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I’ve been remiss in posting to this blog for some time now – there’s been lots going on here and I’ve gotten way behind in writing. I did want to update you on a few related topics.
Our little orphan colt, Despereaux, has left the ranch and is now in Nebraska, on his way to his grown-up life. Not so little any more at 5 months, the colt dealt with being weaned from his foster mother, Jess, very well. He handled the long trailer ride with his friends just as well (he traveled with Sandy, the mini-horse mare; Rue, the colt’s aunt/full sister to the colt’s sire, SE Kokopelli Kid; and Cantor, the llama).
I’ll miss the little guy, but Su misses him more.
Su (Suletta HCC) at 26 years of age is not likely to have more foals even though she lives with Koko full time. When Jess left, I needed to put the colt in with horses that would pay attention to him. I tried him with the other mares, but while they tolerated him they didn’t seem invested his welfare - although he did hang mostly with Kelsey, who is now the lead mare of the mare herd. Good survival tactic.
I needed to be able to feed the colt supplementary food for a while, and since Koko and Su get their soaked pellets with secret supplements every morning, it seemed like a good idea to put the colt in with them. (Everyone could be put into separate feed pens, of course, but that’s not how horses naturally eat – more on that some other time).
Koko is now 12 years old – a mature stallion in the prime of his life. He looks great, he feels great, and he knows that he’s the Big Kahuna on this ranch. But he wouldn’t hurt a baby and I knew when I turned the colt out with him that Koko would be just fine.
Su pretty much ignored the baby in the beginning. She wouldn’t share her food with him like she would have her own foal – not an issue since although I feed horses together, I always make sure there’s more piles of food than there are horses - but she also didn’t drive him away if he wanted to hang with her. The colt did want to be with her, so Su got used to him being there for the short time between Jess’s going home and the colt’s leaving for his home in Nebraska. I thought that's all there was to it.
I hadn’t realized how much she wanted to be with him, though, until he left. Su had been barreling into the pen where the colt was already eating breakfast in the mornings – after the colt left, however, she just plodded in, her hooves dragging in the dust. She looked around for him hopefully each morning, of course not finding him. There was a bit of spark missing from Su’s eyes - she wasn’t truly depressed, but clearly missing the little guy.
Horses are very accepting of things when they have to be, however, and just like the colt will grow up just fine out there in the world, so, too, has Su moved on in her life.
But I think she really would like to have another foal.
About the big stick
The colt and the others had just left. I needed to move some fencing panels around and I wanted Koko and Su to get out of the pen they were in and go into another pen that was normally not open to them. I still had a dressage whip in my hands that I’d had when I was moving Cantor the llama around – I was using it properly, “as an extension of my arm”, because with that llama I like to stay just out of spitting range (he’s in rut right now and kind of crabby).
Koko and Su just wouldn’t cooperate. I waved my arms, I advanced and retreated, I swished the whip in the air, I was losing my temper and all they did was run around like they didn’t have a clue. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong until I realized I still had that whip in my hands, and that the whip was making all the difference.
These weren’t llamas in rut, they were my horses, my herd. I was their leader and I was suddenly acting whacko. I wasn’t communicating what I thought I was communicating at all.
My horses and I have an excellent working relationship – there was no need for the extra emphasis of a whip in my hand, or an “extension of my arm”. No need for the threat, because that’s what a whip is - even if a horse has never been struck with one before. I was using a strange tool that we had no agreement on the meaning of, and I was waving it around in an incomprehensible manner. Of course they thought I was whacko, and they wanted nothing to do with me. Communication was not a happening thing and wasn’t going to happen as long as I was continuing to “talk” to them in gibberish.
With Cantor, to be plain about it, I was pushing him with the whip. I was using fear of that whip – whether it was fearful because he knew what a whip could do (I doubt he does) or fearful because it was totally unfamiliar (more likely) didn’t matter – I had earlier driven him in the direction I wanted using that fear.
It’s not the way I want to be with my critters. And my horses, Koko and Su, were having none of that, thank you very much.
Embarrassed, I tossed the whip over the fence. I stood still. I apologized – yes, I did, and out loud, too. We all breathed and calmed down. I walked over to the gate of the pen I wanted Koko and Su to move into and I bowed my head a little and gestured a request with my hand – really, just like a doorman would at a grand hotel. I stepped back.
And Koko and Su just ambled over into the pen like they’d wanted to do just that all along.
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“World transformation begins with self-transformation,” says Cesar Milan. To achieve that, he says, you need a co-pilot: “My suggestion is you have somebody next to you that is willing at any time to transform the moment. That is called dog.”
Or Horse.
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