I'm Outta Here

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You Know It's Our Fault, Right?

It's the arguments that drive me nuts. People justifying the existance or way of maintaining certain breeds of animals in their life because they grew up with one that acted just like Lassie, or was every bit as smart as Trigger. 

The argument intensifies when we slather our humanity all over these animals. We might have our "heart" horses or insist dogs bred for generations to bite, maul and kill are really "nanny dogs" waiting to return love in equal amounts of the love given - but that's how we feel, it makes no allowances for the reality of the animal.

Then, if none of those heart felt loaded arguments work we fall back on our rights. Maybe this is an American thing, but it certainly seems to be the go to when facts start overcoming emotion. "It's my right to own this dog breed, it's my right to keep my horse in a box and ride it on asphalt, don't tread on me while I'm stomping all over these creatures."

I understand the emotion, and I also understand a need  to justify molding animals into the shapes we want. It's just that I think animals have rights too. The right to breathe and the right to move come to mind.

Instead, we change their size, their jaw width, even their ability to breathe, all to fit our personal needs. 

We expect our domesticated animals to tolerate our ape-like grasp, our need to be the boss, our need to be loved in spite of crawling all over them, putting bits in their mouths or muzzles on their faces. The crazy thing is, they do. If that's what we want, our animals will accomidate the best they can, within their genetic limits.We humans of course, can't be content with that, and dip our fingers in their gene pools like muddy feet in a basin of holy water. 

I'm not saying our experiments are good or bad, I'm just saying we need to accept responsibility for our mutant Frankensteins. 

The first thing I'd like people to understand is that when we modify one gene for behavior it can rise up in the physical too. We aren't quite good enough at creation to anticipate how our yin will get along with our yang. 

I randomly looked up best couch potato breeds. Bulldog, St. Bernard, Basset Hound, French Bulldog, Pekinese, Bernese Mountain Dogs, Chow, Pug, Great Dane all topped the list. Fighting dogs, life savers, royal dogs, hunting dogs, all kinds of sizes and coats, there was quite the diversity. 

At least until I looked up their chronic, breed related ailments. Shortened sinuses, popping eye, joints that don't join, skin that doesn't fit, legs that can't run, noses that can't scent and hearts so small that all their love can't stop them from bursting and killing them in their first decade.

You know who did that? We, the human race did. We've got a nice list of couch potatoes though.

It's not just our ignorance of the damage caused by genetic tampering that gets to me. There's the things we do to our domestic animals for our personal convenience, and then scream from the roof tops, "But he like it this way!!" 

My example here is an awful, heartbreaking injury/infection mess that too many horseowners deal with. Its called cellulitis, a diffuse or widespread swelling of the skin and subcutaneous tissues (that area directly below the surface layer of the skin) caused by inflammation usually associated with bacterial infection. Some of these horses will exhibit mild signs with cool to warm swelling, minimal pain and no lameness. Other more extreme cases of cellulitis will show impressive leg swelling (two to three times the normal size), warm to hot skin that is often painful to the touch, an elevated temperature (102 to 103 degrees Fahrenheit) and notable severe lameness.

The lymphatic system is supposed to clean up those bits of bacteria as blood flows through the the body . When circulation is compromised the toxins aren't flushed properly and can become trapped. Then, those bacteria can get their party started and bring on the cellulitis.

 Healthy lymph flow back into the circulation is encouraged by activity and muscular contraction. Horses in the wild cover long distances at walk each day while stalled horses, and horses in small pastures have long periods of inactivity. In addition, horses have no muscle to contract below the knee, making their legs especially vulnerable.

 You know what prevents this? Strolling for miles, grazing choice bits here and there, front legs pulling, sagging backs and almost continuous movement. It's how horses are made, and what it takes to keep them healthy.

We, us, people, are the ones who keep them in boxes, covered in blankets, sheets, leg wraps, neck sweats and all of these things inhibit movement. We do it for our convenience. We do it because we don't have the room to meet their needs. We do it because a horse's mind is so malleable we can convince them this is what they need.

Cellulitis is our fault, created by forcing a horse to adapt to a confinement that they can't physiologically sustain. 

I'm not pointing fingers. I am however, saying we have to keep our animals real needs in the forefront of our thoughts if we choose to tend them. We have fallen in the habit of treating the results of our manipulation as the problem. It's not. 

I don't have the answers, I have ideas, which I'll certainly share. I can't see the value of treating a symptom without understanding the cause. When we discover we created the mess, I'd like to admit it and start to mop it up.

HAY!! Good Morning! - One More Thing

 

It's going to be sporadic and weird around here, at least for a while. I'm moving. I have lived somewhere or the other in Colorado Springs since I was twelve. Still going to be in Colorado, but I'm headed for the Western slope, where there are fewer people, most of whom are of a nature I understand.

My horse Mort and I came together two years after my family arrived here. He saved me from a downward spiral that I don't believe I could have pulled out of, no matter how many well-meaning nuns my parents threw at me. Mort, and my dog Jud, were my rocks, my moral compass, and my protectors during my initial foray untangling human nature. 

Horses are my passion, and dogs are my best friends. The genetic wheel dropped me into the humanity slot, which rolled me into my immediate family, so I'm a member whether I like it or not. Lucky me, there's a few gems in the bunch, and the effort is worth while.

In 2017 I was diagnosed as autistic. I was 59 years old. 

It was an enormous relief. It explained so much. Years of therapy, delving into whys and hows, always feeling just outside of ...  almost everything. My therapist did a fine imitation of that forehead smacking emoji after she read an article I found on autistic adult women. 

She said, "Now what will I do with you? Autism isn't my field of study."

"Clearly," I said.

She may have thrown a wad of paper at me, I'm not sure. 

All our years of work turned out to be caused by a wiring issue. Well, hell, I could live with that just fine. 

Plus, all those years with her kept me with at least one foot on the planet, got me through raising my creatively challenging daughter, and prevented my mind from snapping like an old, spongy rubber band, you know, like the ones you yank out of the shower drain, twisted around a snarl of hair. So we still hang. 

Therapy kept me sane enough to care for my dying partner, Jim. I'm sure many of you know, but I'll repeat just for clarity, my partner Jim had a massive stroke while on the operating table for the surgical removal of a blood clot that went from his ankle to his groin. 

Within 24 hours my life had turned upside down and I became his full time caretaker, which ended my evolving career as a writer for a small town newspaper.

I hung in with my horses as best I could, kept up hiking, writing, doing what I try to do, but as his mental and physical health faded and my Parkinson's Disease began to amp up my outside life began to fade away. 

Friends and assistance from his children disappeared into the Netherworld. I've known this from my cancer years, long term illnesses become boring. We're supposed to get better or dead, but for God's sake, don't dawdle. People get bored. 

In order to maintain, I began to let things go. First, riding, then hiking, eventually writing, drawing, reading, watching TV, visiting friends, all of it, put to the side so I could maintain my single minded focus on Jim.

I wasn't playing martyr, I was doing what I felt needed to be done in order to keep Jim's butt out of a nursing home, one of his greatest nightmares. When you choose a life partner, you've got each others back, and that's that.

