Vicarious Cowgirl

 

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!  For years now I’ve been following a wonderful blog called “Mugwump Chronicles”.   The lady who writes this, Janet Huntington, is an absolute wealth of good information, and a master of the riveting cliff-hanger story.  Over the years she’s shared tales of some of her trials and tribulations as a “horseaii” struggling to balance her instincts with the desire to be professionally successful at training Reined Cow Horses, as well as bringing us along for the ride with her as she has brought some incredibly difficult horses from pretty well unmanageable to useful treasures.

  Annnyway, she and her trainer, Tim Unzicker of Unzicker Cow Horses have decided to take pity on us rabid fans and hold a  clinic this summer at Tim’s ranch in Montana!   They promise a weekend full of horsemanship, cattle work and trail rides, as well as story-telling, great company and perhaps the odd libation.  (Apparently Corona Light is the beverage of choice, but I’ll bet I can find someone who will enjoy a little Tequila with me!)  It’s open to those who would bring their own horses and want to learn about Reined Cow Horse, and there were a few openings for those who would come horse-less, renting a cow horse from Tim.  Unfortunately for me, those spaces sold out before I even knew about it.  However, there are five openings for “looky loos” to audit the clinic and I got accepted for one of those!  That’s almost as good as getting one of the riding and renting slots, and maybe I’ll make it into one of those next time. 

I am so excited I don’t know whether to go exercise or get my horse out first!  Because I am not going to this fat.  Not. Going. Fat.  That is a promise to you and to myself.  Because I take promises very seriously and never make one I don’t intend to keep, come hell or high water.  Back the first of December I started walking two to three times every week with a girlfriend around the lake at the local park.  It’s only 2.2 miles around, but as she says, just moving is better than not moving.  The last two weeks we’ve upped it to twice around, making a respectable 4.4 mile hike.  And our speed is improving, too.,  But this clinic changes everything.  I will now be walking the park every day that I am not staying at peoples’ houses for pet sitting.  And while I have been fairly seriously trying to eat more healthily (and less) for some months, I believe those guilty desserts are a thing of the past, at least until this clinic.  The clinic gives me a real impetus (like my own health should have!). 

Here’s the address for the clinic information:

http://mugwumpchronicles.blogspot.com/2013/02/come-ride-with-me.html?m=1

One Way to do it!

Everyone takes their dental hygiene very seriously at our house--

We brush vigorously

And floss after every meal--

 

And we always brush again before bed.

Mimi Takes a Big Step

I was off to a cat-sitting visit and as I went out the door to the carport, Mimi strode right out past me.  This was shocking, for two reasons.  One, my dogs are very polite.  They know not to go out the door without permission and they are pretty good about it.  Two, it was Mimi.   Mimi came to us from a supposedly legitimate breeder, but I take leave to doubt it. 

Mimi has several of the classic “puppy-mill” dog characteristics, in fact, they define her.  She doesn’t speak “dog” and seemed to have no concept of how to interact with other dogs when she came home to us  a couple of years ago.  She didn’t mind the other dogs, she just didn’t notice them, or understand what they were trying to say to her.   It was like they didn’t exist in her universe.  She would just walk right over them on the sofa, and their annoyed growls were totally ignored by her.  No reaction to a snarl or snap at all.  Like she was from another planet.  She doesn’t understand dog play, and I don’t think she ever will.  When our little nurse-dog Pepper would inevitably insist on grooming Mimi you could tell she couldn’t stand it and would immediately get up and move out of reach.  I’ve watched her first learn to tolerate a good licking and now her eyes positively glaze over with pleasure as she goes into the “zone”.  Don’t bother calling her if she’s getting a bath from her big sister Pepper. 

Among other things she’s absolutely terrified of strangers.  Some people think that’s an Italian Greyhound thing, but I believe it’s all in how they’re raised.  A dog who was well socialized as a puppy has a much better chance at a good and long life.  It’s hard work to overcome ingrained shyness (just ask me, I know).  Mimi quickly adopted us, but it was well over a year before she would look us in the eye, even for a fraction of a second.  She wanted to be as close to us as possible, but would always keep her head screwed away, like we smelled bad or something.  But she’s one smart little Iggie.  We’ve seen her get up and run to the door, inciting all other couch occupants to do the same, only to meet them on the way, as she doubles back to take the prime spot that she really wanted.  Tell me that’s not smart, creative thinking.  She’s got so much to offer that I’ve tried repeatedly to stretch her comfort zone with the long range goal of being able to travel with her and share her with others without her being a shivering, petrified mess. 

