’d lost. The bullying got worse and a little before my ninth birthday I started to think that I’d be better off dead.

Anything to make it stop. At that age I didn’t know much about death; only that the family pets whose bodies I’d seen looked peaceful and calm, in a kind of permanent sleep. I craved that. I plotted ways of going about it and I wrote goodbye notes which were hidden in my desk draw, the only place my Mother would never go into when she cleaned my room.

And then one day my father made me promise that I hope he will never know saved my life because I have no doubt that I would have gone through with it. He promised me a horse; a horse of my very own before my fifteenth birthday. It gave me something to work towards; all I had to do was hold on until then because my father never broke his promises. If he said I’d have a horse then I’d have a horse.

I began to see the bullies in a whole new light, I was still terrified of them and the violence they subjected me to but they were standing between me and my horse.

It became a power play between them and I, even if they didn’t know it. I convinced myself that I could handle anything they threw at me. It sort of worked, their words stopped meaning so much and weren’t as painful as they had once been but their punches, kicks and scratches combined with the new exclusion policy they’d adopted hurt more than ever.

The storm clouds were also gathering and they weren’t so easy to chase away. Many nights I’d sob myself to sleep without even knowing why. Sometimes my mother would hear me crying and come to sooth me to sleep. She’d ask what the problem was and I, not knowing what to tell her, would mention some small incident that had happened at school that day.

I survived primary school and started secondary school with the storm clouds and horses making occasional visits into my life. Fortnightly lessons at a local riding school started then stopped by my own choice after one of the instructors broke her ankle in an accident that could have been avoided if she hadn’t been riding a breaker while leading a trail ride with a bunch of novice kids on ponies. I stole rides on friend’s horses.

My fifteenth birthday was at a time when I was pretty close to being happy, there were no clouds and the boys who gave me hell the year before were too busy staring at my new boobs to be harassing me. My fellow year nine girls were too busy chasing year ten boys to care that the boys were slightly interested.

It was probably just as well that I was happy as no horse arrived. I was disappointed but not as broken as I could have been. I guess I thought I’d beaten both the bullies and the clouds.

An old shuffling stockhorse mare wandered into my life a few months later. Ruby turned out to be a registered thoroughbred that also had Australian stock horse papers and was four years older than advertised. Like many slightly skinny horses, once the good feed was poured into her and her feet were trimmed, she became a fire cracker under saddle and wasn’t really suitable for a novice.

I stopped riding her. A few nasty falls put paid to my gung-ho attitude with horses and by that point in time I wasn’t mentally capable of riding anyway.

During the storms of my younger years the idea of owning a horse had made me get up in the morning and walk out into them. I was normally mentally soaked to the bone, had been zapped by lightning and struggled to make myself walk into them. The storms after I got Ruby were different. It was like having a rain coat, I couldn’t stop the storms or make it rain less but I didn’t get as wet and it was easier to walk in them. I had a proper reason to drag myself into the outside world and get up in the morning.

The fifteen minutes I spent feeding her in the morning would give me enough strength to get to school. What happened after I got there didn’t matter. It only mattered that I’d made it there.

The half an hour in the evening was enough to recharge me after school. In spite of what my Mother might say about her being a useless old freeloader (Rubes just turned twenty eight and is very happy as a paddock ornament) she gave me sanity and a dry place to stand when I couldn’t even trust my own mind. When the time comes I’ll return the favour by making sure she goes with the dignity she deserves.

Ruby isn’t the only horse who kept me functioning during the bad weather that infected my brain. Missy, Red, Harley, Folly and Tame (whose only good quality was that he led me to end up with Jimmy) all had their fair share of tears in their manes and a desire to survive whispered in their ears.

I’ve currently got Jimmy, a 16yo Standardbred gelding. For the most part he doesn’t like being cuddled, fussed over and is perfectly happy if hay is thrown at him twice a day with a small hard feed. He does however seem to know when I’m struggling with it all and then he’ll become a second shadow, barely letting me out of his sight.

I’m currently battling my way through a diploma course which I hate, surrounded by a bunch of bitchy girls who hate me and the darkness is once again lapping at my heels. I’ve got my little bay horse to help me keep it away this time and I think for the time being I’m going to be ok. Ruby might have given me shelter from the storms but Jimmy gives me a reason to fight my way through them.

Come the summer the course will be over, I’ll hopefully be ready to ride again and there is a forty kilometre training ride with our names on it in the New Year. It won’t be all sunshine and rainbows but there’ll be enough to balance out the storms. I’ll be happy with that.

Brockle Update - My Chops are Busted Yet Again.

2013-03-15T07:06:00.000-06:00

Before we start - How many of the current or potential Mugs/Big K Clinic participants have had this thought run through their mind?
"Wait, I'm meeting all these bloggers face to face? I have got to lose some weight!"
Yeah, me too.

Life is so complex, so confusing and such a friggin' day to day test.

I'm telling you though, the older I get, the more trials that are presented and the more tests I survive, the clearer the big picture is.

Brockle is a perfect example.

He is a brilliant, loyal, hard-working, total pain-in-the-ass.

I am working with a pretty hard-core (as in serious and accomplished, not mean) dog trainer. I'm not going to out him yet. I'm protective of the people willing to go out on a limb to help me. Plus, I'm still studying, listening, learning. You guys know me well enough by now, I absorb the whole experience. If I begin to study with a pro I do what they ask without question. I'll go home, think about things, practice things, then go back with my questions. I want to make sure they have a point and don't come from my own emotions.

This way, the trainers I work with become very open and willing to discuss theory with me. Once I've got the theory, I can analyze technique within the parameters of what I'm being given. If I find myself fundamentally disagreeing with a theory, I'll start working on a new one. If I agree with the theory, but am struggling with some of the steps taken to get there, well, I'm not going to quit on the concept. I will however, try to get the same results with a different approach.

Also, I don't want to waste my $$ telling someone I'm paying MY theories. I'm there to learn his. And his technique. And timing. I am there to pick his brain.

I'm not an easy student (ask Big K), I watch, ask, think, ask, practice, ask, make the poor trainers head ache with analyzing everything and anything...but I'm polite. I also bring beer.

Brockle is benefiting enormously, even at these early stages.

So, I'm not introducing my dog trainer yet, I will when I'm a little further in.

Now back to Brockle. He has learned the way to get me moving and doing chores (feeding the dogs being one of them) in the morning is to wake up Snocone. You see, once Snocone wakes up, I immediately take her outside, because if I don't, her little Mill Dog self pees on the floor. Then, because it's reasonable to start chores, I do.

Brockle used to go bug Jim, but he got yelled at (by Jim) and locked out of the bedroom.
So he quit that and moved on to Snocone. She yells at him too, but then has to pee. I have to take her, because she doesn't quite get the doggie door concept. Brockle wins.

This gets more complex. Brockle knows if he wakes her too early I'll just take her out, come back and start writing again. So he doesn't wake her until it's reasonably close to feeding time. Both Snocone and I resent the hell out of this BTW.

He learned to open the windows in the car. He only opens his window. So now I keep them locked.

