WordPlay

By Patty Wilber

(Pictures thanks to Kathleen Jesse)

Curly Moe--Fjord!

Just to make sure I had the right Nordic Aura, I continued to wear the “outfit” over the next few days (plus it is comfortable and warm!)

Disengagement of the hip. Soft (loose rope, head toward me, moving the hip away nicely)! The helmet on top of the Swedish hat is such a good look, too.

This is lunging. Working the horse in a circle around me. He got lots better, fast! The rope is not taut, which is nice because that means he is not pulling away. A pulling Fjord can be a sand-skiing lesson if one is not careful!

Got on, after making sure he was not scared of the stirrups or my weight or the saddle shifting.  Then I asked him to bend his head.  A soft give is so much nicer than a stiff refusal!  He was soft.

i might look short and stout, but a) i am not a teapot (short and stout); b) i am flexible!

Part of the reason I took all this time to ease him up to riding is because on his last ride with a prospective adopter, he got worried and dumped her.   I hadn’t met him yet, but I am thinking it was a fear reaction rather than an evil buck fest, because, guess what?  He had never been trained for riding (which was discovered out later)!  Still, it is never good if a horse learns he can lose his passenger with a well timed  flick. I don’t think he has.

We walked around the arena, practiced stopping –right this minute, not a dribble down–,  and backing.  He is not a reiner.  He is not built to slide.  But he does use his hind end well, so his only excuse for sloppy stops is lack of knowledge, not conformation! He needs work on his knowledge base.

He even felt confident enough to attempt (successfully) the bridge!

So we are crossing the short way...better than no way.

I’m thinking 30 days is going to go by too fast!

 

By Patty Wilber

Western Pleasure is one of the classes that I show.  It turns out to be, for me, a fairly difficult class.  It was originally an entry-level class, but the pace of the gaits (walk, trot and lope) has become very slow, which is not the norm for many horses, so it’s not that easy!

Some horses are naturally slow and low headed.  Of the group that is here, T fits that bill the best. Penny has a prettier way of going, but she moves out more (i.e. she goes faster) than T, so it has required more work to get her to a pace that is acceptable for Western Pleasure.

Tabooli--low headed--that's just the way he is..

It is kind of a fun challenge to get a horse going in the slow, correct and rhythmic manner required for this class.  However, that lack of speed is not super useful for most other classes, and definitely not out on a a trail, where the idea is to get somewhere!

In this video, watch for the very loose rein, the slowness of the gaits, and the steadiness of the horse’s head.  Also, you might see that the lope seems just a little choppy–it is actually quite an athletic feat to go that slow and move smoothly!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DybOE-3yqwU&feature=related

Top level show horses are usually  specialized nowadays. This  is a change from the time when a good horse was the all around type, and was EXPECTED to be in a variety of classes.

I prefer a horse that is under 16 hands (not the best for western pleasure — often taller looks more elegant) and can do a little of everything, in the ring and out on a trail (even in the dark!).  Although I do ride English, I put more emphasis on Western. Penny is a great fit!   T is too, although Penny is more interested in cows (cowier!)

Riding English

For a different kind of fun and challenge, there are a number of events that involve trail obstacles and good manners.  One that has stuck me is Extreme Trail.  Check this out.  Note how this horse is not so low headed as the WP horse, but looks soft, responsive and holds himself very nicely, seems brave,  and a pleasure to ride. Hmmm.

Love the suspension bridge.  LOOKS LIKE A BLAST!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmQeNy25iTI

So many things to do!  So little time!

I need to quit my job as a bio. prof. and devote all my time to horse training so I can learn to do ALL this horse stuff!

Stock Horse (walk, trot lope at ranch speed–a let’s actually get somewhere pace; trail obstacles; reining; cow work) and straight reining are this year’s program because Buckshot is so talented, and Penny can give stock horse a go.

T is currently cut from the stock horse program due to his lack of interest in cows…but he is going to show Western Pleasure and he is still going into the back country every chance I get–with Penny!

Penny

By Patty Wilber

That’s because, La Nina, not living up to her promise of dry (thank goodness), was circumvented by FIVE storms in four weeks that forgot to read the long-term forecast, and dumped on us.