Three years and some months ago, Jim died. 

Three years, some months and two days later, I found out his children had systemetically been emptying his estate. The end result was I was broke and going to lose my home.

The last three years I have been fighting for my house and my way of life.

This week will be the end of all the shit. 

I can sell the house, get into the mountains and take a breath. I may be buying another place, or a field with a yurt on it, won't know for a bit, but it will be mine. 

I've been reading. Hanging with my horses and dogs. Pretty much quit people, I get along better through the written word. I'm drawing again. For the first time in my life I am about to be unfettered from obligation I did not choose. It's heady. I never knew old age could be this sweet.

Good Morning

 Words and phrases I don't ever need to hear again, at least not in this life.

Kiddo

Doggo

Fur Baby

washed out of the program

back yard breeder

quality breeder

adopt don't shop

Quick confession. I just can't go back to the old format. Back then, I told stories of horses I was currently training. Those stories brought up some good training discussions and the blog readers and I enjoyed them. Then, the work I wrote about and the conversations we shared triggered horse memories from when I was a kid. So, more stories ensued. 

I haven't tried to train anything except my aging bladder for the last several years. These days I don't hold back and I keep few secrets. Those of you who read this blog from the beginning will remember how long it took me to admit I have an arm amputated just below my elbow.

I'm old, I have Parkinson's Disease, one arm, and skinny legs. 

There, it's all out in the open. 

I still want to write, but I think there will be more of it if we just see what happens. Are we good?

I do, however, have a new project. Scrub, my Foundation bred dun gelding started watching me about a month ago. I step outside and he might be across the field, but when I look, he's pulled away a bit from the other two and  fixed me with both eyes. The only time he doesn't is when he's running or flirting. 

I think he wants to engage. 

Go ahead and accuse me of humanizing him. I don't care. The keen attention he gives me tells me its time to begin my project. I want to do some liberty work, but make it happen for reals, you know, train him at liberty. I watch the videos of these dancing horses, and the handler invariably has a whip, long or short, and the horse tosses its head like an Arab in a halter class.

I'm going to try to teach Scrub by triggering his curiosity. See f I can keep him interested and curious enough to work with me. No saddle, no halter, no whip, no treats.

Scrub is the horse I started by teaching each step just once. I didn't repeat cues, I showed him once and when we seemed to have it down, I quit for the day. Forever after, whatever we learned one day was part of what we built on the next. It kept me occupied during my long and difficult easing out of the working cowhorse world. I ended up with a curious, willing horse loaded with try. He is friendly and a troublemaker. 

I'll attempt to take pics, maybe some video, as this unfolds. We can talk about it. In my bizzaro world, this will be fun. It's funny, while I'm laying this out a story popped into my head. Guess we'll see where this goes.

Wait

 I had an interesting text convo with a reader from the old days, one who pretty much hung around and made it to the new days with me. 

We were talking about her head shy horse and what to do with him. She certainly didn't create the mess this poor horse is in, but she's dealing with it now, and it's one bitch of a problem. He's so afraid of anybody handling his head or face he's potentially dangerous, although he doesn't have a mean bone in his body. 

In some ways, a good minded horse that becomes so frightened he'll crawl a wall to get away from you is more dangerous than an angry, touch-me-and-I'll-kill-you, evil-minded bastard. The bad-minded horse will engage, where the good one might kill himself, or you, in a blind panic.

This particular horses is stalled at night with daily turnout at his new home. This is perfect for a mind reset. For most of his prior life he never came out of his stall. Did his owners create the problem through ignorance, or cruelty? I don't know, and it doesn't particularly concern me. 

My concern with a horse like this stems from his complete inability to cooperate. A horse who doesn't understand the need to cooperate with humans ends up at auction, or passed from one bad situation to another until he's dead. It's that simple. 

I get cooperation through mutual respect. I want the horse to be clear with my expectations and in return I acknowledge their mental and physical needs.

A great example is my dun gelding, Scrub (aka Odin). As a foal, he did not want to be touched by humans, anywhere, any time. So, I didn't. I handled his mama, gave her scritches, checked her feet, doctored a nasty puncture, all the usual stuff I do with a broodmare on pasture. As time went on, his curiosity overcame his distaste and he began to sniff me and pull at my shirt. I ignored him until he almost crawled up my leg trying to get my attention. Then, I scratched his butt, right above the dock of his tail, and quit right when he started to really get into it. 

Fast forward to his three-year-old year. He still preferred minimal handling, but he tolerated what I needed to do with him. I could halter him out in the field, lead him away from the herd, he stood for the vet and farrier, loaded in a trailer, and then rode quiet. He never raised a leg in threat, bit, or shoved into me. When it came time to ride him he was soft and easy. 

Through all this, he came to appreciate being groomed, liked people to find his scritchy parts, and would come to visit periodically of his own accord. He absolutely hated having his ears handled, or a hand placed between his eyes. So, I didn't. He would spook and blow if a person walked up to us and extended a hand to pat his forehead, so I defended him and always asked for space.

There was no reason to do anything else, as long as I didn't need to doctor him or put on a bridle. Then, I expected him to tolerate me, and he did. The rest of the time, I respected his need not to be crawled all over. 

These days, many years later, I can scratch his ears, rub his face, mess with his forelock and whatever else I can think of, he is the friendliest booger you could ever want to meet. I waited for him to choose contact and it paid off. 

Can I kiss that soft part between his nostrils? I don't know, I'm not all that kissy. 

I want a horse I'm working to do my definition of his job.  That's pretty much all there is to it with me as a trainer. The rest is up to them. I give them choices, and find when a horse knows there are choices to be made, they try harder to sort out what I want. They also know some things don't come with choices, and when I tell them it's time to listen, they snap to. They also think. If there is an obstacle that worries them, they know I'll give them a reasonable amount of time to sort it out. It helps save us from complete shut downs, spook and bolts, or tossing me on my head.

Anyway, back to the head shy horse.

There are a few things about this horse that tells me he's going to be an easy fix. The first is he will approach his new owner in the field and ask for attention. The second is, as long as he's wearing a halter, he will come to the front of the stall and allow her to attach his lead. This tells me he is indeed a kind and forgiving horse. It tells me he knows that accepting the lead is his ticket out to the field. It tells me some bonehead really effed him up, but I digress. 

What I recommended is that she stand outside his stall and offer him the halter. Hold it open for him to stick his nose in and wait. Wait as long as it takes to sort out what he has to do to get outside and let him choose to be haltered. It's his job to accept the halter. She might be waiting a while (sometimes days) but it always works. No halter, no field. The key is to be still, to wait, to ooze horseaii. Probably no eye contact. The important part of this is no cooing, no reaching toward him, and no quick movements to grab him, because 'good grief, his freaking head is right here and I've been waiting a year and if I can just throw the leadrope around his neck...' because now, whether you catch him or not, you took away his choice. He has you pegged as yet another sneaky bastard and won't fall for that again. 