Before I could successfully take Mimi out to meet people I had to get her where car rides weren’t terrifying in themselves.  To that end, Scott and I have been taking her with us to run errands lately as much as possible.  I keep a bag of the very tastiest dog treats (jerky, her special favorite) in the glove box and as soon as we get in the car she gets one.  Scott stays in the car with her while I run the errands, and she gets another treat whenever I return to the car.   Inititally, she was too tense to eat them but we’ve passed that now.  And the last stop of the day is usually McDonald’s or Bojangles or Wendy’s, where she gets her own little lunch.  I know, we spoil them, but sometimes desperate measures are called for, and I’ve found that for me sometimes the best way to short-circuit a dog’s or horse’s habitual panic is through treats.   A plain junior cheeseburger or the meat from a Cajun Filet biscuit are powerful things in a dog’s world.   And today proved it’s working!  I knew she was getting more okay about these little outings because she quit hiding from us when it was time to go out.  She actually wagged her tail and moved forward on the couch a little, the last time.  For Mimi, that was progress.  Now, Scott had his wisdom teeth out last week and has been laying low ever since, with completely no interest in fast food.  Mimi had become accustomed to going out for lunch at least once a week and I guess today she decided the drought had gone on long enough.   Seeing her trot happily out ahead of me, I called back to Scott, “I’ll take her with me”, since I just had one very quick stop to make to feed some cats nearby.  I opened the door to the car, called her and she jumped in!  On her own!  A victory in itself.  I immediately gave her a piece of jerky as her happy feet danced on the seat with anticipation.  On the way out the quarter mile long drive I rolled the window halfway down like usual, and for the very first time, Mimi’s nose was poked slightly over the edge of the glass.  She’s been too nervous to join all the other dogs in the joy of sniffing  the driveway scents, but today she did, both going and coming back.  It was a thoroughly uneventful trip, she was calm, but trembling (that’s an IG thing), and never tried to hide her head under my arm as she usually has before.  It’s such a small but wonderful step she took today, and I’m in a happy, hopeful glow about it.  Her progress had been so slow as to be minute, but she turned it on its head today.  Our little girl is going to grow up into a wonderful adult dog, I see that now.  It just takes time, patience and repetition.  

Icy Here!

Finally got our first wintry precipitation for the 2012/2013 season, in the form of sleet yesterday.  It was a shorter burst than anticipated, which was probably a good thing.  When I drove out to do some dog-walking mid-afternoon there were already roll-overs, the black ice was amazing.  Thank goodness for our sturdy little old '95 Nissan 4 wheel drive truck!  Back here everyone coped with the storm in their particular ways.  Willow and the GGs seemed unperturbed, and Stacy thought it might be the day to debut her "goat riding a horse" act:

Stacy: Hannah, quick, give me a leg up!

There were lines at the bird feeders like I haven't seen since the gas shortages of the seventies.  Birds came to fisticuffs (wingicuffs?) and the odd feathers flew.

The big dogs could be found either in the carport in their snug little heated corner,

or inticing someone to go for a walk.  (sorry about the blurriness).

The Iggies were both double-blanketed in spite of having their heat-lamps to broil under, on the couches, Buglet looked like a tick--nothing but eyes and legs, but she wouldn't give up her favorite spider.

Pepper and Mimi just broiled under the heat-lamps like sausages at a convenience store.

Are Horse Lovers Made or Do They Just Come That Way?

Sometimes I think parents have only themselves to blame for their little horse-crazy children.  I mean, what do they expect if they read them “Black Beauty” when they are very small? 

In my case I think it was a perfect storm of factors.  My dad grew up an Oklahoma cowboy, and some of my earliest memories are of being spellbound by stories of his Cheyenne and Arapahoe friends and all the horse trading and riding and ranching his family did.  “Cheyenne Fannie” was a frequent horse-trading visitor, and when Black Kettle’s little grandson died dad told me how he was given a Christian burial, but his little white pony was shot and buried with him so he’d have something to ride in Heaven.  Whole train cars full of Appaloosas would come into Watonga straight from the Nez Perce lands, and dad and his older brother Britt would buy and break them for resale, their spectacular coloring making them valuable amongst the usual bay and chestnut cow ponies. 

My grandma had grown up at the turn of the century and as a small child living on an isolated farm her only friend was a weanling filly mule named Goldie.  Goldie and little Flossie were inseperable, even to the extent that Flossie coaxed Goldie up the incredibly tall, narrow and dark stairs to the second floor bedrooms and all the way onto the bed.  I always wondered how she got her down!  Flossie got a whipping for that but she said it was worth it.   I ate their stories up, and then they read me “Black Beauty”,  so between that and genetics it was all over as far as my mania for horses was concerned. 