We don't play in the house. He's too big, Jim and I have shaky balance, there are a lot of dogs in here, so we don't play.

Brockle will get his ball out of my coat pocket and very quietly play bounce/catch by himself in the other room. Tell me this isn't smart.

He also puts toys he wishes we could play with inside the house in my coat pocket or my walking shoes.

Charlie, my honorable rat terrier, is not the bully in their relationship, Brockle is. I'm relieved. Charlie has always been serious and thinks he needs to add his opinion to every dog interaction, but I've never thought of him as a bully.

I told my dog trainer guy about the aggressive play-fighting that goes on between them.
He said, "Brockle is pushing him around, Charlie is responding. So Brockle gets the "Off" command and Charlie gets "Good Dog!" Brockle is being a brat and a bully. He only gets a "Good Off" if he actually listens listen to my "Off" and leaves Charlie alone. Which is beginning to happen.

So here's the biggest eye-opener I have been given with this dog training gig.

If I anticipate and try to avoid problems with Brockle, I am not successful in communicating what I want.
If I assume everything will be perfect, give plenty of room for mistakes,and don't hang on too tight, I get my message across very quickly.

This is what I've been fighting with the horses and my riding/training abilities for years.

I hold, I fidget, I anticipate problems. Then I get everything I was inadvertently asking for, fidgets, setting against the bridle and my legs, and every single issue I thought I saw coming. Dang it. K will think this is so funny.

On my horses, instead of thinking ahead about where I'm going to turn my cow, or how nice the sun will feel when we make the ridge on our trail, I'm thinking about too much speed through the corner, the way Madonna's ears pricked at the big scary cement blocks...and I end up dragging her down in the arena and getting a big fat spook at the cement blocks.

With the dogs, when I see another dog coming, my reaction is to tighten my grip, keep looking at the dog and his owner, and try to read what could go wrong so I can prevent it. I get the old lunge and drag every time.

When I relax, look ahead, assume Brockle will be good and just get on with things, he's just about perfect.

When I ran into trouble with my high-school age daughter, I clamped down hard. We switched from a bosal to a mechanical hackamore, and I held those roping reins in a death grip. She sucked back hard and bucked even harder. Oh, wait, I'm talking about the kidlette...ah, same difference.

Once I sighed, found my center and let her go, well, I got her back.

My life right now makes me desperate to find some element of control in the middle of all this chaos.
I bet I'll get a handle on it if I remember to keep my reins loose, my legs logical and to keep thinking forward.

Keep the feet moving, leave the head alone and always have my forward.

It seems so simple. Who knew?

Mort and the Dog Pack

2013-03-12T09:25:00.000-06:00

In the 1970's, Colorado Springs was a rapidly growing, up and coming city. It still had a population under 300,000 and was surrounded by open grassland and working ranches. I lived on the outskirts, on the northeast side, in a brand spanking new example of urban sprawl, Village Seven.

If Mort and I crossed about 8 miles of prairie, picked up Templeton Gap Road and headed due north for another 4 or 5 miles, I would be in my ultimate fantasy land, Black Forest. It contained everything a girl could want, my riding club, a hot boyfriend and miles of gorgeous horse property buried in a deep forest.
It was out in the country, but still tame enough to not completely intimidate a wild-haired suburban girl rampaging through life on her first horse.

Colorado Springs is primarily built in the prairie and butts up against the foothills of the Rockies. The Black Forest is part of a 1000 miles of scarce timber that trickles down from Divide. It had recently been broken up into parcels of a minimum of five acres and filled with horses, horses and more horses. There were people and houses too, but I was a teenager and didn't care about that stuff. Once romance entered my life, it wasn't unusual for me to make the trek to the dark line of trees crossing the horizon.

I loved riding in "The Forest." There were horse trails everywhere, following the mandatory easements between properties. Cruising through the deep shade on a hot summer afternoon, with Mort flying along in his ground eating trot, was life at its finest. The ground was level, soft and deep with pine needles, not steep and rocky like our Palmer Park, and the stands of mixed conifer forest were tall and thick, instead of the grudging pinons and junipers I was used to.

That sunny afternoon we met a surprising danger on those trails - dogs.

Any rider who has spent enough time riding outside an arena has encountered them. Dogs love to bark at horses. They like to try to make them run and nip at their heels if they do. They can scare the crap out of a horse and the rider too. Dogs think they are pretty damn funny sometimes.

Mort and I had a pretty good defense. While my rangy gelding tolerated our dogs at home, he became savage if he was bothered by dogs which hadn't received his personal stamp of approval.

I had learned to confront loose dogs head on, at least I learned to sit deep and grab some mane, Mort was the one who knew to turned on our loud mouthed attackers. I soon realized most loose dogs were quick to scoot back home when we spun and Mort charged, his front legs and teeth flashing with intent.

One sunny, late summer afternoon we were taking our time along the shadowy trails. It was cool under the trees and I wasn't in any particular hurry to end my ride, having nothing more important to do than flirt with the boyfriend. In my infinite horse girl wisdom, I thought I'd look pretty bitchin' trotting bareback up the road to the boyfriends house in my cut-offs and a halter top. We ducked under the trees about a quarter mile from his street and I noticed I was looking and stinking about as horse-sweat sticky as I felt.

"Nothing says romance like the smell of hot horse, fly spray and day-old girlfriend, huh Mort?"

Mort snorted, loud and booger loaded, but I took it with a grain of salt. He wasn't impressed with me finally finding my hormones. I wasn't riding as much, and he spent way too much time hitched to fence posts at various strange places, waiting for me to show up, rumpled and breathless, from my latest clandestine meeting with "that boy."

Of course it was Mort's own damn fault. He wouldn't tolerate long trail rides carrying us double and distracted. After he had dumped us, first with a buck, again with a bolt into a goat shed, and finally scraped us off on a low lying limb, he got to stand tied.

I picked up my legs, one after the other and it felt like they'd been glued to the vinyl front seat of a locked car in July -- and a hairy one at that. I gazed at the thick line of goopy muck and horse hair stuck to the inside of my leg, knowing it made a perfect horseshoe across my butt and down the other leg. Oh yeah, I was smokin' all right. My Jon Boy's brick house. Sheesh.

It wasn't hard to decide to meander through the woods and at least cool down enough so my crazy hair could dry. When I got all sweaty it stuck flat to my head from part to ears, then sprung in wild, frizzy coils straight for the sky. The stubborn curls would tangle too tight to let me drag my fingers through it. I always ended up with double handfuls of damp snarls. If I flipped my head upside down and gave my scalp a good scrubbing, right before it was dry, sometimes I could get a semblance of the wind tossed curls I wanted.

Waiting to dry out a bit also gave me a chance to scrub some of the dried salt from my temples and let the half moons of embarrassing boob sweat dry.Then maybe, if I offered to let him hose me off at the spigot, the boyfriend wouldn't notice I had also forgotten to shave my legs. One could always hope.