I'm just realized I'm going to have to change my advice a bit. Since he already makes the connection between the lead and going out, she might want to try standing at the stall door with it (as she does now) and a second halter and lead hanging on her arm. Wait until he comes in for the lead and take him out. Then, add to his job description daily, maybe rubbing him with the second halter a bit, then the next day, draping it over his neck, etc. Eventually, he will let her put the second halter on and understand his job. No sneaking, open communication, just making it a little easier for them both and building on what he already knows.

I respect the space of all horses in stalls. It's their safe place and I want it to stay that way. I don't punish them by tying them in the stall. I don't give shots, vet them, pick at them, play with them, none of the stuff we humans think of while they are trapped in a small space with no way out. When I clean their stalls I try to maintain a friendly, business like attitude, and get out. I'm the same when I feed. I expect the horse to be quiet, get out of my way, no aggressive anything, no bumping me, and no pawing or banging the stalls at feed time, or ever, for that matter. It's my job to feed, clean, and respect their space, and theirs to give me mine. 

Don't get me wrong, I talk to them like we're doing coffee at Village Inn, but the rules stay the same.

When the head shy horse accepts the halter without fear it's going to be an enormous step forward in their working relationship. It will show up in every future step they take together. 

If you're wondering about friendship between them, well, that will come later, all she has to do is wait.

P.S. Back to the blue Corriente next time...

The Blue Corriente

I settled into my new life as the reporter, columnist, and cartoonist for a small town newspaper. It was a bit surreal, dressing for work, leaving my dogs home, and boarding my horses. 

The job was interesting, the people I wrote about were fun and tickled to be featured, and my writing skills took a satisfying leap forward. 

I didn't miss the job of horse training, but I missed the time in the saddle something fierce, and the cows, I ached to work cows. Lucky for me, I found a boarding stable a few blocks from the office, run by Jay, roper/rancher/boarder who knew his way around a horse. 

We got along fine, he honored my request not to tell boarders about my training background, and I began to enjoy getting on my horses and just, you know, riding. One afternoon, Jay asked me to help him sort a lame steer out of his holding pen and soon after, told me I could work his cattle. 

I was in heaven. Did I care if they were Corriente roping steers? Not a whit. I was creative in how I used them anyway, I didn't want them ducking under a loop because I'd been taking them down the fence, and for the first time ever, I could just dink with them. So, I did. 

I trailed after them at a walk, played with the bubble (the air space between horse and cow), picked a random spot in the arena and made the steer stand quiet, ran them up the shoot for the ropers, and taught my horses how to wait patiently in the box. I even played with learning to rope,  ranch classes were beginning to take off and I thought I might give them a try. That didn't last long, I only had one thumb left, and the gnarled, twisted, and sometimes missing pieces of the ropers fingers made me nervous. It was the most fun I'd had in memory and both me and the horses were becoming pretty handy, you know, practical handy, not just show pen handy. Jay spent a lot of time watching me work. At first, I'm sure he was keeping an eye on his cattle, but eventually, he just seemed to enjoy it. 

One cool evening I turned my horses out in the arena and kept an idle eye on them while they rolled. Clouds of hair and sand came off them when they stood and shook. Jay came up next to me and handed me a beer. I rolled it across the back of my sunburned neck and felt like I was back where I belonged.

"I wondered if you'd work a cow for me," he said.

"Sure, what do you need?" I was puzzled, Jay could work his cattle anyway he needed.

"There's a blue heifer in the pen. She runs crooked right out of the gate," he said. 

"I'm guessing you hazed her pretty hard?" I said.

"Well, that's the tricky part. She'll hook you if you crowd her and she'll turn right into a horse when she feels a loop. "

Now I'd like to think Jay would have shared this tidbit before I started pushing her around, but you never know what some of these old cowboys consider funny. Corrientes are small, quick, and horned. An aggressive one would normally be a quick cull at a roping arena. "Jay, just what are you setting me up for?"  

"Ah, nothing, she's just a real looker and I want to turn her out at the ranch. If she's nuts she isn't going to do me any good, and if she's mean, even less. I thought you could do some of your cowhorse stuff on her and get her moving off a horse instead of into them."

"OK then," I said, "tomorrow after work?"

I saddled Madonna and long-trotted along the rail on a loose rein. She knew we were working cattle as soon as I slid the hackamore over her nose and was focused and cheerful, a place she only frequented when there were cattle. She was going well in the two-rein, but the hackamore kept us honest. A bridle made it too easy for me to correct instead of ride and gave Madonna something to fret over instead of pay attention. 

She was justified in her worry because she fed off mine. I was getting used to the new drug cocktail my neurologist has concocted and had lost trust in riding with a steady hand. The entire purpose of a horse straight up in the bridle was perfect communication between hand and horse. If my mare couldn't trust me we were never going to get there. 

The blue heifer was easy to spot in the pen filled with black, brown, and speckled steers. She was a beautiful blue roan color, doe-eyed and dainty. I could see why Jay wanted her to work. She was huddled in hock-deep mud with about four or five dull, used-up steers. A sour steer might be the dullest, slowest, pile of hamburger a person ever met. She watched our approach, bright and alert.

Madonna was beginning to fuss. She didn't like mud, she hated pools of pee in mud, and she knew we were going to jump a rusted bunk feeder to get to our target. In situations like this, it helped to be mounted on a horse bred to face and follow the things that spooked her most. As soon as she knew which cow we were after she hopped the jagged-edged feeder without a second spook. 

I rolled my shoulders until they cracked and sat back. I can curl over my horn like a circus monkey when I'm nerved up and I did not want to come over a shoulder in that muck and face plant in front of a stabby little heifer. 

We shoved between two sullen steers, and when they didn't get out of our way Madonna pinned her ears and bit first one then the other, hard enough to make them scatter. She snorted, I looked up to focus on our cow and she was gone. It took me a minute to find her, tucked behind the barn wall, a good fifty yards off.

"Dammit Madonna, keep your eye on the ball," I said. Her ear flick told me she was about to say the same to me. 

This was going to be a long afternoon.

***Mugs here: I'm thinking of switching over to WIX. I can't comment on the comments here at blogger and am about to lose my email notification abilities. Any thoughts? I've been out of the game too long.

***I tried to make it easier to comment...did it work?

House Breaking

 

Technically, I'm having a tough time housebreaking my puppy POTUS, and it doesn't help that he is so freaking enormous, I forget he is a baby. He's five months old and doesn't have the nighttime routine down yet. Today, I found out why.

At five am, I opened the door to let the dogs out. Paladin, the Sarplaninac was first out the door. The pup trotted out with her and sniffed the ground. Good start to the morning and it made me hopeful. Then Paladin lifted her head, sniffed the incoming breeze and a low growl rumbled from deep in her chest.  POTUS darted back inside and sat next to me. He didn't pee in the 40 seconds he was out.

I took him upstairs and opened the kitchen door. Brockle trotted outside and sniffed the air to the southeast, the puppy followed and did the same. Then, Brockle moved to the fence and began to bark. POTUS flew back and sat behind my legs. I grabbed my jacket and coaxed him outside. He came with me, but he cried and leaned against my legs, he wanted me back inside.

