Poncho - the Great and Ornery Cuss

Photo Courtesy of www.kids-n-cowboys.com

Now - just look at that photo above - Poncho looks like a pleasant enough fellow - while his equine buddy Loco looks , well, Loco. Someone never gave my wonderful 18 year old grade Sorrel Quarter horse the memo that he was supposed to emulate his namesake and not take the horses name to heart.  

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Ornery like this: or·ner·y  (ôrn-r)

adj. or·ner·i·er, or·ner·i·est

Mean-spirited, disagreeable, and contrary in disposition; cantankerous.

The Ornery American www.ornery.org gives us it's origin:  "The word "ornery" began as "ordinary." In the days when you were either of the "gentle" class or merely "ordinary," parents would say to their stubborn children when they refused to do as they were told, "Don't be so ordin'ry."

Funny. He is certainly an ordinary horse who is most certainly Ornery. 


He's also a cuss. The American Heritage Dictionary describes the word like this: cuss  (ks) Informal

intr. & tr.v. cussed, cuss·ing, cuss·es

To curse or curse at.

n.

1. A curse.

2. An odd or perverse person or creature.

 I mean that in the most loving way of course. Kind of how you would possibly refer to a lumberjack frat boy in the outskirts of Siberia - you don't want to know about that kind of mischief, but he's your boy, so you just gotta love him despite the fact that some of his pranks just border on downright mean spiritedness. You know what I'm talking about - like some of those Deadliest Catch Boat Captains. 


After I bought him and had him safely tucked away on my property-in my pasture - the father of the man I bought him from says to me - "Yep , you want to watch out for that one - he's gonna kill someone one of these days. I told my boy that was a bad apple" and I just laughed at him and thought what a silly old farmer. This is a GREAT horse. He shucks everyone around, he's always lagging at the end of the line. Sure he'll kick another horses teeth out if it gets too close, sure he'll buck out when you ask him for a lope - but really - he's a good ol boy. I'm only using him for mountain trail riding anyway. Hmfph!


Weeeeelllll, he was great when he was living on a 10 acre pasture, free feeding Timothy to his hearts content to the tune of 300 lbs overweight, and only being asked to go for a few trips a month, and he was the guest horse - no one EVER asked him to do anything but stay slow and steady except for the guy who sold him to me, and he LOVED that horse and it was mutual - so he would ride with me most of the time or I would pack my stuff on him when I took off for the day up the mountain. 


Fast forward to moving him to California into the High Desert. Gone were the trees, the creek, the good clay soil, the grass. Enter the wind, the rocks and the scrub, and a 2 acre pasture. All we had on a good day was a blustery cow pasture and some utility roads. Poncho was not happy. Enter the goofy trainer who told me I had to be aggressive in my movements with him in order to get him to mind - ha - yeah right crazy Gorilla man. I wound up moving him to Ojai (www.osopaintsonline.com)where we had better feed and trees and much better weather.  I am asking him to cart me around an arena every week, and go out on trail - BY HIMSELF ! I am also asking him to do things he's never been trained to do . I have MCH  (my Cowboy Boyfriend back then) who knows how to ride and how to ask for things, unlike unsophisticated me, who just rode game trails and had done some speed events back in the day. Lordy, the pressure was on. 


I finally settle in a place and bring the horses close to home (www.summerhawkranch.com). He is now living in a 12 x 24 for the first time in his life. Did I mention he has a tough time making friends? OH BOY! He gets himself all banged up - and then I realize that its not his shoulder - it's his feet - his coffin bones have turned an 1/8 th of an inch - this is where I learn how bad Alfalfa can actually be. So no more Alfalfa and 8 months off from the trail. I get my stalls built, I move him home.


So what happens when you take one Bully and you have no pasture, a healthy dose of fear of all the traffic in the park where we ride,and no more barn traffic ? You got it - Bad Bad Leroy Brown, the baddest cat in the whole damn town. He has bit, backed up , spun, tried to roll and rear, bucked in place, bucked up a hill and lastly fired both guns at not one head ( me) but two heads ( MCH). He was shipped off to a trainer and put on cattle. 60 days later I had an amazing horse who will Head, Heel and Sort. Until we got to the part of the trail where the bicyclists are allowed - he regressed in no time flat. 


Now his back is out. He also has a couple of bicycles keeping him company around his stall. Turn out every night all night and I am starting him on clicker training. Just like I would a fearful dog.


Yesterday was his first session - I taught him not to mug for food . After about 25 reps  I can now use my verbal cue and he will flex his head to the right away from me. Today - I turned him out and walked a bicycle around the round pen. He only freaked when I was obscured from view and popping out - he then exhibited all the behaviors I have had to deal with out on trail and occasionally in the arena. I also found out that my Percheron/Fresian needs to get sacked out on bikes as well. 