And it has been cold, so the snow is slow to go.

The 21st or the 2oth of Dec., I forget, was the shortest day of the year. Not as short here in the southwest as in the north, but abbreviated enough to leave me without enough daylight.  And since no one I know has won the lottery, I am still without that indoor (lighted) arena!

So, I sometimes ride in the dark.  On the trail.  In the snow.

After a fresh layering, the snow is still up in the trees, boughs bent under the weight, blocking the trail.  When we push through, it dumps over T, me and my saddle.

My hands and feet and nose usually end up pretty cold, but there’s just something about being out there alone in the night with a horse.

Back in the day of the cavalry, riding in the dark was not uncommon.  If a soldier had somewhere to go, the horse took him there.

Most horses apparently see well in the dark (they have many rods in their eyes, and rods are the cells that perceive light, as opposed to the cones that detect color).  In addition, a good trail horse has a sense of where its feet are, regardless of the sun’s position.

It might be the rider that has the night-time problem! Ride blindfolded?

It is possible to have a flashlight illuminating the way, but that is like riding in a mobile room.  The boundaries of the room keep moving forward, but the walls still press in.

If there is a moon, or starlight on the snow, or the long glimmer of the  setting summer sun that seems to hang in the sky for hours, it is possible to actually see in the gloom, at least somewhat.

Being out in the naked night is something many of us have given up in our mechanized, technologically advanced world.  We don’t really know what it’s like out there.  Our brains shape the shadows of the landscape into weirdnesses that morph and shift.

About two years ago, I suddenly realized that I wasn’t getting any younger.  In fact, I realized, I was actually getting older.  For the first time I started feeling as though my life was narrowing down to a point.  The point of death.  I don’t mean that like death was imminent and looming, but just the light bulb moment that my life is, most likely, more than half over.

That’s when I decided that I better get busy so that I did “not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Well, I might be 50, but I’m not dead yet.  I’m done marking time.  I’m riding into the night.

By Patty Wilber

I’ve got three horses at the house right now that have “some cow”.

Buckshot (registered name A Para Dox) is the cowy-est. He is a four year old Appaloosa stallion owned by Whispering Spirit Ranch. (He has spots–they are just hard to …uh…spot!)

Buckshot's first ever competition with cows in July.

Penny (Chips at the Bar) has a real interest in cows, but she tends to be “cow fresh”. She is a 4 year old Appaloosa mare and she belongs to me. (Not a spot to be found!)

One of Penny's quieter go's on cows. The judges wanted to give me a new cow because mine was so dull. That's ok! We are FINE with the dull cow.

Tabooli almost flunked out of cow school (lack of interest), but he got a reprieve… and according to my Cow Mentor, “If nothing else, at least  we’ll be able to rope off him.” (Supposing I can learn to rope…) He is a five year old Quarter Horse gelding. He is on loan to me, but belongs to Longshot’s dad.  In fact, Longshot and T have the same mother.

By this stage of the cattle drive T was kind of annoyed at the slow pace of the laggards. His pinned ears actually indicate interest--negative interest, but interest.

 Dog people figured out long ago that if you want a racing dog, get something like a greyhound, and if you want a bird dog, get something like a Brittany spaniel.  Don’t use a poodle as a bird dog? (Editted note: you can use standard poodles s bird dogs!)

Don’t use mini chihuahuas as bird dogs?

Horse people sometimes seem to think that any horse can be a cow horse or a reiner, if only they have the right training (Hey!  Don’t look at me like that!) .

Buckshot is bred to be a reiner (Sliding stops! Spins!  Circles!) and he is bred to work cows. His dad could do those things too.

I am here to tell you that having a horse bred to do the job makes everything a whole lot easier.

Buckshot has the right body to stop hard and slide; he has the right shoulder flexibility to cross over and spin; he perks up when he sees cows.

The cowy-est horses are the cutters. These horses can single a cow out of a herd and then use quick and agile moves to keep the animal from getting back to the bunch.  A good cutter works on a completely loose rein, and the rider hangs onto the saddle horn for dear life.  Buckshot’s dad has show points in cutting and Buckshot himself might do all right in some lower level cutting events.