My two older dogs have taught him well. There were predators nearby, they had work to do, and the puppy was not invited. He listened to them without question and didn't pee outside because the big dogs told him to stay on the porch. I wish I trained as well as they do.

Previous me might have made assumptions about this pup. The first would be wondering if he may be timid. The second might be that POTUS is going to be difficult to housebreak. Go back to the waaaay previous me and I might have taken this as deliberate disobedience. Lucky for both of us, I know he is not timid. He is aware of his environment. He gages both my and the big dogs' reactions before making most decisions, well, except for stealing my slippers, those he just grabs and runs.

If I forced him outside or was angry while mopping yet again, I would be in direct contradiction with the big dogs. Their logic is sound, the puppy is not old enough to encounter coyotes. I wonder if this type of contradiction could plant the seeds of fear aggression. 

There are a lot of solutions out there. There are charts and crates and alarms and leashes to tie them to my waist. I'm certainly not criticizing any specific method. Current me has become more of an observer and thinker before acting kind of woman. POTUS is bright, sensitive, and already developing quite the vocabulary. He understands where I want him to poop and more than happy to oblige until he is forbidden to evacuate anything but the immediate area because the big dogs are on alert. 

My solution is this - I'm moving the final feed of the day back two hours. This will push poop time back to bright daylight, and fewer coyotes. Also, if the dogs are working, I'll leash him and go for a short, calm, walk away from the action until he poops. 

I'd like to think this is the solution, unfortunately, there is a small glitch in my system. Brockle and Paladin are complete jerks. Any given quiet, boring day, they will position themselves strategically so neither POTUS, nor the little dogs can go outside without passing them. Then, they take a nap, because they made a rule where nobody can go out until they decide to let them. This normally doesn't happen until there is at least one good dump in the house from somebody and I get to bring out the mop.

"Move," is a command all my dogs understand and comply to. I use it often. If I catch on to what they are doing, I can holler the name of the culprit, then "Move!" and the troublemaker will move aside. Because of this, no rotten dogs have been whacked with a mop in my process of sorting this out. I'm pretty sure this is not truly my big dogs being punks, but an instinctive positioning to guard us while they sleep. I prefer to humanize them and consider them dirty, rotten scoundrels messing with the weaker members of the scrum.

The dogs being blocked have learned to rat out those doing the blocking. They will bark until they have my attention and I fix the situation, although, on snowy winter days, everybody stays quiet, and my mop time triples. I'm pretty sure the scrum then morphs into a cabal, the dogs unite, and devise a plot to poop in the basement en masse. Then, they blame the current government.

Damn dogs.

Conversations On the Fence

 Boy oh boy, have I been through it the last eight, nine, ten years? Has it been that long since I wandered off the blog?

I am not the same Mugs who left here. Life has educated me in many ways that I wasn't prepared for. 

I'm quieter. I think, observe, mull, dwell, and absorb the chaos that swirls around me. Then, I spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to meditate. I'm too twitchy, my mind jumps from here to there and does not want to focus on an inner light, thank you very much. I can't escape the appeal of a deep interior quiet though, so I keep trying.

If any of you old-timers join back up with this particular posse, I'm not sure you'll agree with my turn of thought. I am still horsaii to my bones. If I didn't have my dogs, well, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be. The last few years I've been both making peace and searching for it. Ironically, I have cut some long-term ties I thought were forever, sometimes, with a sudden sharpness I never knew I carried. So, the conversation could be interesting and I hope a few of you join in.

The one thing I know, an unshakable fact, is that I am myself here on the Chronicles. Maybe a little writing will help my current search for who the hell I actually am.

Long ago, I hid from the readers of this blog the fact I had one arm. I didn't want it to become a focal point around my horsemanship. Now I don't give a shit. I've survived too much to think it matters. 

I have Parkinson's Disease too and was recently diagnosed as living a lifetime of clinical depression AND plunked down about three-quarters of the way around the spectrum. 

There, the worst is out of the way. I talk about it now because I realize how intrinsic all these things are to my life with horses. Since this blog was always about living with horses, to hide any of it is kind of a lie, and I'm not willing to go there.

And here is a story:

"Stop asking your horse what it thinks when you're on the fence."

I can't say the Big K was shouting, but I could have heard him just as well from the other side of the arena. "We could have stepped into that turn a little earlier," I said.

"You missed a plus half at least," he said.

"It was a good turn," I said.

"It could have been a great one, but you have to pick the perfect moment and tell that mare to turn. You can't go into a huddle and talk about it. Your horse doesn't understand a score sheet, she's just going to pick the softest route every time."

"Mmmm, you mean like a real cowhorse? I lost points because she set up that turn the way she did?"

"You lost points because you didn't set up the turn, she did."

"But she had a valid point," I said.

The Big K didn't think I was funny. The little group of eavesdroppers sure did though. He muttered something about needing a beer and stomped off.

"So Madonna, do we want to follow him and buy him that beer? Nah, me either." I stepped down loosened her cinch and led her back to the stalls. We were out of the money that day, by half a point.

Summer Break

 Well hello there.

I hope everybody is doing well. 

I'm not sure how things are in your world, but mine is pretty damn shitty. Sometimes everything feels so grim I don't want to try anymore. 

I'm not going to dive into personal beliefs, and God knows, I'm not talking politics, ever, and so this is the last time I'll bring this up. Part of my trouble is I don't know how to help, and haven't known for a long while. 

But I remembered something today. I tell a good story, and I know stuff. Not all stuff, but enough to share it here and there. I can offer distraction. I can help by offering our imagination another place to be.

So, let me dust off my hat, put a little oil on my spurs and a lot on my boots, because it's time to start up my stories. They won't be the same, because I'm a totally different person than the Mugs you knew, and have worked hard to get that way, but hopefully I can still spin a yarn. 

In the fields behind our neighborhood, the grass was so tall I could let my feet swing as I rode and kick the heavy heads off the bunch grass. Seeds would scatter and I felt a bit like Johnny Appleseed - more like Janet Spread The Weeds - but I didn't care. The sun was hot on my pink and peeling shoulders, and Mort walked along without a head toss or a jig. I had hours before chores and summer vacation was still new enough to stretch ahead like a fresh-graded dirt road. 

Mort stopped and started stomping and swatting his tail at a horse fly, so I sidled him next to a scrubby elm and reached for a leafy fly switch. Almost crazy from that buzzing horsefly, he leaned in and started to rub himself on the trunk, then under some low branches. I squawked and wrapped my arms around a branch, and he slid out from under me. 

He was involved enough in grunting and rubbing on that poor little tree that I wasn't worried about him leaving, so I slid to the ground and inspected the damage. My belly was scratched up, so were my legs and arms, and the new pink skin on my sunburned shoulders had been scraped raw. I blew on the little beads of blood that appeared and hopped around until it didn't sting so much. A little baby oil should fix it right up. Another good sunburn or two and I'd be ready to tan all summer, reason enough to ride bareback in  cut-offs and halter top, even if mom said I looked easy.

Mort ambled over and lipped at the bark imbedded in my arm. 

"Yeah, you did that, you shit," I said.