If you want to learn more about Operant Conditioning this is my favorite for Horses : http://shawnakarrasch.com/blog/


Happy trails

What having a jacked up leg will do for you and other fun facts

8 weeks ago , Monday, my unflappable Mounted Patrol Steed( hereon in MPS),Cisco, got flapped. He's the one laying down. You can see how flappable he is - CLEARLY. It stands to reason that if you spend at least 1/8th of a ride speaking of horse related injuries, you just might have tempted the Fates. All I can say is thank the sweet 8 oz Baby J , that I got in a lovely 5 hour trail ride before it all came crashing to a very interesting end.
Let me say now that this whole shabang was due to the fact that I just had to - and I mean REALLY had to - check my smart ( ha) phone whilst deciding whether I would be crossing the street and going the longer way home( as agreed upon with My Cowboy Husband - MCH ) or ..... staying on the bridle path on the super busy street that doubles as the Indianapolis 500 Speedway 24/7.
I started off strong - getting off my horse before the Elementary School - which was very close to being let out - buses - parents - you know - super horse friendly folks and equipment. I also thought my kneecaps might actually begin to remove themselves from my body if I did not change position from seated to upright. Good Ol Cisco, was doing all the right things - which we have trained incessently for - he was at least 2 feet behind me maybe even 3 feet - head down, dragging his feet. We made it past the school, air brakes, adults running across the street , a loose banner on a fence, 15 screaming children running at the fence alerting me that I had a horse on the end of a lead rope - all good - he was just about sleep walking. I get to the next street - and then my epic fail - my knees hurt - should I go ahead and break my promise to not walk down the raceway or should I cross the street and do what my gut says is the right thing to do  - I think my screaming knees must have been pointed down the raceway while my torso and head were twisted towards the right way- at that moment I decided that I simply must check my text messages and at that same moment the Ginormous Black Schnauzer picked his moment to lunge at the fence forcing my MPS to go into survival mode - kick out and run like Hell - sadly for both of us I still had the lead rope and due to my dog work - I automatically planted and put my lead rope hand to my center of gravity . His head turns - and mid stride the front of his back hoof nails me right in my planted calf. OH MY GAWD - I have no words - except for whatever escaped my potty mouth at the exact moment of impact. I made it to the moment in life where I am truly grateful for my Russian side - big and strong like Ox.
Soooo - I now have the thought that he may have broken my leg, the bridle is on the ground under prancing hooves, my oh so important phone is still in my free hand ( really?)and I'm wondering if MCH is going to hear his phone because he was planning on doing dirt work with the Bobcat. The choice is now clear - thank you FATES - that I will be heading home via the Raceway. Mind you, Ginormous rude dog is absolutely rabid behind his fence, the trash truck is coming and I still have to either try to get up on my massive horse who is flapped quite badly by now, or put weight on the offending limb.  I man up and put weight on the leg, delighted that it is clearly not broken and he did not get me in the joint. All of this in probably a 10 second or less span -feeling like a month of Sundays. I hoof it ( ha ha) down the road, pleased with my progress - except that my MPS is very needy now and will not remember that he is supposed to be 3 feet or more behind me. I'm 4 houses away from home - and dontcha know - there is a loose Pit Bull who is dodging everything until she lays eyes on my horse - locked and loaded - could care less about the cars - people - just wants some horse flesh - yay...... I pull out my pepper spray... place myself in front of my jacked up horse - and a kind hearted pick up truck drives in front of her, giving me enough time to ..... wait for it........... JOGGGGG home.
Good times. We make it. I can barely think straight at this point. MCH takes my horse away from me and I go into the house and Elevate and Ice - which I have been doing for the last 8 weeks and am currently doing now.
It is much better - I got really lucky.
So here is what my leg has forced me to learn - in lieu of riding or doing ground work, I groom and do low impact things like clicker training and nightly rotation turn outs. Alfalfa - while never my feed of choice - is used as a treat or to supplement wretched Oat Hay. Ever handled a hot horse in clogs or flip flops? I do not recommend it.
Yesterday was my first day on horse back - I have been able to handle doing ground work in the round pen for the last week while wearing tennis shoes. Yesterday - I wore boots. Oh - I did wear boots about 3 weeks ago for my wedding reception and I danced too - I also was out of commission for the following week and went to Urgent Care. Nice.
What I learned however, is that I was making much too big movements when doing groundwork prior to this - lots of acting up in the round pen - my leg has forced me to slow down and really concentrate - hence - the worst offenders - are surprisingly docile and willing to work. My saddle caused me a great deal of pain in the calf yesterday - so I dropped my stirrups for comfort and was surprised by the fact that my MPS followed my cues willingly. Today I used my Barefoot Cheyenne - pretty much a really fancy bareback pad - switched out the endurance stirrups for a pair of cutting stirrups and I had one of the nicest round pen sessions on him in forever.
I have very high hopes for my onery cuss Poncho now. I was pretty sure it was me - and now I know for a fact it was me.
Til next time - Happy Trails