DK Smart Mate, World Champion Appaloosa cutting horse owned by Whispering Spirit Ranch

Reined Cow Horse or Working Cow Horse is the next level down on the cowy-ness scale.  Working Cow Horses have to run a reining pattern (Buckshot can do that!). Then they have to work a cow back and forth on one end of the arena, run it down the long side and turn it back a few times, and then run a circle around it both directions. He can do that too! The training challenge with Buckshot is to avoid over doing even though it all seems so easy for him!

Penny has enough cow (even though she is NOT bred right-she is a pleasure horse!) to do reined cow horse, but she tends to get a little amped.  She is “cow fresh.” If I ask for much action, she is all over the cow.  She’ll try to take a chunk out of its hide with her teeth (points off in competition if you bite the subject!), and if that is prevented, she’s been known to turn tail and plant a horse shoe on the bovine hip!

The training challenge with her is to take the excitement OUT. (Which I did some last winter when we worked cows at the walk at the farm, but those cows are sold now…whaaa!)

Penny the ranch horse.

She can run a decent reining pattern–compared to other pleasure horses–but the best she’ll be able to do on a sliding stop is probably about 10 feet, whereas Buckshot ought to get 20+. Still, Penny is a pretty good athlete, will have reasonable spins, and she will go just about anywhere I point her.

The lowest rung of the cowy-ness ladder is rope horse.  A rope horse needs some speed to burst out of the roping box and he needs to follow (track)the cow.

Tabooli has successful rope horses in his family tree but he finds  the working cow horse event a bit too taxing (all those quick turns!) and purposeless (the point of this is WHAT?!).  But he does track decently, and he has shown flashes of speed.   So, at minimum, looks like we can rope off him.

I have been working to perk him up in general and hope that will spur (and yes I have  used  spurs to motivate him) his interest in both reining and cows–that is his training challenge.

T did work the cattle drives this year and hopefully the "Perk-up Program" will help him be a better ranch horse, too.

 Buckshot is definitely the most exciting of the the three to work in both the reining and cow pens, but it is fun to find the reining and cow talents of the other two, even if they aren’t totally bred for it.

Next, maybe I’ll take my poodle bird hunting.

No I mean my mini chihuahua.

(oh yeah I don’t have a poodle –or a chihuahua– and I don’t hunt birds).

By Patty Wilber

But by Monday we won’t have any cows…

If you look at the 1st map you can see that much of the state is in extreme drought and in the 2nd map (NM is outlined) the winter forecast is for continued very dry conditions, except at the  northern edge of the state  .

The cows were on a 1200 acre farm in Torrance County, NM  from September 2010 until June 2011. This  acreage had not been farmed or grazed in a number of years and there was plenty of forage.  However, there was little winter precipitation, and soil moisture declined.

In January 2011, there was an unusual warm spell and sap began to run in some of my trees at my house in Bernalillo County.  Some of the grasses and forbs tried to grow on the farm.  Then in February we had a very rare (for us) and brutal cold front (-35F at night,  sub zero in the day) that lasted for four or five days. That knocked back growth and killed quite a few plants. Still no moisture.

March to June : continued dry, so we had essentially zero spring green up.  The standing forage plus supplemental hay got the cows through in good shape.

May 2011 at the farm--not green. (Sold this calf on Monday for 1.49/ lb. He brought over $500)

For the summer, we moved the herd to the high country (10,000 ft)  in Rio Arriba County. Snow pack was close to normal there and in early June, it was still wet and cold. The summer was dry even at elevation, but there was plenty of grass and the herd did very well.

Snow still melting. June 2011!

Down south, the drought persisted.  The summer monsoons skipped this year, and the warm season grasses, like blue grama, did not grow much–definitely not enough to support the group for the 2011-2012 winter.  We found a second lease of 640 acres just down the road that we could use Nov. 1 to April 15.  It had two pivots, one of “hay grazer” a sudan grass mix, and one of winter wheat.  They wanted 100 cows but we talked them down to 80.

A pivot. The irrigation system pivots around a center point, thus producing a circular crop (or alien crop circle?).