Lost in my musing, I got a half-second of air time when Mort spooked and spun to the left and barely managed to keep my seat. I grabbed a handful of sparse mane and centered myself, leaning forward to squint into the shadowy ground under the trees. He was tense, veins popping on his neck, his legs and back so tight we rose a couple of inches in the air.

A pair of golden eyes and the wide grinning mouth of a chow mix poked his big head and powerful shoulders through a tangle of scrub oak and weeds. We squared off, but the look in the dogs eyes made me hesitate.
His eyes were cool and calculating, not the usual goofy, barking, "Hey guys, watch what I can do!" I was used to seeing in trouble-seeking dogs.

He was thin, matted and muscled. He was serious.

I heard a rustle behind us. An eager shepherd mix and a beagle made their presence known. Lots of barking and howling going on. We spun around and faced them. Mort took one look at their excited, goofy faces and spun back to keep an eye on the chow-thing. He had moved forward a few paces and was joined by two more dogs.

There had been a story circulating all summer, comprised of sightings, rumor and dead farm animals. In the Black Forest area, a pack of dogs were attacking, killing and partially eating goats sheep, foals, calves and area dogs in broad daylight.

It was out of the Humane Society's jurisdiction and the county sheriff had been unable to find this mysterious pack of dogs. Newspaper accounts told of anywhere between four and fifty dogs. Theories abounded - these were coy-dogs, or attack dogs turned loose by an unethical owner. Maybe they were rabid, or strays, dumped by city-folk who assumed the dogs would find a "good country home." Nobody had a solid description.

The fact was, there was a trail of dead goats, sheep and chickens. There were a few wounded horses, a partially eaten new-born foal, and some cattle, bitten and run through fences. Some of the animals were eaten, some were chewed up, some were just dead. Nobody seemed to be able to get a handle on where the dogs were. The newspapers hinted it was a bunch of baloney. They labeled them "Ghost Dogs."

Turned out the dogs were certainly real, Mort and I were making their acquaintance.

I didn't know how many, it seemed to me, there were a lot of damn dogs. I heard the clink of dog tags and saw too many well groomed and fed critters to think these were all mangy strays.

Truth be told, I didn't have enough time for more observation. Mort and the chow thing had decided it was time to parlay.

Mort went after the big dog hard, his head was low and snaky and his front legs were pounding the ground, intent on mowing him down. Chow-thing came to meet us, then feinted off to the side. Mort grunted and hesitated for a split second. The cacophony rose around us and several more dogs closed in. Mort squealed in anger and fear, and I felt more than saw a dog leap at my legs.

I heard a dog scream when Mort threw out a double barreled kick with his back legs, but had no time to look, he gathered and leaped forward towards Chow-thing. We didn't stick around to deal with the dogs. This time he ended up plowing right over the top of Chow-thing and smashing him hard into the ground. Then we ran.

We shot through the woods and towards the boyfriend's house. The dogs followed for a few yards, but didn't leave the safety of the trees. We flew up the road and skidded into the boyfriends yard like hell itself was on our heels. He came from the garage, followed by his Dad, wiping his hands on an oily rag. Even in my panic it registered this must be a car repair day.

"You're bleeding," He said and offered a hand so I could slide to the ground. I ignored the hand and jumped down to inspect Mort. He had a tear over a tendon on his back leg and a solid bite on his shoulder.

"Got to meet the damn Ghost Dogs," I said, talking tough to cover my panic.

The boyfriends dad went to call the sheriff and boyfriend opened his arms wide in an unspoken offer of comfort. I side-stepped him, almost as neat as that effing chow-thing had and hugged Mort hard. He wrapped his neck around me and there I stayed until our shaking stopped.

epilogue:

The cut on my thigh proved to be from a tree branch. Good thing, or it would have been rabies shots for me.

Mort's wounds healed nicely and he was back to dog stomping in no time.

The county decided to temporarily ignore the law against firing a gun in housing areas, at least in Black Forest.. They also ignored complaints from owners whose dogs were shot if they were off their property.
It turned out the Ghost Dog pack was primarily caused by the flood of country-ignorant city folk buying up their five-acre piece of heaven. They left their much loved house dogs loose while they went to work. Perfect pets while their owners were home, they joined in with area strays to become the pack from hell from 9 to 5.

Several dogs were shot and killed over the next few years, but the killing of farm animals didn't stop until somebody nailed the big chow-mix. Nobody stepped in to rescue him, nobody declared him alpha, nobody screamed "breed prejudice." Somebody finally shot him though, and the roving, day-time dog pack was done. Poor dog. His brains and bravery got him killed. Whatever dumb bastard dumped him on the roadside was the one at fault. I don't think anybody shot him though.

I Am So Pissed

2013-03-11T12:38:00.000-06:00

I know, this is not my usual style.
But I am so mad.
People suck.
Here's their e-mail address.

dptqq-3669923243@comm.craigslist.org

CL > colo springs > all community > pets

dptqq-3669923243@comm.craigslist.org^[?]

Posted: 2013-03-09, 11:34AM MST

Hope to find a loving family for our long time pups!

(Colorado springs)

We have had Missy and Meeko from birth they're both Shitzus;

we brought them home when our children were very young. Our 6 children have

loved them for 10 years. But now they have all grown, and gone on their own way . . .

.and this poor old couple, spends most of their time, in their crate. . .

Would love to find a family that could spend some time with them. . .

Missy is the ultimate lap dog. . .she loves to lay around and watch Soaps..

and Meeko loves to play and he'll even dance for you. :0)

Please contact via email if interested, have a blessed day!

Location: Colorado springs
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Mouthy Monday

2013-03-04T10:29:00.001-07:00

Get out the big box of Kleenex.

This story comes from Courtney

Richard

The worst part about mucking stalls is that you have a lot of time to think. A lot of time to wonder,

“What if Richard hadn’t been up in that hayloft? What if the paramedics got there faster? Why

didn’t he use his arms to break the fall? When is he gonna come home again? Will he ever be

able to ride his horses again?”

Plenty of time to think, but the answers never come to me.

Richard is the husband of my trainer, Marj. She and my mom are the same age and are good

friends. Marj and Richard have both been horse people for decades. I have only just begun. I

have taken many lessons here with Marj and I still have a lot to learn.

I am mucking stalls today because Richard can’t. Almost two weeks ago he was working in the

barn with his son, and he suddenly fell from the hayloft. He’s been in a coma ever since. He goes

up into that hayloft every day, and has been for twenty years. What happened? With a barn full of

horses, I have plenty of stalls to muck and plenty of time to torture myself with questions and

what ifs.

Richard is one of those quiet guys. A man of few words but much wisdom. When he speaks,

you better listen because it’s gonna be important. But he is almost always smiling so you know

he isn’t the grumpy or unfriendly. He just doesn’t waste words.

This is even more true when he works with horses. I have never heard him say a single word to a horse. No “Hey's," no “No's," no “Giddyup's," nothing. And yet every horse knows exactly what is expected, and every horse listens to Richard. And respects him.

The barn is silent. But this isn’t the usual, comfortable silence of a barn full of content horses.