I took a quick look around  to see if anybody heard me cuss. Silly, since we stood alone in a big empty field. I swung up onto his back and he ducked his head so I'd vault all the way over and land on my butt. I was ready for him though, hooked my elbow over his withers and dug my heel into that little hollow right under his hip bone. He didn't get me off, but decided to get a little froggy to pay me back. 

I sat on my pockets and let him ease into his long trot. Karen and I planned to ride out to look for baby antelope and her house was still fifteen minutes away.

Just One Time

My time as a horse trainer was drawing to a close. I was selling off investment stock, finishing up contracts and promises and gearing up to leave the last place I'd landed, foundation buckskin breeders that also rode cow horse. It was interesting and a little pitiful to end my career riding almost the same not-quite-good-enough type horses that I began with.

Drawing boundaries with people was a brand new activity for me. My first effort was quitting this job, I was determined to be kind, polite and direct. It didn't work out as I expected, and I was under quite a bit of pressure my last few weeks as a horse trainer. I had one more colt to start and he belonged to me. Loki's foal was a cute, runty, aloof little thing. He didn't want to be pet, caught, fed by hand, or talked to even after weaning. He was too short to sell and I hadn't messed with him enough to get much for him and I liked him.

I had a niggle of an idea with him, it came from no need to hurry but no time to really concentrate on him either. I decided it was time to test consequence and sequence, the cornerstone of my training program. I was going to teach my colt no more than one behavior or response per session, and if I did it correctly, the next day we'd add the next step, built from our last session. If I knew what I was doing, and seriously thought things through, I had a feeling it would work. Didn't have a clue what my little Scrub end up like, but it was nice to think about and a private challenge.

The yearling colts were raised on pasture, then kept in a large corral until they were gelded, taught some manners and halter broke. I could handle every single one of those little shits - except my own. He's scramble the fence to avoid looking at me.

Our first lesson was about contact. I walked into the corral and started watching him, which was enough to get him trotting out, tail flagged and looking over the top rail away from me. I kept a steady gaze on his ears and would stay even with his shoulder from the middle of the corral while he  moved. I stopped, relaxed, and looked away any time he paused. Nothing else. He could hide between his brothers and I would still stop. He could bolt and fart and stomp and I would still walk along just behind the point of his shoulder and stare at his ears.

A bunch of horses can always figure out who I'm hunting, and while it might be fun at first, eventually playing wild mustang got old and they'd stop moving, close ranks and kick out the one I'm after. It took about forty-five minutes with these knuckleheads, but seriously, with six bored yearling stud colts in that pen and I couldn't expect less.

Scrub got pretty white-eyed when he realized his siblings had sacrificed him to the enemy, and didn't seem to give a hoot whether he lived or died. He took off running again in little spurts, with a lot of stops and turns, but didn't last long, he was tired. His head still looked over the top rail and away from me, and he whinnied to the broodmares on pasture across the road. Loki answered him and he bawled to her again.

Then, I got what I'd been waiting for. Scrub flicked a fuzzy little ear toward me to reestablish my whereabouts. He'd lost track of me while he tattled on me to his mama. Our first session ended when he flicked that ear. I turned around and left.

Let's Get to It

I'm neglecting you again.

Can I make it worse?

I have about 10 half finished stories hidden back here.

I've been mulling things over and getting stuck. Sometimes, a story pops up, just like the old days, and I start writing and the whole thing eventually just fades off. I haven't been able to get ahead of it.

This isn't unusual for me. I will begin a project, a new tack room, a book outline, a rock wall, mulching my pasture, and suddenly stop. I wander off to another unfinished project and stare at it, wondering why it's still not done. Eventually, I see a problem I hadn't before, something crooked, or awkward, and I know how to fix it. So I'm back at it again.
I'm not sure whether this is me not wanting to admit there's a problem, or knowing instinctively, but not logically, that something is wrong.

Logic finally meanders on in and I untie the knots.

I do believe I've at least loosened some of my blog knots.

I need you to meet who I am now. Not growly, tired, frustrated Mugs, well, OK, that's still the same, but I've been doing a lot of thinking. Faced facts I wouldn't before, sorted out what needed sorting and realized, I can't write anything but how I see it. For reals.

I want to start out with a list. Remember how you guys used to get all mad at me for oh, hating blankets or drop nose-bands? Then I'd go through all the angry responses and either flat out tell you why or write a related story?

I'm hoping my list will remind some of you and kickstart others.

I hate box stalls, but I think every horse needs to learn to live in them.
Horses need to learn to stand tied.
I hate nosebands and tie-downs.
I use spurs.
I like spade bits on bridle horses.
I don't clip and rarely brush.
My horses have been barefoot for years, but it's only because I'm cheap, I absolutely do not ride the barefoot wagon.
The majority of horse whispery clinicians have turned a colt's first 30 days of training into a life-long project for their customers and a career for themselves.
People who dance with their horses at liberty with Enya blasting through the speakers are generally full of crap.
Horse communicators are lying to you.
Not all Mexican dancing horses are brutalized untalented messes.

There's a start. Let's see what happens.

Work it like a Kardashian

I had quite the epiphany today. Not one I'm particularly happy about, but I found a hole in my riding that I've been digging for years. Many of you will recollect how much I love finding holes and filling them.

I posted a video of a cutting practice as part of my last post. I hadn't watched it in a long while. Madonna was pretty nice, but she kept arcing her body to the right and swinging her head to the left.
She appears to have a case of the looky-loos, or a reluctance to work, but that wasn't the situation. Take another look at the video and see if you can spot it.

I know this because those poked out ribs and head to the side has been an issue in every aspect of our rides.

Her spins to the left are perfection, I step her forward, release my left leg and she flies. To the right, we have issues. When I set her up, I get a head toss and a tail swat, she's locked up enough that one step forward doesn't cut it. I have to push her ribs over, hold them while I step her forward, gather her into the bridle to keep her head straight, and finally spin. It works, but is definitely not as pretty and free.

During her slide stops, if she's on her right lead and I drive her forward with my legs and keep her shoulders straight, she'll pile drive into a consistent and pretty stop. On her left lead, I'm dealing with her rib collapsing under my leg and usually end up with her hind end drifting to the right through her stop.

Lead changes, like a dream to the left, huge effort on her part to get a clean change to the right.

And so on. It affects how she negotiates a steep hill, up and down, and how she travels across a field. When she spooks to the left, it's a spin, stop and look. To the right, it's a bolt, straighten, then spin and look.

Without me on her back, she is dead level.

I know I sit crooked, without equal contact of my seat bones. I was of the opinion the issue was fixed. If you look at this video, I look fairly straight. The problem is, it turns out to be only an impression of straightness, I'm holding my right side completely rigid and my left is collapsed just like my horse. My shoulder is higher on the left, telling me my hips must be crooked too.

After many rewinds I think I sorted it out. My solution has been to focus on contact with my seat bones. Well, guess what? When I make equal contact it creates the entire clusterfuck. In order to plant that left seat bone I'm collapsing my ribcage on the left, becoming rigid on the right and constantly blocking my horse from bending  to the right.