We had neighbors with cows and horses and I got in trouble for following them when their weekend trail rides passed through our woodland logging roads.  My cousin Amy was the richest person I knew, from my point of view as she had an evil little Shetland appropriately named Frisky.  Frisky regularly did one-eighties, usually managing to sling us into the thickets of sawtooth briars, but neither our constant scratches nor scrapes could deter us.  Amy’s father was a sawmiller and owned a giant Percheron logging mule named Bertie May.  Bert was a frustrated mother and cows with fresh calves had to be protected or she would drive the calf from its mother and guard it from the anxious cow!  She was also a Houdini who frequently escaped the pasture, there being no fence able to stand up to her sheer size and strength. 

One of my very first rides was with two of my little cousins on Bert.  Once I was on her the ground seemed an awful long ways away, and I’m the one clinging with my very toes to her well sprung sides as she good-naturedly toted us around on her day off. 

I couldn't leave you without showing you last night's sunset.  Maybe all that color is a precourser to the ice and snow we're forcasted to get?  We can only hope, although I'm starting to envision little coats on the goaty girls.  A trip to Petsmart to see what they have in the way of large dog coats may be on for today!  They probably don't need them, but when I see them all naked next to Willow who's wearing a blanket for the first time in two years  (last winter just was too mild to even be called that), I have to admit I worry a little for them.  They've plenty of hay to snuggle down in but I bet they'd appreciate their own blankets. 

Woody and His Little People

 

When I found Woody most of his experience with people must have been indifferent at best, but mostly bad.  Even though he came to trust me completely over our twenty-two years, he never really became comfortable with the idea of having his face stroked or petted.  Most horses I have known have enjoyed a gentle stroke or pat, and Woody was no exception, as long as you kept it to his neck.

 In any herd he was always low man on the totem pole and for all our time together I had to either provide him a separate area to eat, or if I couldn’t do that, then I needed to physically guard him so he could eat in peace.  He definitely appreciated it, and even enjoyed being stroked and talked to as his ate.  I could actually see his whole being soften and relax under my hand, and since a lot of horses would just as soon you leave them alone to eat, I really valued those times with him.  Even his ears would relax, and  I felt good that I could do something for him that he really appreciated.  Woody was pretty undemonstrative.  It took about ten years before he’d unbend enough to let his lips twitch when I scratched him, up til then as far as I knew he was just tolerating me.

 

But Woody had a weakness, and it was little people.  Children fascinated him, and the feeling was mutual.  I have a large family with lots of cousins and from time to time the idea of “pony rides” would come up.  Woody was just a different horse for them.  No matter how hot he was for adults to ride, he was a true steady Eddy for children, happy to plod slowly round and round the yard.  After he’d been around twice I could probably have put him in charge and turned him loose with them, as no further leading was necessary, he knew where to go and where to comeback and stop at.   Once I put a tiny Irish cousin up on him, not knowing that she already took lessons back home.  I could see Woody’s consternation and confusion as he raised his head when he felt her pick up the reins and put her tiny legs on him!  But at a word from me his head came back down and he heaved a big sigh as he realized they were cues he should ignore.  Children were the only ones who were welcome to touch his face, and even if their excitement made them pat him enthusiastically he never pulled away from them. 

And another little horse-crazy girl is born.

Ivan

 

The first time I saw Ivan I was as big a mess as he was.  A local farm owner advertised for barn help and I jumped at the chance of my first horse job.  All I knew about Saddlebreds was what everyone sees, the huge shoes, long feet, action and rolling eyes.  Through my hunter-jumper friends I’d heard a rumor that they were often good jumpers.  The barn owner was an extremely kind lady who obviously loved her horses.  Physically, they wanted for nothing (except turnout that is).  Nothing but the best feeding and care.   Gradually I noticed that they usually came in from workouts with bloody mouths, which we carefully medicated.  I learned to strap them into the confining tail harnesses at the same time I learned to carefully bathe and cool them out.  I watched unhappily as they were occasionally terrorized in their stalls with brooms  to produce the “animation” desired.