This is the silence of everyone holding their breath. The silence of all the horses knowing

something’s wrong. The sound of me flinging manure into the wheelbarrow is like thunder. But

it’s not loud enough to cover up the storm inside my head.

As I push the wheelbarrow to the next stall, it makes its trademark squeaking noise as we roll

down the aisle. I remember hearing this squeaking noise every evening last winter, when I was

here hand-walking my injured horse. It was under 20 degrees many nights, and this barn isn’t

heated. Richard was always there, bundled up in Carhartt, taking care of the horses without

complaint. He even hand-walked Zorro for me when the snow was so bad that I couldn’t make

the drive out to the barn. Marj was the one who told me about it, because Richard prefers to do

his good deeds quietly.

And I don’t even want to think about how many hours Richard spent helping me train Zorro to

load in a trailer. Zorro is a hot, stubborn horse, and it often took hours to get him in the trailer.

Richard never ran out of patience or smiles, in spite of the frustration. He never told me I had no

business owning a 3-year-old, even though I probably didn’t. He just quietly helped me every time

I asked.

Richard is kind and respectful to everyone. From obnoxious children running loose in the barn, to

timid middle-aged re-riders, to silly girls like me who bought a horse with her first paycheck. He

is always helpful and never makes you feel bad about yourself, even as you are realizing how

little you know about horses. He’ll answer your dumb questions, help you with that tricky saddle

buckle (again), and then head out on the trail with you as if you are an equal partner. Am I ever

going to trail ride with Richard again?

This time, I do get an answer. My mom enters the barn, tears in her eyes. “He’s gone.”

Tally - Thick Skulls

2013-02-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

It took a couple of days to get a hold of my client, Tim. Right when I became officially nervous and was in the middle of leaving yet another message telling him just that, he finally picked up.

"Hi Janet," he said. He sounded tired.

"Jeez, Tim, are you OK?"

"Yeah, I cracked a few ribs and have a concussion, but I'm better."

"What happened? Nobody at the barn saw anything, they just tell me your saddle slipped."

"It did."

"Were you on her?"

"Just about, I was swinging my leg over when she jumped and I came off into the fence. The saddle rolled under her belly and she started bucking. Janet, it was terrible, she must have bucked for twenty minutes before the saddle finally came off."

"Wait, I'm confused. Walk me through this."

I wasn't actually confused, I was pissed, but I didn't know where to start or who exactly I needed to be angry with. It sure wasn't going to be Tally. We were still following some pretty stringent guide lines with her. Tim wasn't supposed to ride alone, or at least without telling somebody he was heading out. I was sure Tally hadn't bucked for twenty minutes, in the messed up time warp of a newly concussed rider, minutes could become hours or seconds. Still, why hadn't anybody seen this? The arena was easily visible from the main barn. Tim was always supposed to mount and dismount in the middle of the arena, where there was plenty of clear landing space in case of an incident. This wasn't a suggestion, it was an iron clad rule. The middle of the arena was where I always began and ended my rides, especially on young, nervous or bolty horses. Tally was all of those things and more, so how had he ended up smashed into a fence?

For the most part, I try hard to not whack somebody when they're down. Tim was hurt and shaken up and didn't need me laying blame. At one point in my life I decided to eliminate any sentence beginning with "You should..." Personally, my back gets up the second I hear that one, and I figured other people felt about the same. Those two words imply so many negative things, the biggest being the person saying them is assuming he or she can know what's best for another person. Life has taught me I don't now what's best for anybody. I can only offer my own experience and how it shaped me, other than that it's best to shut the hella up.

So I did just that and waited for Tim to tell his story.

"I took Tally down to the arena," Tim said, "when I got on the saddle slipped."

"Did you try to step off?"

"I had my foot too far in the stirrup, so I leaned over the saddle to try to shift it back in place. The whole thing started to slide the other way and Tally bolted. When she got to the fence my head was almost hitting the ground, my legs were in the air and I couldn't get kicked loose from my stirrups."

From the quiver in his voice I knew he was till freaked , and I couldn't blame him. The image of the saddle slipping under Tally with Tim clinging to it was making me queasy.

"I guess I was lucky," he said, "Tally spun away from the fence and that made me finally came off. I hit the fence with my head and ended up with a doozy of a concussion."

"Jeez Tim, I am so sorry. You get this wasn't Tally's fault, right?"

"Yeah, I understand. I don't get why my saddle keeps slipping."

"Wait a minute, 'keeps slipping?'"

Now we were getting somewhere. Part of getting Tim ready to have a horse of his own had been for him to saddle as many horses he could find until he had a handle on how tight he needed a cinch, where a saddle should fit, how it should fit and so on. His stable ran lessons on horses of all shapes and sizes and he was a shy, friendly guy in a barn filled with women and kids, so he had lots of opportunity to practice.

Tally was a mutton withered, round backed little horse, with so much muscle she could lift, not only her saddle, but a rider too, a good couple inches off her back when she stepped under herself. A roll back was an awesome experience on her. She was a bitch to keep a saddle on.

It wasn't impossible though, with a 1" neoprene backed pad and a good wool cinch, it was possible to keep a saddle in place on her all day without mishap. A secure breast collar and snug back cinch kept everything in place.I had carefully explained why and how she needed to be saddled, warned Tim up one side and down the other of the dire consequences from not checking and rechecking his saddle and watched him saddle and re-saddle her hundreds of times. Okay, maybe just a hundred, but still...had this really happened more than once?

"Well, I didn't want to tell you, but this is the second time it happened."

"You've rolled the saddle on her twice?"

"Yes."

"Since you've brought her there?"

"Just the day I got hurt and the day before."

"So you rolled the saddle two days in a row?"

"Yes."

Right here is when a riding instructor and or trainer finds herself at a crossroads. With a new client you really need to keep your mind clear and calm, even though every fiber in your being wants to go off on a crazy tirade. If you let 'er rip, well, the client will either become scared or mad, his brain will shut off and either he'll become too nervous to work things through, or get pissed and start laying blame. Ignorance is forgivable and trainable, and anger on the trainers part will turn it all to stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I am very much to the point with my long term clients and students, just ask Kathy. With Tim however, I really needed to get to the bottom of this, and letting him know how I was feeling wasn't going to get me anywhere.

"Did you tighten your cinch in stages?" I asked.

"Of course I did," Tim answered, with just the right touch of indignation. I was on the scent and the trail was warming up.

"When you mounted, was there any slide in the saddle?"

"Well, yeah, more than I planned on."

"Did you have just the toe of your boot in the stirrup so you could step back off?"

"Well, no, I thought I was just pulling on her too hard and if I got on her correctly it wouldn't shift, so I was making sure my foot was solid in the stirrup so I would have a solid step-off."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where did this information come from?"

I didn't recognize the lingo and those words had never come out of my mouth.

"From that book you gave me to read."

When I had a new, adult rider, I always gave them three books to read, Ray Hunt's, Think Harmony with Horses, Bill Dorrance's, True Horsemanship Through Feel and Sally Swift's Centered Riding. There was more reading later on in the game, but those were the cornerstones of what we were going to build.