But the winter wheat got planted late and didn’t come on. The lease start date got pushed back to Dec. 1.  The dismal winter precip. forecast came out (see above). The number of cows required was not decreased.  We worried we’d run out of forage before April 15.

That could mean we’d have to feed November, April, May and part of June, and if we got any deep snow.

Due to the drought, hay is scarce and expensive.  35 lbs of feed/ cow/ day * 35 cows * $ 250/ ton * 3.5 months + lease fees = a lot more money than we could hope to recoup with the calf crop. The auction barn looks like it makes the most ($ and) sense.

I found another lease, but it is 45 miles from me…too far to haul horses very often, trailer too small to move all my cows, my partners are selling, so I’d be going it alone…

Is it stupid to cry over selling cows I’ve only owned since March?  My partners might say so, but, hey, they’re guys.

You need good partners and here they are.

But I really LIKED my cows. They were part of my program to go for dreams I have always wanted rather than letting my life drift down to some cold little end point.  They were symbolic. Catalysts.

I liked riding out alone on the NM plains with the Manzanos to the W, Sandias to the NW and Sangre de Cristo mountains to the N when the snow caps were lit up in orange in the winter dusk.

I liked penning the cows and working them out one by one so the horses got practice.

I liked checking the fences and retrieving escapees.

I liked complaining about the fierce cold wind after I’d survived it.

I liked seeing a mama cow off on her own and then finding her new calf.

I felt brave and strong and invincible riding into the high country.  I was proud my young horses could do such great job driving cattle.

We are still cow people. I am holding on to that.

(And  hoping to restock in the spring.)

By Patty Wilber

I have met a lot of horses (this year alone I had 17 different animals here and have worked with at least 10 others for lessons, consults, or something.) They seem to keep surprising me.

Had a show horse whose movement was Not Right. And he was so unhappy. I felt that he might not be able to compete at the level desired by his owner.  We changed how we asked him to work and really took his basic sensitive and willing  (Are you yelling at me?  Oh no…depression) nature into consideration and he improved, but not enough.  Then: Light Bulb!  Tried a chiropractor. HUGE and immediate difference.  The combination of physical and mental improvement… Wow! This horse CAN compete.

Show horse! (OK I swiped the photo from an ad for show jackets...)

Had a nice gelding.  (Actually I’ve had two like this) Super horses.  Athletic, willing, level headed.  Sent them home, which I thought should be fine, and first ride out: bucking spree.  REALLY?  But he doesn’t buck. Well, apparently he does…Didn’t see that coming, either time.

Bucking? Ran off periodically at first, but no bucking!

Went to watch a reining prospect.  A reining horse is going to have to run and stop hard.  I thought he looked choppy, his back legs were too straight, and he couldn’t seem to “get into the ground” at all when he was stopping.   Turns out, he is the biggest stopper I have had.  Not only that, but he has a ton of try, as well as presence under saddle.

Not bad for a "choppy" mover, eh? And he CAN plant himself in the dirt to stop.

Got an older horse that had not been started yet. He was skittish, very inexperienced and afraid of  things in his personal space–saddles, ropes, tarps, fly spray.  I took my time in working up to riding him, and when I did, he still periodically felt like a powder keg near a match.

Uncorking seemed inevitable, and indeed he gave me a good 8 second ride one day.  (I grabbed leather and hung on–yeah me!) Did a whole lot more desensitization, felt he was safe and moving out nicely. Put a new rider on  and the horse’s reaction was to… power down and become an immovable blob! Didn’t see that coming.

Desensitization. May is our model.

Ol Longshot needed to follow his mom into a trailer.  He was about nine months old. Quiet, friendly.  He should be easy to load.  Um.  NO.  If he doesn’t want to, he ain’t gonna, and no matter what was tried, he was not convinced to cooperate. Didn’t see  that coming.

Too laid back? Or too stubborn? Should we just change his name to Long Ears? (He is a lot bigger now, of course.)

What us? Hard to catch? We're soooo sweet. You must be confused!

I had horse that I lead around all over and never had a problem.  His owner came, went to lead him and the horse tried to bite him.  I had No Idea the horse was a biter (no one mentioned it when they dropped him off, and he never offered to take a hunk out of me!)

