Surprise Visit

I spent last night at the lodge and on the way home, saw Mom and Bill's herd down by the river.  I couldn't believe my eyes!  They were just a few feet off the highway by the St. Vrain river.  All I could think of was, "Mom's not going to believe this!"

Mom's always bragging on her blog that all they have to do is call the horses and they come a'runnin'.  Yeah, right.  Time to put that to the test.

I parked the car, picked my way through the fence and gave a holler, "Jesse!  Washoe!  Ranger!"  Ranger's head popped up and he beat feet over to where I was standing, thinking that I had treats.

 Once he realized that I didn't have any treats, he kind of snuffled at me and went back to grazing.

Jesse and Washoe were up on the ridge overlooking the river, but Mom was right, they come when called.  Washoe bolted down the hill, headed right at me.  Though he's a bit lean after the winter, it's still disconcerting to see a full grown horse running straight at you.  I stood my ground and at the last minute shoved his head and neck away just as he was going to knock me over.  He's still kind of gangly and doesn't always have full control of his limbs.

I got him moved away from me and turned back just in time to see Jesse sliding to a stop in front of me, "hey, whatcha doin'?"

Once Mom and Bill's horses were done greeting me, Peanut took over.  He decided that I was his human and started grooming my ponytail.  He briefly allowed Doc to say hi before he flicked an ear and banished him.

Now if I could just get Estes to come a'runnin' when I call.  Guess we'll have to work on that tomorrow.

Ride of the Week: Shadow's Leading Lesson

This week's Ride of the Week is brought to you by Juanita from It's A Horse Life.

For more than ten years Juanita and her husband, Bill, had dreamt of moving to the mountains and getting horses, after the kids were grown. Well, it finally happened. They purchased The Lodge high in the mountains, settled into their new life and a couple years later became the proud owners of two ‘old’ Mustangs, to which their children informed them that they were soon to be put into new white jackets. You know, the kind with the cute little strings that tie the sleeves in back to keep a person out of trouble?

**A bit of clarification from the GunDiva: I threatened them with the funny farm when they bought the lodge; I kind of forgave them when they bought the horses.**

Shadow's Leading Lesson

Shadow, a 10 year old un-trained grulla Mustang gelding, was attached to the other end of my 15 foot lead rope and standing next to me with his head by my shoulder, peeking at me with his huge brown luminescent eyes. We had come a long way in our current adventure. My husband and I had purchased two matching Mustangs from a wrangler that was not having such a good time with them. We just wanted a couple of horses to mess around with and these guys were really cute (good reason for buying your first horses, huh?). Naïve doesn’t even come close to describing us. So…

Here were Shadow and I educating ourselves in Leading 101. We had come a long way: I could walk into his pen, walk up to him with a lead rope, put a halter on him and brush most parts of him in a reasonable amount of time. Not bad for an ‘older’ wild horse who had never been handled by people until his capture the previous year, and the handling he did get was not pleasant (freeze-branded, shots, gelded). I actually think part of the reason we got along was that in my naïveté, I had no expectations of him. We just did stuff together, so we were walking around the corral getting used to him just following me with no pressure on the rope.

I spotted a softball sized rock ahead of us with a nasty looking sharp edge poking out of the ground in our path. OK, you need to understand that Bill had made considerably more ‘progress’ with his horse, to the point of actually trying to ride him – or buck him out – as the older cowboys told us, and managed to hit the ground a few unplanned times in this exact corral. Thinking that rock would hurt a lot if landed on, I bent down to pick it up, and …. wait, where was my horse? Did I say how quick these guys could be? Shadow was standing at the opposite end of the corral, snorting and staring at me like I had attacked him. Trying to think through some of the new stuff I had been reading, I realized that when I bent down to pick up the rock, I had become the ‘lion’ predator and he made a quick retreat.

I called him back to me (yep, he would come when called once haltered) and let him lean out away from me as I very s-l-o-w-l-y bent down for the rock and threw it over the fence. He let out a sigh and came back in close to me, so we continued walking. Thinking this was a good practice thing, I looked for another rock, we walked to it and again I picked it up, not so slowly this time. This time he didn’t run away, just stepped to the end of the rope. As I straightened up, he closed the gap and stared over the fence. I threw the rock away and we started off walking.