It tuned out, my beloved Sally was the culprit. Tim explained he had read he needed to slip two fingers between the horse and the girth for a proper fit. How he came up with the rest of it, I'll never know.

"Did you realize that was pretty different than how I had taught you to saddle Tally?" My voice was calm, but I could feel the heat rising off my face. He couldn't see me, which was probably a good thing.

"Yeah, I did notice that," now he was getting defensive.

"If you had called I would have explained things to you."

"I didn't want to bother you," he replied. "I did ask Bonnie though.She told me to do what the book said."

I couldn't help it, I sighed so loud he heard me. Bonnie ran the riding program at his barn and was the wife of the barn owner. Sweet and hardworking, she was one of those funny combinations you run into in the horse world, half filled with wisdom and half filled with ignorant crap. I had watched her successfully repair a mama goat's torn udder with staples, but she didn't like the students to ever do more than a trot, because it wasn't "safe."

Her daughters were barrel racers and the stars of the barn. The eldest like to keep her horse jigging by poking him in a continuous rhythm with her spurs and holding him tight between the reins of her mechanical hackamore, because it made the patient, gentle soul seem hot.The youngest kept buying different horses because she was afraid of them all, but it was never her, they were, "mean and stupid." All of them had a great seat and could spot a colic coming on hours before it was visible. They were an interesting group, but not one I would send Tim to for input on Tally.

"So after the first time the saddle rolled, did you think to go back to what I had shown you?"

"I was afraid the tight cinch was hurting her."

Now, I knew Sally hadn't told him this either, but I let it lie, besides I was on the hunt. "Has Tally ever been sore-backed or rubbed raw?"

"No."

"How is she now?"

"Her legs are pretty banged up and she won't let me saddle her. She freaks if she even sees the pad coming. I've been soaking her knee for twenty minutes every day."

"Her knee?"

"It's swollen."

I breathed deep. "Why don't we meet tomorrow and I'll get her saddled, then we can look at her legs."

"Bonnie told me to stay off her at least a month."

"All righty then. How about this. Do me a favor and think our conversation though, from front to back, then give me a call when you are ready to get going again."

I set the phone down as quiet as I could, released my gasping, snorting, inner Buddha and let myself briefly enjoy the image of him talking into the phone -- at least for a couple of minutes-- before he realized I was gone.

2013-02-25T08:57:00.003-07:00

My Wife the Equestrienne

She brought her horse home on Monday,

his lines were rich and fine,

She forgot to thaw out dinner,

so we went out to dine,

She saddled up on Tuesday,

she says every day is a must,

They really looked quite lovely,

but she quite forgot to dust.

On Wednesday it was a trail ride

they galloped in the sun,

All windblown, bronzed and smiling,

but the laundry wasn’t done.

The new trailer came on Thursday,

a bright and cherry red,

She tuned up the truck and added a hitch,

but she never made the bed.

She worked late on Friday

to pay for the horse she adores,

It never bothered her at all,

the mud, hay and dust now covering our floors.

I hired a maid on Saturday,

my week is now complete.

My wife can ride all she wants,

the house will still be neat!

It’s nearly lunchtime Sunday -

Where is the maid with my plate and cup?

Oh no! I don’t believe it!

She’s out there saddling up!

Poem tweaked by Mugs

The Real Poem...

My Wife the Gardener

BY JAN BILLS, ON FEBRUARY 10TH, 2013

She dug the plot on Monday – the soil was rich and fine,

She forgot to thaw out dinner – so we went out to dine…

She planted roses Tuesday – she says they are a must,

They really are quite lovely – but she quite forgot to dust.

On Wednesday it was daisies – they opened up with sun,

All whites and pinks and yellows – but the laundry wasn’t done…

The poppies came on Thursday – a bright and cherry red,

I guess she really was engrossed – she never made the bed…

It was violets on Friday – in colours she adores,

It never bothered her at all – all crumbs upon the floors

I hired a maid on Saturday – my week is now complete,

My wife can garden all she wants – the house will still be neat!

It’s nearly lunchtime Sunday – and I cannot find the maid,

Oh no! I don’t believe it!

She’s out there with the spade!

~Author Unknown

Still Typing, But....

2013-02-19T09:22:00.002-07:00

I'm still typing away on my Tally Tale.

In the mean time, I thought I'd share a column I'm doing for the paper on Snocone and her transformation from Zombie dog to household diva. We're not quite there yet, but it's happening.
She stood outside yesterday and joined Charlie, Brockle and Dinah in barking at hikers on the ridge above our house.
Not like I consider this "good dog" behavior, but she has NEVER barked outside at anything, much less joined in with her pack mates.
I can't swear she knew what she was barking at, but she sure had the "There! I told them!" strut as she came in the house.
I was as proud as she was.

-->

Adventures with Snocone -

The Reanimation of a Mill Dog Zombie

By Janet Huntington

To be honest, I was a little spooked by the idea of adopting a mill dog.

By definition, a puppy mill is a large-scale breeding operation that produces large numbers of puppies for profit.

The formal definition leaves out a lot of details. The breeding dogs are confined to unheated, small wire cages for their entire lives, fed inadequately and denied basic medical care, even though their lives leave them sick, malnourished and injured.

Although my heart went out to the rescued breeding dogs, stories of their problems from a life of abuse and no socialization made me wonder if one of these dogs could ever adapt to life with a family.

When we adopted 8-yearold Snocone from the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, she was identified as a stray with no background. The little “almost Maltese” was shy, starved and withdrawn,, but she lit up when my husband held her and he immediately knew she was the dog for him. We were still providing a dog with a much needed home, but I was relieved we were missing the mill dog bullet.

Little did we know, Snocone was going to be a project neither of us were prepared for.

Robotic and unresponsive to our voices or other dogs, Snocone wandered in a daze. We soon jokingly described her shambling, halting way of going as “Dogatonia.” Our joking hid deep concern. There was something seriously wrong with the matted little mutt. The concept of housebreaking was beyond her, so much so, when she woke, she peed, sometimes not bothering to even stand up. Poop fell unnoticed as she staggered along. When we took her outside she froze, mesmerized by the sights and sounds around her. She was afraid to walk in the grass or weeds and confused by the wind, learning to take care of business outside was beyond her scope.

Some simple research brought Snocone’s problems to light. She wasn’t suffering from a neurological disease, as I had feared, her odd behavior exactly matched the idiosyncrasies of an abandoned mill dog. It turns out, once mill dogs have lost their ability to breed, sometimes a lucky few are given to a rescue, usually, they are killed, or in Snocone’s case, dumped to fend for themselves.

We aren’t a family who abandons or returns dogs. Snocone was a mess, but as she lay quietly in my husband’s arms, her eyes lit up with contentment, I knew we were going to work through this. The five-pound bundle of matted fur and bones was ready to trust, maybe even love us. People had not given her any reason to offer her loyalty and kindness, but here she sat, ready to give us a go. The least we could do was accept her offer.

So we did. First on the agenda was going to be housetraining.