All of this is from the damn Parkinson's. The disease is all about locking up. Some muscles quit on me, not necessarily in a dramatic way, but just quit doing their job. Others step in and compensate. My left cheek has lost tone and is smaller than my right. I don't believe I'm saying this, but half my butt needs to be bigger to get my balance back.

My answer? I'm going to try to focus on building butt muscle through exercise. I'm thankful for the Kardashians and their obsession with glutes, it gave me access to all kinds of giant butt exercises. I'll work both sides, and add half again to the left. Here's the best I found for my current situation - I found them in Cosmo of all places. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/fitness-workouts/a23299693/best-bum-exercises-bigger-glutes/

Old age brings problems with strength, flexibility and tone. Having Parkinson's is a fun addition to the challenges already faced as I age in order to continue to ride. I can't stress enough the importance of looking outside our usual solutions.

Again, I was able to sort this out is because I listened to my horses. It took me forever to figure it out, but if I had taken the easier road, shoved them into the bridle and spurred the crap out of that sneaky ribcage I would have solved nothing except undermine the confidence shared by both my horses and I. The road less travelled gave me my solution.

Talking to my Horses

This is Madonna and I at a practice, probably seven or eight years ago. 

We sat in a companionable circle around our campfire's fading coals.The wood was mostly ash but a few surviving chunks sent up an occasional flare. It wanted either more fuel or a bucket of water, but nobody felt inclined to make a decision. The night was warm enough, we were tired, full, and everybody had at least a beer or two in them, and the conversation, like the fire, kept flaring up. 

It was the end of the first of a three day clinic, being put on by me and none other but the Big K.

We had worked hard enough to get comfortable with each other and the jokes and razzing was getting easier.

"You know, I don't like the way your horses behave on the ground," an attendee said to me.

"Say, what?" If there was a joke in there I wasn't hearing it.

It was suddenly very quiet.

"Don't take this the wrong way, they're incredible once you get on them, but they're totally different on the ground."

I heard the Big K snort and knew he was trying not to laugh. Instead of making me mad, his derision helped me get sorted. This was a green rider who was trying to learn, plus she had dropped a load of cash and travelled a long way to get here. 

"So, let me ask you," I said, "have you seen them kick or bite at me?"

"Oh, no, not at all," she said.

"Lean on me, push me or crowd me?"

"Mmmmm nope."

I continued, "Have they stepped away when I saddle, refused a bit or been hard to bridle?"

"Well, that's not what I'm talking about," the attendee started to sound a little pissy.

People were starting to grin and snicker a bit, it was going to be tough to quit.

"How about be hard to lead? Not move where I tell them to? Refuse to walk in a stall or trailer?"

"Do you want to know what I mean?" Pissy was turning the corner and heading straight to bitchy.

"Wait, I know, did they yank a foot away, pin their ears at me or tail slap me in the face when I picked up a foot?"

I had gone too far, now she was mad and quit talking. After a minute or two though, she couldn't resist getting back at me. 

"You talk to them," she said.

"Yeah, I guess so," I said.

"They talk to you too." 

I was about flummoxed. "Well, in their own way I guess they do."

"They have opinions!" Her voice was triumphant. You'd of thought she caught me in some secret, giant, trainer lie. 

The Big K couldn't hold back the guffaw that had been building in equal proportion with his beer intake. "Come to think of it, Janet, your horses do have opinions!"

I didn't like the way this was headed but I had to give it to him. Odin had single-hoofedly dismantled a temporary stall and round pen our first two nights at the ranch. Several of the panels were never going to be the same.

"I'm not getting you," I told her.

"I asked, why don't you clip Madonna's bridle path and you said, "Because she doesn't like the clippers."

"That's right," I said.

"When I tried to pet her muzzle, you said she didn't like her face messed with," she said.

"Right again, and when you reached up to scratch her ears I told you she didn't like her ears handled. My horses don't have the habit of sucking back, I'd like to keep it that way," I said.

"You told me not to walk straight up to Odin because he doesn't like people coming at him when he's carrying a rider, and that's just ridiculous," she said. 

There was a smugness to her that made me want to just smack her one, but, I was the professional, and she was not. I took a deep breath and attempted to explain how things worked with me.

"From the day we start them, horses are doing what we tell 'em, and to them, most of it makes no sense at all. We handle them, tie things to them, sit on them, make them move in completely unnatural ways. We control their food, their water, their exercise, make them live in blankets and box stalls and they need to be cheerful and compliant while we're doing it."

"That's what they're supposed to do," she said.

"I agree," I said, "that's what they're supposed to do. Sometimes though, I think, Why are they supposed to? What is the actual purpose here? You know what? There's an awful lot of times when I come up with absolutely nothing. So I don't do it.

"My horse hates having her face handled. She has to hold still and be haltered. She has to accept her bit and let me fold her ears into the bridle. If I need to look in her ears or nose, then she better let me.

"What she doesn't have to do is let people kiss her on the nose, or shave the inside of her ears. She sure as hell doesn't need a bridlepath or shaved fetlocks. 

"Odin has a funny reaction when I'm sitting on him and a stranger walks straight to the only place he can't see. Sometimes his reaction isn't so funny. I think it has something to do with feeling trapped, caught between front and back. I'm not worried about it, and there's no good reason for people to be all up in his blind spot. 

"So I help my horses and respect those small pockets of space. You know what? I guess we do talk. Because they know they can tell me what they don't like and sometimes, they get a choice. I find it makes it easier when they have to do what I say. They know I wouldn't insist unless it mattered."

That gal chose not to talk to me until late the next day. It was okay by me, I liked talking to my horses better any way.

Hey Old Fogies!

I have a writing opportunity, (well, I'm going to apply anyway) and it is possibly a good fit for me and my horse stories.

Do you mind giving a Mugwump a hand?

Tell me your favorite story from Mugwump Chronicles, or two or three, or a hundred.

My submission needs to be about  500 words, so I can't submit Sonita or Tally's whole story.
Think on it and let me know?

Yes, I have another post, the last one I wrote was depressing, so I saved it back until I come up with a better way to present it. I'm almost done with this next one.

Don't Should on Me

Several years ago, in yet another self-improvement attempt, I decided to get rid of the word should. I might not be able to tear it out of the dictionary, but I could rip it out of my own vocabulary. I truly think that word is the reason for many world problems.

It was terrible trying to root the sucker out, until I figured out why. In order to quit using the dreaded should, I had to mind my own business. The insistence that I was right in every and any situation, and the overwhelming need to impress said rightness on all those around me, well, it had to stop - even if I was right. That was a rough antacid to chew.

Eventually, after I beat myself up pretty good and often, I got a handle on it. I still didn't understand where I was going with this, or why, it was just an experiment that wasn't quite right, and I was getting a little obsessive over it.  I kept thinking, I shoulda done this, or I shoulda...oh, there you go. I had to quit shoulding myself too.

Want a challenge? Decide to quit shoulding others when you're a riding instructor and horse trainer.
Imagine your first conversation with a client, fresh out of the show pen, who still doesn't realize she ran her reining pattern with her romels crossed, and you can't say should. Or imagine asking your boss why he didn't show up or call the barn for a full week after his due date home from his last show.