So ,that looks more like a mule! Got it off the Internet!

Sometimes it seems the difference in how a horse reacts with one person vs. another is some sort of woo woo adjustable energy field, maybe combined with crystal gazing, but I think it actually must be small physical things and timing that add up to differing wholes. At any rate, it is pretty fascinating!

Crsytal gazing--yeah off the Internet. Hope the embedded links work.

By Patty Wilber

Three a.m. in the New Mexico autumn is dark, with a chill, but that is when the alarm bleeped, repeatedly.  The bed was murmuring “don’t go!” and that soft green blanket was really, well, soft.  And warm.

Not enthusiastically, got up anyway, pulled on some clothes, and stumbled (carefully) down to the barn to feed.

Not the standard storybook fare of apples or carrots or oats.  Nope, we’re talking working horses, feed ‘em something sturdy and affordable.  A flake of alfalfa hay and a flake of grass hay for each equid.  We were leaving in a hour and they were facing a long day of driving to the cow pens and a good many miles of riding.

Drove for four hours, saddled, and tied on saddle bags and slickers even though over head was the intense blue New Mexico sky, cloudless. Last year the aspens were decorated in gold, but this year the cold is just hitting the high country.  Not enough time to cause the light harvesting pigments in the leaves to degrade to their flashy last splash.

We took off…at a walk. No leaping upon the bare-backed steed and galloping across the grassy meadow, because a) I no longer have the spring of my high school high-jumping self who could bounce onto a 17 hand horse from the ground, b) no meadows; the ride starts on a rutted dirt lane between two barbed wire (Bob Why-er, if yer from Texas) fences, and  c) even endurance horses that can cover 100 rugged miles in less than 10 hours, do not gallop from end to end across the day.

We jog-trotted (slow trot, easy to ride, and ground-covering, without blowing up the horse) quite a bit.  Galloping? Not at all. We will gather cows this afternoon, after the 18 mile ride, and then push cows out tomorrow.  No point in wasting energy now.

The day progressed to shirt-sleeve warm.  No wind.  Good horses, good weather, no grading, no computers, no cock-eyed personalitied biology students! No place I’d rather be.

Last week’s cold, wind-driven rain and slick footing was an adrenaline rush challenge (yeah, I wanna be a cowgirl!); this is deep in my soul easy.

The elk and deer were everywhere in June, when we were the first ones up country after the winter snows.  Now they are hidden in the trees; hunting season has begun.  They’ve been replaced. By cows.  In fact, so many gates have been left open by thoughtless hunters or lazy-ass forest users, that at least four herds are hopelessly mixed.  “Leave the gates as you found them” is a good rule of thumb…except what to do when you are pretty sure they should be closed and they are open???

 We made the eastern edge of the ranch in good time, but then took the long cut to get in at the bottom where the fence is not good and some neighbor cows have been interloping.  Slithered down steep slopes of loose volcanic ash  that I would have preferred to avoid (shut up and ride, I wanna be a cowBOY).  Both horses were even tempered and sure on their feet. We did find some neighbor cows, but none of ours.

 Ours were grazing the big meadows east of the bunk house–40 of the 62 anyway.  Sent five neighbor cows out a spot on the north fence that was down.  Fixed the hole. Then we bunched the rest and moved them closer to the horse pasture where we planned to hold them for the night.   The horses had to work back and forth, first to mobilize and then to  motivate the grass-fat bovines.  They had to be quick over rough ground.  Wanna be a cow HORSE? They worked up a full body sweat.

Next we dropped over into Barlow Creek to look for my big red cow. She likes to hang out there, away from the main herd, with her own personal entourage. Up and down, more steep terrain.   The two horses, after 8 hours of riding were still right there for us.  Very game.  Penny is just four and Tabooli, although older, at five, has only 1/3 the number of training hours. As TrainerMom, am Very Pleased!

Found Red and Co., and pushed them up to the first group.  This left 10 still missing, so we made a big loop: back down to Barlow, turned left instead of right and rode east, into the night, as the sky softened through yellow-orange to mauve and starlight gradually filled the moonless sky.  It went from shirt sleeve warm to fleece hat, gloves and three layers on top, cold.  At 10,000 feet, when the sun disappears, the warmth follows, immediately.