Next installment: Snocone learns to go, then “go” outside.

Dog Training Research and Used Dogs

2013-02-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

Boy, I'm telling you, the next time I'm dog shopping, I'm skipping the Goodwill, ignoring the siren call of a Kmart blue light special and buying a this year's model dog, one with a clean, new engine and nobody else's mucky fingerprints already embedded on it.

Yeah, I'm kidding. I like my horse's well-bred and my dogs mixed, and I can't imagine not having a rescue dog or six milling around on any given day. Once a rescue dog really believes they get to stay with you, once fear turns into hope and hope turns into security, they seem to try a little harder than the dogs raised from puppyhood. I truly believe a rescue dog is grateful. No, I don't think I'm giving them human attributes, I have always felt dogs share more of our traits than science gives them credit for.

The thing is, rescues come with somebody else's old Starbucks cups under the seat. Some of them smell like cigarettes, some like barf. It's a bear trying to undo the mess when some jerk trashed your next life-partner before you got to them. It makes the job tougher. It can be minor, like Brockle's bolt out of the blue, or major, like Snocone's catatonia (milldogatonia?).

There is enormous satisfaction in getting a handle on these cases though, and, being the student I am, a lot of exciting learning to be had.

And learning I have been.

I've pretty much finished with Cesar and Victoria. They've been a great help, I was given a lot to think about, but they're kind of like watching the RFD horse trainers, once you get the made for TV concepts, it's time to get to the real meat of the thing, you know?

To all of you Positive Response/Operant Condition trainers who wrote in, even those of you who jumped all over me like an over-enthused boxer, thank you. I've been reading and learning there too. A lot of this makes sense. Creating an automatic response is pretty handy, and I've never been one to thump on my dogs.

Discipline, affection, lively chatter, silence, enthusiasm or doing what I say, because I say it, I found scads of training advice that promotes all of it.

I'm slowly developing a theory or two, not all of it cast in stone, but an evolving idea of who I want to become as a dog trainer/rehabilitator/caretaker.

It's the caretaker part that I dwell on. What's my responsibility here?

My dogs need to be welcome.

With my family, among my peers and strangers, at the horse show or dog park, they need to be friendly, well-behaved and non-threatening.
I'll do my best to protect them from people sticking their hands in their faces or clutching at them, but they need to be tolerant and NOT BITE, NIP OR SHOW TEETH if someone slips by.

I want people to be at ease when they are around them.

Here's a few of my current thoughts and observations.
For hundreds of thousands of years, dogs have been busting their butts to be our friends and do what we want.
They have even gone so far as to learn to read our body language, our eyes, our expression and where we point.
They read our emotions and health and respond on their own.
Other animals don't, we're not worth their time.
They have aligned to us, even over their own kind.

They have way more depth and intelligence than we give them credit for.

I think many of our training practices diminish them.

Alpha dog dominance?
I don't need to boss my dogs around all of the time.
Except, dogs without leadership can make some very bad choices.
So, while I don't need to always be their boss, they do need to understand consequence if they blow me off. If it takes a swift side of my foot in their butt, oops, I mean Negative Reinforcement, then so be it.

I have seen dogs roll over another dog, stand over it and snarl, until the belly up dog gives in and calms down. So telling me dogs don't work that way doesn't work for me. I've watched it.

Dogs do run in packs when their owner isn't around, so I'm not listening to someone who bases their dog theory on the idea they don't.

Wolf packs and dog packs run on different rules.

When my pack walks behind me, they stay close and travel. When they are in front of me they hunt and are more reactive.

Demanding my dogs always stay compliant makes them worried and unsure of themselves.

When my dogs look me in the eyes it is not always about dominance, it's usually a question or invitation.

Clicker training has its place, but it makes my dogs quit trying to find solutions, they just wait for the click'ntreat.

My dogs learn by example and imitation if it makes dog sense, I do better with positive reinforcement to teach them things that only make people sense.

My husband (stroke) and Snocone (mill dog) are making great strides using clicker training. Jim is teaching Snocone to come, sit, look, so far, they're having a blast. It is helping them both think and react in ways they couldn't before.

Brockle and I are going for help with a pro. We'll be working on socialization and recall among other things. I chose a positive reinforcement trainer. So I'll be learning things correctly and will be better able to state my thoughts.

In the mean time, there are more Tally and some new dog stories coming, so stay tuned.

I also have a third installment on my thoughts on forward with our horses just about ready for you.

So hang in, I'm writing slow, but still writing.

Come Ride with Me!

2013-02-13T07:16:00.001-07:00

Energy II

2013-01-31T10:19:00.002-07:00

When you work a cow from horseback, you are actually working what is called the "bubble." It's the air mass between your horse and the cow. How big the bubble is depends on the animal's state of mind. You know when you've "bumped the bubble" when your horse steps forward and the cow acknowledges you. It means you've entered its personal space and it sees you.

Now, you can chase that bubble to hell and back if the cow is just running back and forth, but you won't get actual control over it until you've bumped the bubble hard enough to get it to see you. Then the cow work can begin.

A fresh cow will have a pretty big bubble. A sour cow's bubble can be so deflated you almost have to saddle it up and ride it to get it moving.

Scene I describes my relationship with Sonita pretty clearly.

She had an extremely high level of energy and it was easy for her to become fearful.
When she did, she became angry and almost dangerous. She would surge forward without thought and get chargy. She would slam through the bubble and we'd be in a mad scramble to get back to a workable place.
Her energy would make the cattle afraid and reactive. It made for some cool fence runs, but trying to move cattle slow and easy on a hot summer afternoon was tough.

Scene II

When cattle have been worked too many times, they just quit working.

They don't fight, they don't run, they just stand there. Even after you work a cow once it becomes a little dull. It goes steadily downhill after that. This is why cattle work is so expensive, once they're used up, that's the end of it and you need fresh cattle.We call them sour.

Madonna was afraid of cattle. She would work them, her breeding meant she couldn't help herself, but she was fearful. The cattle would almost start laughing and nudging each other as we approached.

A sour herd will bunch up really tight together and lock themselves against the horse trying to walk through them. Madonna was young and afraid and we would barely get our cow out, then couldn't drive it far enough away from the herd to get any decent work done. She was afraid to step right up to the bubble and would barely push against it. The pull of the herd stayed stronger in the cow than the tentative little pushes from my horse. If she made a few turns and lost her cow, I let it go. She was always relieved when we stopped.

My boss' stud (Odin's Daddy BTW) was a spoiled, ill mannered screaming lout of a thing. He was extremely aggressive towards cattle. At a cow horse event, I watched him pick up a cow by the back of the neck and throw it a good five feet during a fence run. They uh, didn't place.

The cattle could feel him coming. They would jump apart, ready to bolt, staring at him in horror. He might as well have been a pack of dogs. He didn't give a damn about no stinking bubble, he wanted beef. He was successful, to a point, because he could get a cow really moving, no matter how sour. His aggression was so strong though, he never had a pretty go, because it only becomes pretty when the horse and cow mentally locks together and they move as a single unit. This can't happen if the cow is panicked.