But the barn was a haven for me.  Home life was tricky at best.  Mom and I fought all the time, mostly over my boy friend and lack of “proper” social  ambition, dad was in the early stages of Alzheimers, before anybody knew about the disease.  I just thought he had strange opinions when he’d accuse me and my best friend of being way more than friends, but it cost me that friendship just the same.  At the barn all that just floated away as I immersed myself in the work.  I had the care of the two year olds who were already getting full work outs under saddle.  All except one.  “Keep away from Ivan.  He’s nuts.”  Ivan was a red chestnut with the biggest star I’d ever seen.  The BO had an aerial picture on the wall and you could tell which horse was Ivan, sticking his head out of the barn window with that headlight between his eyes even from thousands of feet up.  Ivan had a foaling stall to himself because he constantly paced and stood by the window pawing a foot-deep hole in the floor.  He wore both pawing chains and hobbles, but still he dug, pressing his nose against the window bars.  Like the others he hadn’t been turned out since he went into training for fear of pulling a shoe or marring that silky coat.  He seemed to feel it worse, though, and he was clearly miserable.  I carefully cleaned his stall as quietly and gently as possible  but it broke my heart to watch him rear against the far wall and try to beat his way out, away from me.  I couldn’t stand to see him so afraid and unhappy so I started taking my lunch and a book into his stall and eating quietly in one corner, as he trembled and fidgeted  as far from me as he could get.  Gradually he began to accept me and it truly warmed my heart when he trusted me enough to lie down for a nap near my feet.  I took over his care, no one else wanted to deal with him anyway because he was still crazy-scared most of the time.  I soon lost my heart to the damaged colt and spent every free moment keeping him company in his stall, but there was nothing I could do to really make his life any better for him. 

Ivan and I both lucked out the next summer when it was determined that he was worthless, not having the necessary knee action for the Saddle Seat world.  His owner let me make payments on him and $900 later he was mine.  I turned him out for the first time in six months and cried as he ran and bucked and slid in an overabundance of joy.  Ivan took to the trails like he was born to it.  I think he was glad to get out of the ring, and his bravery knew no obstacles.  Traffic, dogs, kids, water, it was all fine with him, as long as we were trotting or cantering.  I couldn’t get him to walk, and like many inexperienced riders I put him in a harsher snaffle, sitting his jigging uneasily as his front end got lighter and lighter.  I knew what was coming and a rear was inevitable, but it panicked me into calling around for lessons.  No one in my area was thrilled about teaching someone with a saddlebred but eventually I found an eventing trainer who would take us on.  He put Ivan back in a smooth snaffle and taught me how to send him forward into it to create a flat walk.  He also helped me teach him to jump. 

Ivan proved a talented and enthusiastic jumper.  Soon we were limited only by what I had the nerve to attempt, as cross country jumps went.  Ivan pricked his ears and sailed happily over ditches, logs and streams.  As long as running was involved it was all fine with him.  He was such an enthusiastic jumper that he ran away with me in show jumping at all the horse trials I took him to.  I could control him in lessons, but I guess my nerves got to him at events because he’d haul me around a course at top speed and I was too embarrassed to set him down in front of God and everyone.  He never touched a jump or had a penalty but I have a picture of us jumping that shows the jump crew with their hands over their faces. 

Trailering back from Virginia one time the truck broke down.  I had to spend the night in the little two-horse trailer with Ivan to keep him from screaming for me all night.  I slept in the stall next to him and he was content.  We were a team, and he comforted me in my teenage heartbreak as much as I did him. 

 I was blessed to have Ivan for just two years, his fourth and fifth.  One afternoon in August he coliced and the vet recommended I bring him to the clinic.  Back then I still thought my trainers and their vets were gods and that there was nothing they couldn’t do. They treated him about twelve hours, hoping it wouldn’t require surgery as they told me they’d lost the last two.  This was back when colic surgery wasn’t the more routine operation it can be now.  I watched from the sidelines as they prepped my boy and flipped him on his back, one back leg extended and one tightly flexed.  Unbelievably, the anesthetist had to leave mid-surgery on another emergency and I was drafted to monitor the machine.  I didn’t know what I was doing and  at one point Ivan moved a bit, as his level of sleep became insufficient.  They removed several feet of purple-black intestine and sewed Ivan back together.  He came out of the surgery well, but it transpired that the flexed up leg wouldn’t work and I watched as he crawled around the padded stall, trying to get to his feet.  When he quit in exhaustion the vets wracked their brains trying to get him going again.  I was still on auto-pilot and deep in shock, thinking that if I only kept doing what they told me, everything would be alright.  I’d never lost a horse before and it still hadn’t dawned on me that I was losing this one.  I knew what would get him moving, and I cried as I raised a broom beside him, but fear gave him the  strength to finally gain his feet.  It took me more than twenty years to stop beating myself up for raising the broom to him, but at the time I thought that it would save him if I could just get him to his feet.  I didn’t know that the battle was already lost.  It was just too late.  His insides couldn’t work anymore, the blood had been cut off for too long.   I still can’t look at a purple liquid, the color of the euthanasia solution.  Ivan was my heart horse, but he paved the way for the little chestnut castoff that now inhabits my field and his own place in my heart.