Watch him shrug and say, "I needed a break."

Think about the week you spent, cleaning extra stalls, feeding, riding, and placating clients that weren't even yours, then don't utter should even once in your response.

It was a struggle, but eventually, not only the word, but the reasons for it faded off. Instead of jumping into what should or shouldn't be done, I began seriously thinking about why should was the automatic go-to. It appeared to me, it was a control word, a judgement without thought, a glove thrown down without reason.

It entirely turned my approach to horses on its ear.

"My horse won't stand to have his ears clipped."

Does he have to?

"Yes."

Why?

"Because he should."

Once that word was kicked to the curb a whole new slew of questions arose. Why did the horse keep fretting? Clearly, he didn't want his ears clipped. Why not? Did the noise scare him? Were the blades dull? Was he picking a fight?

Without should involved, a slew of questions opened up, most of them involved with how the horse was handled. This was not a discussion most clients wanted to have. They want their horses to do what they should. If the horse didn't, well, I was supposed to step in and make him.

I might say, Now, if it was me, I'd quit clipping the horse's ears. A horse keeps bad stuff out and good stuff in with those hairs. Being a horse, it wants to protect its ears.

"It's the way it should be, the judges expect it at the shows."

I figure if the judges see my horse's hairy ears, I'm going too slow and might want kick it up a notch.

"You should have done a better job teaching her to stand still."

Which was true. I gathered up the horse and spent the next three days desensitizing the crap out of her.

It just kept on coming.

Why should a horse happily leave the herd?

Why should a horse stay content in a stall?

Why should a horse load in a trailer?

I'll stop now, you get the idea.

I found myself replacing should with would. Right there is where, in my secret My Friend Flicka soul, I became a better horseman and trainer.

I always Learn the Hard Way - Mean or Senile?

Oh my gosh you guys, I just realized I left you with an unfinished story. So very wrong of me. I'm not that mean spirited, just confused at times and forgetful at times. I'll try not to pull that one again.

Back to my tale.

My knee gave out with a dull, stretchy, snappy kind of pop and I fell forward into the graceful technique developed by years with Parkinson's Disease. That would be, no arms out, no drop and roll, just, BANG! flat on my face. I was bruised, and if I thought about it, pretty scraped up, blood was already pooling under my forehead and soaking into the torn knees of my jeans.

I looked up, felt the itchy tingle between my eyes of an imminent nose bleed, and met the cold, intent stare of a very pissed off rattler, coiled about two feet from my face. "Well, shit," I whispered to Mr. Snake, then lost sight of him in a seven-pound blur of snarling, yapping, chihuahua fury.

Both of the little dogs were going at the snake, first one would bite and duck, then the other stepped in and did the same, they performed an odd little dance with their target, Mr. Snake. Their only relation is size and attitude, but right that second I knew they shared a wicked dose of courage. I also knew the morons were going to die if they got bit.

"Off! I said off!" I whispered. "You little assholes, OFF!"

Whispering didn't add much to my authority, and complete disobedience joined their shared qualities. It was seriously time for me to get out of there. I flexed my injured leg and pain shot from knee to hairline, which was doing its best to stand on end. My extended fingers twitched and the snake threw a short strike at my hand, the min-pin/Italian greyhound dove in and snagged him behind his head.

What a mess I'd made. When I fall it's almost impossible for me to stand again, hence, my need for a service dog. Who was probably sound asleep in the house, next to my phone...and, my "Help I've fallen and can't get up" button. All I could think of to do was stay in my frozen state until Mr. Snake decided to move. Of course he wasn't going anywhere because my Riki Tiki Tavi wannabes were on task with a vengeance.  One of my favorite Parkinson's jokes, "Hold still!" ran a never-ending loop through my mind.

I felt a sharp poke in my side, heard a snuffle, followed by another hard poke in my armpit. Oh no, Brockle was just behind me. I knew he would jump into the fray and get bit. The first real ripple of panic went through me. He pushed at my pit harder. I couldn't give him a command, I couldn't scoot him back, we were so screwed.

Brockle gave me another hard push and got his nose between me and the ground. Then, with the little dogs barking and shrieking at the snake in my face, he laid down and began to scramble under me. It was fast, he wiggled until he got under my shoulder, I braced an arm, and he pretty much just hoisted me up and out of there. Mr. Snake drew back, and the Chi grabbed a mouthful and we staggered off.

I will never have another dog like him. He just turned eight and I'm shopping for his replacement. It's just about killing me.

Done

One by one, the constants in my life oozed away.

First, I lost interest in reading, then I stopped writing. Music became a cacophony, no matter what I listened to, nails on the blackboard. Television was only background noise to help me sleep.
The dogs were un-walked, the horses stood idle and began to look old.

I stopped, frozen in place, and watched my family fall apart, friends fade away, and business associates look the other way as we passed each on the street. I did however, manage to hold my husband's hand, and speak with him into the night, every night, until he finally died. I think we were both relieved when the end came. We travelled one bitch of a road together for eight long years before he finally let go. 

I admit, I was a little envious. He was at peace, or becoming compost, I don't know which, but either appealed to me more than what I faced. Although, if we went at the same time, we'd be grousing and fussing all the way into eternity and we deserved some space. There was finally time for me to take a breath. So I stayed.

Dusk

Last night, I saw a cloud of bats swooping through dusk. I ran outside to check things out and as we closed in on each other, I understood they weren't bats at all.

They were dragon flies - huge, whirring things - that swirled around my head, so thick I stood in their shadow. I had never witnessed a swarm? herd? flock? of dragonflies before, and my Missouri mule mind wouldn't accept the image. It insisted on being tricked, they must be bats, I live on the prairie and open water was miles away, no water bugs here.

I opened my arms wide and a few astral travelers stopped for a breather. They perched up and down my arms and, like their tribe? gang? murder? still faced the weakening southern sun.
Yep, dragonflies for sure. The cloud over me thinned, and its shadow followed over the garden, across the pens and disappeared into the tall prairie grass across my fence.

My new friends left me and trailed after their companions. It was probably for the best

I Always Learn the Hard Way.

It was a nice evening. Dusk had eaten the shadows and all but the last bit of color over the peak. There was no wind, the birds had quieted down, the dogs were tired and the monotone from the  fence charger was flat and gray as the twilight.

I still limped from a smacked knee earlier in the week, but overall I was feeling pretty frisky. The day was about over, everybody was fed, and once I turned off the water, chores were done. It was hard not to dawdle, morning and evening animal care was about my only break from caring for my husband, Jim. I leaned against the stock tank and enjoyed the cool down as the night deepened. Brockle sat next to me, and nudged my leg a bit to remind me it was time for my meds.

The horses flew around the corner of the barn and about ran into me. They snorted, bucked and farted as they whipped past, then ran to the back corner of the corral and huddled together.

"Look at them watching the barn," I told Brockle, "I wonder what got them so riled up."