 Untacked with the help of the head lamps, and brushed the caked sweat streaks off the horses.

Penny still has her short summer show coat, and although Tabooli has begun to hair up I’d sent blankets up in a truck coming in from the other side.  Given the long day, and the cold night, blankets would reduce stress. T went in a pen too small for two horses when one is PMS-y…yes that would be Penny.  So, she was hobbled outside.  They both got big piles of alfalfa, and water.  No apples. No oats.

Both horses looked sucked up in the flanks–like grey hounds instead of their usual plump selves.  By morning, T looked normal–he eats and drinks very well away from home.  Penny still looked a little dehydrated, although she did eat well.

They were saddled at dawn, which is 6:30 ish at this time of year, and had another ends-at-dark day, starting with finding the last 10 cows and ending with all 62 off the mountain, down at the pens.  In the last big pasture we crossed, Penny (who was working on only three shoes all day–one came off on the night loop) and I went to move the resident bovines out of our path so we didn’t gain mass as our bunch passed through.  She still had it in her to lope a long way at a good clip and get after those cows, then come back to ours, who were moving at the speed of molasses in January at this point, and get after them.

The cows are all at the farm near Estancia, NM now.  Horses got new shoes Thursday and the week off! (And still no apples.) I wanna be a cowgirl.

By Patty Wilber

Horse care after hard riding in cold weather. That was the blog plan anyway.

But then I went to the ranch last weekend, and it rained while we rode the horses in.

My slicker worked!

It rained over night.  It rained while we gathered  heifer 48, the sick orphan, and the four mama cows with the littlest calves whom we needed to truck,  rather than walk down the mountain.

Mama Blue 14, in the trailer with a snack of alfalfa

It rained enough that we put chains on all four tires of the 4-Wheel Drive truck we used for hauling the load of bovines off the western side.

Putting chains on in the mud.

It rained enough that we were worried the cattle pot (a semi truck) could not get into the pens down at the bottom of the hill on the eastern side.

It rained on the way out, two riders, and NO COWS.  Left the majority at the ranch and we are heading out this week to try again. I am gone as you read this.

A view on the way down. Still raining

So, maybe the title should’ve been be “Rode Wet”? 

Or maybe it should’ve  been “48″.   48 had brisket (high altitude respiratory edema) and probably pneumonia. She is not out of the woods yet and could still kick off, which would be rather distressing…because…

48 in the trailer. You can see her ear tag and the back of her head.

Well, I’ll tell you. (I guess this is her somewhat less than 15 minutes of fame…)

48 is a twin and and her womb-mate, Little 24 (distinguishable from Big 24 by the relative sizes of the ear tags), was the one mom wanted.  48 was abandoned.  We brought her in from the farm where she was born with in a few days, along with two likely substitute moms.

Both let her nurse some, but neither truly accepted her.  She took to nursing from behind when the “real” calves nursed from the side. She took the opportunities to eat when they were there.

About a week later, she got snake bit.

Her whole head swelled up and her eyes puffed into slits.  She had no Mom to care about her.

I took Penny and went to check the cows one day.  48 was all alone in a field 1/2 a mile or more from the herd, and I kid you not, the coyotes were circling.

Pushed her back to the herd.  She couldn’t really see where she was going but she could hear us and apparently didn’t wish to be caught, so we zigzagged her back to the bunch.  The cows didn’t seem to care, either way.

She was small but she survived.

We moved her to the high country in June with the rest, and she walked the whole way in.  She continued her vagabond sneak nursing.  I do not know how many moms she’s borrowed from, definitely more than three. She grew to be one of the bigger calves!

Then this, just one week before moving off the mountain!

She has received two doses of penicillin and seems to be improving.  Good thing, because if she’d died at the ranch (and I do have the “just died” picture but it was a little gruesome), in less than 10 days, this is all that would be left.

Scavengers waste no time. This is less than 10 days after death.. Cue music for Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. A time lapse camera would have been cool. Bears? Lions? Foxes? Bobcat?