“What, Shadow?” I had walked; he had stopped at the other end of the rope, with a softball sized rock laying between his front feet. He looked at the rock, looked at me, looked at the rock, looked over the fence. By this time, Bill was laughing so hard tears were forming in his eyes. He had been watching us from the side and realized what Shadow was doing. “This is a game, right?” from Shadow. Not believing this was happening, I intentionally walked past another rock and again Shadow stopped. This time he very pointedly stared me in the eye, like he’s trying to train me, then looked at the rock and looked over the fence, until I picked it up and threw it out. Then, he walked ahead of me!

“It’s gonna be a long walk in the mountains, with him wanting to pick up every rock,” laughed Bill. “They don’t call these the Rockies for nothing.” (Stop, dismount, pick up rock, mount-up, walk, stop, dismount…you get the picture. ) He continued to train me in the ways of wild horse humor.

Ride of the Week: Catch Me If You Can

This week's guest blogger is Bill from It's A Horse Life.  Juanita was originally scheduled for this week, but they pulled the ole switcheroo so that she can have time to finish her homework.

Bill remembers his first ride on a "real" horse when he was 4 years old and on a day trip to a small farm owned by family friends. He also remembers being "blindsided" by a billy goat on that trip. That first horseback ride set up a life-long love of horses. Horseback classes in high school and volunteer work at nearby riding stables for ride time deteriorated into annual trail rides. Finally, he and his wife bought "The Lodge", and two mustangs 12 years ago. After almost a year of "No, really. You CAN'T make me" from Ranger the mustang, Bill learned about "least resistance" training techniques from the BLM and assorted trainers. Life is now good for all involved. But Bill still detests goats.

Catch Me If You Can

"Sure are a couple of good looking horses" said Hammond as my wife, Juanita, and I watched our new purchases running around the corral at the livery across the street from our lodge. A beautiful matched pair of 9 and 10 year old grulla mustangs. "So now what, Ham?" I asked.

Ham was a cowboy with better than 30 years experience working ranches. Working cattle, fixing fences, breaking horses... whatever was needed. He had talked my wife and I into buying this pair of unrideable critters from the gentleman that had adopted them from the Bureau of Land Management. The horses didn't work out for the original adopter. At all. Not even slightly. In fact, he sold them to us the day his one year probationary period was up and he got title, and later told us he thought we were nuts for even getting into the pen with them.

"Now, we catch ‘em and get a halter and lead rope on them" says Ham, "You ever thrown a loop?" I thought that sounded suspiciously like throwing a disk out in your back, but could guess what he was talking about.

"No" I said.

"Well, you can borrow my rope, and good luck" says Ham. He gave me a couple pointers, his rope, and lots of space and time. After a few tosses, I got the loop around the running horse's neck. "A few"? Did I say "A few"? I meant QUITE a few. Thirty two misses and finally a catch. Not a great idea really. Now I was attached to a large, scared, PISSED OFF running horse. We did finally get him reeled in and a halter with lead rope on him, so he would drag the lead rope around and "learn to stop" when he stepped on it. It was also supposed to make him a little easier to catch.

I still had to get the rope out, stand in the middle of the corral and sail a loop over the running horse's head to get close enough to grab the lead rope, but day by day, I got better at it. Rope the horse, reel him in, brush and talk to him, work with him for a couple minutes, then cut him loose again. I was getting better at "throwing a loop".

Twenty nine tosses and a catch.

Twenty seven tosses and a catch.

Twenty four tosses and a catch.

By the time I was down to less than ten tosses, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Right up until the moment when Juanita pointed out that the horse wasn't running and ducking any more, now he was just trotting and stretching out his neck. He seemed to have figured out that bad things didn't happen when he got caught. In fact, kind of GOOD things happened. He finally got to the point where he would stand until I walked up and put the loop over his head. Then he was mine and I could work with him. Just a short while later, I could just swing a lead rope around over my head, and he would walk up to me and let me drop it across his neck. Caught!

Several years later, we had a fairly well known trainer in the area giving a clinic at a nearby ranch. He asked if I would mind if he worked with my horse, as he hadn't spent too much time working with older mustangs. He likes to "round-pen" the horses before he works with them, to establish his "leadership role" with the animals. He climbed into the round-pen with my horse and started swinging a lead rope over his head to drive the horse around the pen. Only the horse didn't try to run away. He headed for the trainer. The trainer was a little apprehensive before climbing into the pen as older mustangs have a "reputation", so when the horse came at him, he bailed out of the pen and into the dirt like Satan himself was after him. "Did you see him come at me?" hollered the trainer. I could barely see anything through the tears of laughter in my eyes, except a very bewildered looking horse hanging his head over the pen.

Had that horse over ten years now, and I still can't halter him unless I drop the lead over his neck and "catch" him. The old guy still has his pride.

Bill