The day of Scene II, I had my first ca-clink about how energy really works. At least on a horse. Please don't ask me to fix your floor scrubber. I will break it and electrocute myself, and maybe your cat.

The cattle can feel the horse approaching them and read it perfectly. When timid little Madonna came up to them I could feel her saying, "Excuse me please, coming through...pretty please?"

They would collectively ignore her, knowing they could rattle her by pressing against her and refusing to budge. They were right.

When angry stud boy swaggered up, they immediately felt his aggression and predatory intent. This put the whole group into flight mode. While it was easy to move them, they wouldn't settle down and work for the horse, because they knew he wanted to attack them. All they wanted was to get away from him.

Scene III is all about the donkey.

Nick, the roping trainer at my barn, showed me this cool little drill he uses on his colts. He brings out one of his roping burros (no, the burros are not abused in any way, I already wrote about them somewhere) and gets it to stand in the middle of the arena. Then he lopes a circle around it, big enough to not create any movement on the burros part and small enough to keep him in place. Again, it's about finding the bubble.

Once he's happy with his circle, and the colt's head is on straight he circles in, tighter and tighter until he pushes the burro around in a tiny little circle. Then he eases out, the goal being to leave the burro standing in the middle again.

I could see all kinds of training possibilities here and couldn't wait to try it.

Odin couldn't keep the damn donkey in the middle of the circle. Eager and interested, he isn't afraid like Madonna was as a youngster, but he's all over the place. Looking here, looking there, rarely focusing on the task at hand, sometimes I feel like I'm riding the horse version of myself. Odin bounces off the bubble, sometimes into space.

Burro took one look at him and said, "Dumbass." Then he walked off.

Eventually I got him to circle and hold our burro buddy and I quit for the day. At least we would be prepared the next time.

Madonna had been watching the whole process and she was ready to go as I saddled her. We headed out at a trot, and she dropped to a walk as we approached. Madonna is seasoned and wise at this point in her life, so when she stopped and the donkey was completely tuned in, I figured she had the bubble figured out. We did our circle, moved in, circled the donkey, moved out, moved in, out, and stopped. She's fat and so am I, so we aired up for a few minutes before we went the other way.

She never took her eyes off the burro and he never took his off of us. He never took a step she didn't direct.

Ca-chunk. It hit me again. The dog training videos talk about energy. Our energy, the dogs, and the energy between us. Keeping the energy calm and directed is the key to keeping the communication lines open.

Odin's energy is moderately high and very playful. He truly gets a kick out of life. He has trouble with focus. The burro picked up on it immediately and began to mess with the bubble. He didn't feel an energy he needed to pay attention to.

When Madonna showed up, her energy projected authority, confidence and a clear objective. She pretty much said, "Hey! You! Yeah, you, burro! Stand there and I'm going to lope around. Don't make me work!"

Burro said, "Sure."

Scene IV

Odin hadn't come out of the herd before. He's gathered, worked in the round and worked single cows, but driving out a cow from the herd and actually cutting it is a whole different enchilada.

He should be much further in his cow work than he is. But circumstance hasn't let it happen. I have firmly decided that lack of time only means our progress would be slow, not of poor quality.
The Big K told me long ago that if you start a 2-year-old and then leave him off until he's five, he still rides like the 2-year-old you stepped off of. He might be more capable physically, but mentally he's exactly where you left him in his training. No more, but no less.

I have found this to be true, for the good and the bad. Horses forgive much, but they forget nothing.

So, this year, it's time to get serious about our herd work.

Odin, although eager to work, didn't like the solid pack of cows anymore than Madonna had in her younger days. He was stressed, his energy scattered, and he wasn't sure he wanted to listen to me.
But he did. Once we got him through the herd and came clear with a cow, he worked it fairly well.
He relaxed a little more with each time in the herd, as he understood what we were after and found he wanted it too.
Odin's focus sharpened so much, that at one point, after he lost his cow he kept watching it. I backed him up, circled around and stopped to rest. He never took his eyes off of it. When we went back in he wanted the same one. So I let him. He got it too. We ended there.

When I brought Madonna over to work, the cattle felt her coming. I have had five years of retirement (can you believe it?) to think and experiment with her. The result has been completely over coming her fear of cattle, but not her common sense.

They immediately faced us, wondering what was up. They moved away to let her through as we split off our piece of the herd. She exudes confidence at this point, an assurance that the cattle immediately react to. They turn when she tells them to turn, stop when she stops them and move when she says so.

We cut and successfully worked four or five cattle before we quit. She was having fun, the cattle became soft and pliable under her direction and we ended with both of us wanting more.

It's the energy between the animals that makes the difference.

I was pretty worked up, and chattering about my thoughts to Kathy.

"What about yours?" she asked.

"What?"

"Your energy, how does that play into the whole thing? You're completely different on Madonna than you are on Odin."

"How?"

"I don't know. Just different."

More on this manana.

Energy

2013-01-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

Cattle Practice with Madonna *

Scene I

The Big K was getting frustrated.

I was definitely frustrated.

Sonita was grinding her snaffle, shaking her head, growling, and covered in sweat. It trickled down her legs, dripped into her eyes and foam was starting to appear under her saddle pad. I was guessing she was the most frustrated of all.

"She's attacking the cattle because she doesn't know what else to do," he told me.

"If she would listen instead of attacking we would be able to get somewhere," I said, hoping that wasn't a snivel I heard in the back of my whine.

"She's taking over because you're not telling her what to do. You're reacting to her instead of directing her, so she takes charge."

I sat in silence, chewing on this one.

"Pretend she's a tool you are using to separate your cow from the herd. Just the same as if you were on foot, but had a stick to help you direct the cattle," he tried.

"A tool with fangs and an urge to kill," I replied.

Scene II

Madonna worked her way through the herd, her eyes big and her ears out to the sides, willing to work, but boogered by the stiff, resistant bodies of the tightly packed cattle.

Nothing like sour cattle to freak out my horse, I was thinking, feeling as sour and resistant as the overworked group of heifers. They stood, jammed together like a can of sardines, their faces tight against the fence and their butts pointed resolutely towards us.

Madonna finally chiseled one off the group, and we drove it a few strides away before it broke right and she began to work it. We got in a few decent turns before the heifer beat us back to the herd. I backed Madonna off, rubbed her neck and turned away. She walked away from the cattle, her relief obvious as we gave my boss and her horse their turn.

Her stud, nervy, aggressive and barely under control, walked quickly into the herd, with his ears flat, and his teeth bared. The heifers parted like the Red Sea, then turned to face them. The whites of their eyes showed and the herd began to separate. My boss pushed a cow out and it bolted halfway up the arena before the fear of being alone overcame the fear of the horse and rider. It turned and faced the angry stud and the boss worked the cow back and forth across the arena. The heifer's panic grew with each turn and it fled wildly from side to side, turned back by horse and rider just before it reached the fence. Finally, exhausted, it gave up and quit.