Hold on 48!

By Patty Wilber

It may be true that a horse can smell fear.

Just take a whiff of your pits after you’ve exercised, given a big presentation, or had a great roll in the hay (except that whole roll in the hay thing is just as bad an idea as a fling in the surf.  Hay is poky.  Sand between your…teeth…is just… yeah…)  Anyway back to the pits.  They smell different depending on what metabolic processes are running in your body.

So, a horse may well have the olfactory capability to detect that.  But even if a horse could smell fear, would he react?

Maybe.  But maybe not.

Working with horses at the highest level requires confidence, balance, timing, technique, the ability to read the horse and react appropriately, etc. etc.

But anyone can do a whole lot with a big attitude!

Horses are really quite large, and I just realized that I don’t usually think about the fact that my smallest horse is probably 1000 pounds (and that is a smallish horse) vs. my 145.

One good head butt, shoulder shove, or butt bump could be the end of life as we know it! Attitude can save the day!

People sometimes come to me with unruly horses that do not respect them.  The horses lack focus, trample over their handlers, and scare everyone (including me–”You RIDE that horse?”  I think to myself.  “Out on the trail?  Alone?  Yikes!”).

My favorite example is a draft horse (big) cross that was attacking his owner by charging and biting. The vet had suggested he be put down. I said I would come evaluate him, but I would like to use a chain under his chin to be able to get his attention if I needed it.  “Oh no!” she said.  “That would be cruel.”

I declined the job.

She changed her mind.

We did some ground work with this  horse and he minded his manners, until suddenly, he charged.  He was very quick and he was very close so I only had time to throw up my arm and yank on the lead rope (which by the way was attached to a thin rope halter, but did not have a chain. The thin rope has a lot of bite, so “thin” gave me a lot of handle compared to a standard web halter.)

I stayed right in his face (mainly because there was really no other choice, not because I am particularly brave or knew I’d could “win”).  He immediately backed three steps, dropped his head and gave it up. That was all it took.

And I was very lucky that he truly was a nice horse underneath his bad attitude. I was hired to work with him for a few months.

T modelling a web halter. Ok, so his ears didn’t cooperate, but the halter is clearly shown. The flat, wide nature of this material distributes pressure on  the nose and behind the ears (the poll) over a greater area, decreasing bite.

The owner was never able to get the alpha spot with the draft cross, and when she realized it was not a good fit for her, she offered him to the Albuquerque Police Academy. He passed muster and last I saw him he was doing crowd control at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta! Much prettier than dog food.

One key to getting control of a horse’s attitude, is to control his feet.

If you watch horses in a pasture you can see the pecking order. The big cheeses make the others MOVE, on command. They push and bite and kick. Those that back off fall down the rungs of the social ladder.  Those that prevail are royalty.

If the handler is the Mover of the Feet, the handler becomes Queen (or King). You don’t actually need a whole lot of pretty technique to get this done (although it can make things easier.)  You do need Attitude!

Students that come to me for help with a non-cooperative horse almost always let the horse move them, and they didn’t even notice that was happening.  Fixing that usually creates a big change in the horse right away.

Once the animal isn’t in charge, they look to the handler for guidance.  They become respectful of personal space, quieter, braver and more focused.

Attitude can apply when riding too.  If you pretend you know what you are doing, and insist the horse go right when you say right rather than letting them circle left until you get back to right, and if you insist they stop when you ask, you gradually reinforce the idea that you are the Supreme Being, and the horse will listen. (Most horses anyway, most of the time. But like those drug ads on TV, there can be unpleasant side effects of dealing with large beings with their own brain.)

Can horses smell fear?  Probably, but I bet they react more to body language and Attitude!

Thanks Penny T. (a person not my horse) for the blog idea!

By Patty Wilber

I bought  new riding rain coat from a company called Muddy Creek.  As we are in a record drought, I have been toting it all over, unused, for months.

Saturday, I was up at 4:15am and on the road by 5, under dark (’cause the sun wasn’t up) and overcast skies.  We made the ranch, at 10,000 feet, near the border of Colorado, around 9 am.  Clouds were building to the south in big puffs of white and gray, shot with spears of sky.