Right then my two littlest dogs broke out with their shrieking, yowling, godawful bark, and my peaceful interlude was done. They didn't quit, if anything, their yappy howls went another four or five octaves closer to glass shattering pitch. Good God, they must have the cat trapped in the barn. I cut across the corral to go pull them off, still walking, but kicked up to what I consider a jog these days.
I came around the back of the barn and started to yell, the damn heathens were tearing at something between them.

"Leave it you little bastards! If you kill the cat I'm having me a squeaky dog barbecue, that's for sure." Then, I walked up to scruff them and yank them off the cat when instead  I walked right into a rattler of respectable size coiled in the dust. The cranky thing struck at the sound of my voice.

I'd love to tell you I yipped, whipped out my six shooter and shot him, but instead I jumped at least eight feet backwards. I might have yipped  bit, oh all right, I screamed like my little brother at eight, when I caught him with a Penthouse. At the top of that jump, I managed to take a moment and admire how agile I was. Look at the air I'm getting, damn, I've still got it. Then, of course, I landed. I heard felt something give in my knee, it buckled and I fell flat on my face, not two feet from that damn snake. Dammit.

Paladin and Competitive Aggression II

Paladin, with her favorite chew toy in her favorite hole.

The idea of not training a dog fascinates me. It makes sense to me in many ways, because of how I approached horse training and how my relationship develops with my dogs. Paladin is a different kind of animal. Her breed has been around for the last 4,000 years or so. They evolved according to the need for them (to guard sheep and property) and to have the smarts to do these things on their own without direction. I'm telling you, she just knows things. I just have to keep my mouth shut and watch it happen.

In the horse world, especially  western events, training starts early. When Jan 1st of a horse's second year comes around, they are automatically considered a two-year-old, even if the poor bugger was born on Dec. 31st.

A horse isn't physically or mentally mature enough to carry a rider until their third, or better yet, fourth year, but that's just not the cowboy way. The ethics behind this are better left for another day, because once I get going, it's hard for me to shut up. I brought it up for another reason.

If a trainer plans on having their two-year-old ready for a reined cowhorse futurity, a lot of information needs to pass to that baby very quickly. Because of their youth and propensity for blowing minds and tendons at that age, they can't be ridden for long in one session.

The problem for me was, I wasn't, and still am not, a fast trainer. When I waded into the pro cowhorse world it took me an average of six to eight weeks to have a decent walk, trot and lope on a colt. I needed to be there in a week.

So, I learned to drop the unnecessary things. All the stuff that the young horse could learn on the way was put to the side and I handled it as it came up. Standing tied, picking up feet, being groomed, clipped, vetted, trimmed, shod, loading, saddled, all of it was handled as I needed it done.

This eventually led to an experiment I tried on the last horse I trained (he was almost four when I started him), my personal horse, Scrub, out of a favorite mare.

I decided to show him each step of the process only once. I figured if I really thought things through, and built each new experience as a stepping stone, it should be all I needed to do. I only did one step each day. If he didn't understand, then I took it as my mistake, figured where I had missed my mark, and went back to that before I tried the failed request again. Again, another story, another day.

Back to the dog. I don't think this approach would work with dogs. A dog wants to hang with their person, repetitions are okay, as long as they come from their trainer. Horses want you to leave them alone and go back to their friends. I do think it takes a lot less repetition for a dog to learn than most people do, unless each repetition asks for a better position, or refinement.

This attitude has made it easier for me to let Paladin grow into herself and keep her training to a minimum. There have been issues though.

The first is, she's a rhino. A very happy, enthusiastic rhino. If she wants something and there's a barrier between it and her, she just lowers that giant, bony head of hers and rams her way to it. The barrier can be the gate at the top of the stairs, the entrance gate to the property, or the airspace between her and a guest, be it dog or human. She is very fast, so the speed she can get to before her happy rhino greeting is insane.

Therefore, I have made personal space and respecting boundaries a priority.

Nobody pets the dog unless she sits, and doesn't touch.
If I say off, then she better off or hell will rain down on her big rhino head.

Which brings me to her next quality. She only listens if it makes sense. To her, not me. Sometimes the only point she sees is, "Oh, if I don't listen, I might die." It only happened twice, now she gets that I do have a line she can't cross and we're doing well. No, I'm not telling what it entailed, but nobody bled or limped, so there you are.

Paladin has a ferocious, endless hunger. She will scoop up and eat anything. I'll skip the food items, including week old baby diapers, and go straight to her other favorites. Pine branches, right off the tree. Packs of cigarettes, books, magazines, upholstery, tupperware, Brockle's precious tennis balls. PVC pipe, deck furniture, bottles of carpenter glue, almost anything with my scent on it and leather. You wouldn't believe what an adventure it is to pick up poop at my place.

This has eased off, most likely because they tasted terrible, hopefully because I take things from her and snarl "Mine!" She understands that command. It makes sense to her and she respects it. She will even show me things she wants to eat.

"How about these pliers?"

"Mine!"

"This wrench?"

"Mine!"

"Your tool belt?"

"Mine!"

"The chihuahua?"

On to difficulty # 365.

She wants to eat my small dogs. Seriously, I think she would kill them if I let her. Her demeanor changes if she thinks I'm not watching and she stalks them with intent.

This is a dog who, without training, allows chickens to sit on her, plays gently with the goats and naps next to them, walks through the horses every day and makes nose to nose contact with each. She guards little Hazel anytime she's alone, in the house or escaped into the horse pasture. She's even friendly with the barn cats. Yet she wants to kill my little dogs.

I was stumped, at least until I read this great article on different types of dog aggression, on a blog I was just turned on to, fuzzylogicdog.

"But in nature, competitive aggression means aggression to remove ecological competitors. I believe this covers a pretty wide range of competition, from sexual competition (rams trying to kill each other in breeding season) to food/territory competition (coyotes kill dogs for this reason). The competitor is outside the animal’s social group and there is no percentage in NOT fighting — there is no social harmony to maintain, and leaving the competitor alive means less food for the attacker. So this type of competition can be swift and brutal."


I think Paladin looks at the little dogs as a useless waste of resources, therefore, worthy of killing and eating. Her ancestors look pretty much the same as they do now. They can survive for a long time and protect their flock when the snow is too deep for their person to get to. We all know they had to eat something during those long winters. I'm guessing unnecessary competitors are high on the list.

The wisdom in this dog is incredible, I can't wait to see it bloom, but the rhino? That's going to be a long, uphill battle.

She is learning. As her attachment to me grows, so does her willingness to do what I ask. A month or so ago, all four horses were nose to nose with about ten head of the neighbors cattle. The electric fence was clearly on the fritz, because the damn critters were in the process of tearing down my horse fence. I muttered something unpleasant and went to grab my coat.

By the time I went outside, Paladin had walked down to the livestock. She was quiet, her head was up and her tail was relaxed. She worked her way in front of the horses and they politely backed away.

Now when did they work that out?

Then she began to bark. Deep, serious, "Get off my land!" barks. She didn't touch the fence or cattle, but raced up and down her side of the fence with the ferocious roar she can use when needed. The cattle left. She laid down and took a short nap before coming up to the house. It might seem simple, but for me, it was a beautiful affirmation of what kind of dog she is.

I think the adult dog is going to be astounding, as long as I don't eff her up.