My boss turned and smiled at me, looking more than a little savage in her knowledge that they had succeeded where Madonna and I had not.

Scene III

Odin and I approached the donkey. Our goal was a simple one. Circle the donkey and hold his position in the center of our circle. Eventually we would have enough control to move in, make the donkey move in a tight circle and then move out, leaving him standing still in the center of our large circle again.

The wily donkey ducked and evaded, ran back to the fence time and time again. Finally, Odin and I managed to keep him in the center of our circle. I ended there, it was enough for my young horse to understand the first goal.

I switched horses.

Madonna walked smoothly towards the donkey. Her ears were forward and her manner so calm and quiet, to the uninitiated she would seem gentle and almost dull.

The donkey froze and looked back at us, at full attention.

Madonna stopped. Her focus hadn't wavered. I could feel wall of air between her and the donkey.
I turned, loped off along our wall of air, and we circled the donkey, which moved only enough to keep facing my mare. To all appearances she was paying no attention to him at all, her head and neck level, her lope was even and smooth and her nose followed our path. Only the one ear, pointed directly at the donkey, gave her away.

The wall became a bubble, a mass we could push against and Madonna and I moved in. Her gliding lope didn't change, her calm remained unruffled, the obedient donkey turned and spun under our direction. He tried to bolt forward, one step, two, but Madonna quickened her pace, leaped forward and looked him in the eye. He fell back into place and went back into the spin.

We faded off, and went back to loping our large circle around the donkey. He stood in the center, moving only enough to face us. Madonna and I were as quiet and boring to watch as when we started. The little donkey seemed the same. A lot like watching paint dry.

Scene IV

Odin worked his way through the herd, his eyes big and his ears back, willing to work, but boogered by the stiff, resistant bodies of the tightly packed cattle.

Nothing like sour cattle to freak out my horse, I was thinking, feeling as sour and resistant as the overworked group of heifers. They stood, jammed together like a can of sardines, their faces tight against the fence and their butts pointed resolutely towards us. In his frustration, he leaned in to bite. I let him run into the bit instead, wanting him to use his body to separate the cattle.

Odin finally chiseled one off the group and we drove it a few strides before it broke and he began to work it. We got in a few decent turns before the heifer beat us back to the herd. I backed him off, rubbed his neck and turned away. He wanted more, so we walked a large circle and headed back in. My boy was eager, the cattle moved grudgingly out of his way and the next few cuts were smoother, he drove each cow out a little farther, and got a little more done each time. When we walked away from the cattle, his satisfaction was obvious as we headed to the tie rail. I bridled Madonna and warmed her up.

She walked, slow and calm, to the bunched cattle. They felt her coming and spun as one to watch our approach. She slid into the herd and they let us through, oil and water, flowing ahead and around us. We pushed our bubble, Madonna's head began to drop as she centered herself in the slow moving whirlpool. She crept forward in a cat-like half pass, easing the four cattle on the top out and away from their mates. Two stopped to watch us and I picked the one most focused on my horse.

We guided the heifer farther out in the pen, isolating her, our slow creep tricked her into moving out without making her try to bolt around us. Finally, the cow made her move and feinted left. I dropped my hand, Madonna's head dropped farther, seeking eye contact with the heifer -- cobra and mouse -- and they began to dance. The heifer couldn't completely break the hold we had on her, Madonna only broke from trot to lope once, and with each turn we tightened our grip until horse and cow rocked in unison, from one front foot to the other, hind legs barely moving, eyes and mind locked.

Our cow finally looked away, I backed Madonna off and we turned to the herd for another go.

Our heart beats were as slow and steady as when we had begun.

* It only took me 12 years, a bunch of horses and some dog training videos to sort this out. Manana amigos!

Mouthy Monday

2013-01-28T16:11:00.001-07:00

Heidi wrote,

Although I do not have my own blog, or even a Facebook page, I do enjoy surfing the Internet and writing stories. When I found the Mugwump Chronicles, I was hooked and felt the urge to share.

I was twelve when my world crashed down. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. I was being harassed and teased by the last person I would have expected: my best friend, the first friend I’d made when we were still preschoolers. The reason behind the teasing was just as baffling to me. I love horses. Yes, that was the whole reasoning behind the teasing.

I felt so incredibly betrayed and crushed. I had actually been under the impression that my friend liked horses too. I mean, I’d let her ride on my rock-steady-as-bombproof-as-they-come pony whenever she came over to play. She seemed to like horses enough to somehow convince her parents to get her a horse (I was so jealous of her when she dropped that little bomb). There had to be something seriously wrong with me if someone with whom I shared a common interest could turn on me like that.

As a result of a failed friendship, I buried myself in horses even more. My pony became the patient receptacle of all my tears. Her sparse mane could soak up a surprising amount of salt water. I would drape myself over her back and breathe in the scent of my favorite perfume: Eau de Equine. Her trot could bounce my depression out of my body and substitute it with peace. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be with my pony, my sanity, all day. I needed a way to make that happen.

It didn’t take long before I found my solution: I would run away. I was mistakenly under the impression that every person in my life (even my very-supportive-of-my-horse-addiction family) was looking down on me because of my fascination with horses. If I was that repulsive to other people, I would take my pony and leave. The next morning after making my decision, I woke up early, made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, grabbed my coat and snuck out of the house.

Now, as early as I had gotten up, I wasn’t the first person awake and outside. I grew up on a farm and my dad was already out doing the morning chores. In fact, he’d staked out my pony so she could eat down some of the long grass by the barn (how very considerate of him). Now, all I needed to do was bridle my pony up, hit the road and all my problems would be solved . . . or so I thought.

My pony, a pony I could walk up to in the field and easily catch (even while holding her bridle in full view), who took every possible outrageous riding stunt I threw at her with the smallest of sighs, wouldn’t let me lay a finger on her. No matter what I tried, I was always left facing her well-rounded rump. She never offered a bite or a kick, just a very clear “No.”

Defeated, scared that I would be discovered, I walked into the barn and sat down in a pile of loose hay. The barn cats gathered around me as I rethought my brilliant plan and slowly came to the realization that my pony was smarter than I was. No, running away wouldn’t solve my problem, it would only create new and bigger ones. I had nowhere to go and no way to take care of either of us. I sat there in the hay as the truth of the matter sank in and cried in despair. That was the state of things when Dad found me a short while later.

My parents kept me home from school that day and did their best to raise my spirits. A more confident person could have simply shrugged off the entire incident and attributed my friend’s turnaround to the fickleness of a pre-teen girl. But, I was very shy, unsure of myself and could count my close friends on one hand. The only thing that remained constant for me in the aftermath was the love I felt for my pony and the (now recognized) support of my family.

In the decades that have followed, I’ve done my best to overcome the damage done to my psyche. I made new friends, went on to complete a masters’ degree, married a wonderful man, and together we are raising three healthy children. My parents are still living on the farm and Dad has taken in a couple of twenty-something geldings for their retirement (and to give a few pony rides). While I may not live with horses now, they still reside in my heart and that is something on one can ever take away from me, no matter what they say.

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