I flopped my green saddle bags behind the cantle and threaded the leather lacings on the saddle skirt through the grommets to secure them.

I dutifully rolled and tied my new rain coat with the left over leather AND clothesline attached to the saddle bags themselves.

The wind gusted and the clouds kept  layering up.  Three drops of rain dotted my horse as I swung on.

We headed out, two riders and a ponied horse.  The ponied horse was superfluous, but she came along so she would not bust out of the barb-wire pen in a fit of lonely despair and come searching for her mates.

The cattle were half a mile east of the bunkhouse  in a sloped meadow near the salt blocks.  The grass was knee deep on the horses and in the seeps and rivulet streams, the sedges were emerald green.

I kept eying the sky, but the clouds were not falling.  Neither was the rain.

Spent some time (futilely) trying to rope the three newest calves, one of which is mine –my fourth. They need to be ear tagged.

Roping calves off a horse that does not neck rein while ponying another horse is impossible.  You’d need four arms–two for reins, one for the lead rope, and one for the lariat.  I was born with the normal number of appendages, so  tied up and tried to sneak up on the calves.

…

I could get pretty close...but not close enough to git ‘em with my rope.  Roping takes a lot of practice, plus MY rope was in my trailer, which was at home.  Truthfully, that is a feeble excuse because even with my own rope, chance of catching was slim.

Gave up.  Maybe next week.

Instead, decided to move the three interloping bovines from Espinosa’s and push them back out the SE fence.

Mounted up.  The intruders were on the edge of our herd, so we cut them off and hurried them down hill.  I mainly provided blocking manuevers because I had the non-neck reiner and the pony horse, which, for fast speeds and quick turns really requires three hands.  Still only have the two.

The sky was was opening up...in that the clouds were parting to let in the sun.  Chances of rain diminishing.  So glad I packed The Coat.

We moved those cows down a drainage, across a creek, took a sharp left around a wall of granite boulders and paused there.  We only had one lost-in-the-trees moment, but other than that, put those animals exactly where we wanted them. (Getting better at that!)

Gave up on the rain.  It was supposed to really let loose.  Ha. Not here.  Guess that means we will actually have to finish our day-work and go home.  No stuck in the mud excuses to stay. Drat.

Checked Barlow Creek for additional strays.  Gotta hate that. Had to long trot, toting the pony horse, down around two bends of green trimmed canyon next to a clear running stream with small trout flitting from rock to rock.  No one there.

Got the three we did have pushed up the hill, through the trees and across the dry lake bed, which was  a boggy marsh in June but is a soft meadow right now.  Opened the fence (the handy dandy fence tool came in handy dandy!), and sent those girls home.

My the commotion they caused!  The stayed-at-homes were mooing a “Where you been?!” greeting and crowding around to see the returnees.  We left them to their inspections and headed east along the bad fence to the S, to see if it had completely fallen.

Still up, and those cows were on the correct side–theirs.

Rode between Elk Ridge and Grass Mountain, where there is not much water.  The elk use the area but the cows do not.  Gorgeous steps of grass sliding steeply into the Brazos river canyon.  Five elk were clinging to the volcanic tuff slope on the opposite side and then bounded up the cliff when they saw us. Wound back around to Barlow Creek and the horse pens.

Saw a porcupine, all golden quilled at dusk, waddling through a meadow on the drive down the mountain.

We hit a little rain, and stopped to tarp the saddles.  So the rain quit.  Rolled into my driveway at midnight. I think I am getting too old for these 20 hour days.

Monday, I went to work cows with my friend Mark, and I did not bring my rain coat.

Got a six incher. The raindrops were 6 inches apart.

The arena got damp on top but the dust was still  hot and loose underneath.  I rode my name across the arena for grins.

Got a little wet, but by horse three, it stopped and we dried right up, and so did the ground.

If we do not get more rain soon, all the cows in Torrance county (where I hope to winter my bovines) are either going on the auction block or are going to cost their owners a bundle of feed for the winter.

I really want to hold on to my five girls!  Having too much fun to give up now.  (Not making any money, but hey, still working through the “start up costs”.)  Just keep telling myself that!