Of Course They Have Emotions

 

My favorite portrait of Callie, just after a bath.  Hadn't washed her face yet.  She likes the way a cloth feels on her face, but she is so impatient that I am usually wetter than she.

 

 

The author of The Horse God Built, Lawrence Scanlan, wrote in his 1998 book, Wild About Horses,* "Few humans have ever wondered what animals were thinking or feeling, or even granted the possibility of animal thought or emotion." 

 

Not long ago I was asked if horses show emotion, because their facial expressions seldom seem to change.  It was a friend who has spent little time with horses who asked and she was surprised to find that their range of emotions is as complete and complex as our own, but mostly played out on a physical stage.  Horses do use their infrequent verbalizations to express how they are feeling or what they might want another horse or person, for that matter, to do.   A horse can even nicker, "Good morning," as mine often do.

 

Horses feel anger, boredom, fear, resentment, jealousy, loneliness and abandonment, as well as grief, just as we do.  Their ears and bodies tell us a great deal: ears up, down and sometimes sideways (interest, anger and boredom), chewing without eating, a hoof cocked when standing (at ease or learning or resting), among others.  We simply have to watch them to learn their language.

 

But what about affection?  Do my girls feel comforted by me, do they need me?  In all the years Callie and Stormy have been with me I have never been 100% sure.  Oh, Stormy will practically wrap herself around me when she is uncertain or a bit fearful, at a clinic for instance.  At night when I feed her she will touch my back or shoulder with her mouth and nose while I spread her hay, all the while drooling all over me.  Is this affection or just simple curiosity?

 

Perhaps it is because the three of us are getting older that the presence of one another as members of the herd has taken on greater meaning.  But I have begun to see changes in them, especially in Callie.

 

I had just gotten back from this year's "Road To The Horse" and the woman who takes care of them while we are away had fed and put them to bed.  After three days without seeing and touching them I had to make a quick visit..  Stormy, in her usual way, let me know  that she was mad at me, turning her head after greeting me with her rock hard eyes and by peeing in her stall, which she never does, her anger and rebellion in bloom.  Just Stormy being Stormy and I understand.

 

Because Callie has a controlled navicular problem, I wanted to clean her hooves and say hello to her too.  As I finished her right side hooves, she turned her head and touched her right side, just as I had taught her to do when flexing, once, twice and held it there after the third touch.  I stood and took her huge head in my arms and lay my head on her forehead.  We stood together in that way for several minutes.

 

Our part of the state has rainy, cold winters and springs, so not a lot of riding gets done for several months.  Each spring I start my horses in the same way.  Using a training halter and lead rope, I simply walk my horses up and down the pasture.  I ask them to disengage their hind quarters, turn on the forehand and back up, nothing too strenuous, just letting them know that it is time to work.

 

Stormy always shows great distress, jealousy really, whenever I pay attention to Callie.  As Callie and I reached the farthest point in our pasture Stormy charged at a full gallop toward us.  Alert and enraged, ears erect and eyes focused, she began to harass Callie (never me).   Callie began to pull on the lead rope and swinging her massive hind quarters from side to side.  She was frantic, throwing her head up and down trying to avoid Stormy.  Callie will sometimes buck, kick and even rear when she's in a tight spot, and I could feel it coming.  Pretty soon the wagons were circled and I was between them.  Now I was in danger.  Using the end of  Callie's lead rope I began twirling it to drive Stormy away. With her eyes flashing and her sweat-soaked sides heaving, Stormy retreated. 

 

Fear like an electric current charged Callie's body.  The twirling rope relieved the danger Stormy presented but drove Callie to hysteria. As she pulled on the lead rope, her head ripping the air from side to side, backing and wheeling on her hind legs, I should have let go, but I began talking to her softly, following her as she backed away, staying with her, reassuring her, speaking calmly and gently until she stopped her crazed flight.  It was quiet and I could feel the tension leave her body through the rope I still held.  Callie took three or four quick steps forward and lay her head on my shoulder.  I could hear her breathing slow.  I put my hand over her muzzle and stroked it until our hearts beat normally.  Questions answered.

 

Other things:

 

Last week the air finally warmed enough for a few flies to show themselves.  I knelt down to spray

Callie's front legs and when I did, something startled her.  She swung her head around and caught me on the forehead near my hairline (yes, I still have a hairline).  When the stars cleared (and there were stars), I was against the fence nearly six feet away, with a frail grip on consciousness.  When the bees stopped buzzing in my brain I finished spraying her and went on with life.  Mad?  No, it wasn't intentional.

 

The next post will be an interview with a horse trainer.  He makes some interesting observations. Following that, a review of the 2015 "Road To The Horse" and perhaps an essay on the former Kentucky Derby winner, Grindstone.

 

 

*Wild About Horses  by Lawrence Scanlan, 1998 by HarperCollins Publishers

 

Text and Photo Copyright May 5, 2015 by Loren R. Schumacher

 

 

 

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Once There Was B. F. Wano

There was baseball, boxing and horse racing.  At the turn of the 20th century they were the big three of American sports.  And clearly the most favored of all was horse racing, particularly harness racing and, specifically, Dan Patch, a natural pacer (both right side legs move, followed by both legs of the left side).

No sports figure of that sport-happy time in America's brief history garnered more ink in the press and more cash at the turnstile.  Twice in his fabled career, Dan Patch drew crowds in excess of 100,000 fans at a reported one U.S. dollar per head.  His name appeared on everything from cut-plug tobacco cans and cigars to washing machines and pool cues.

He traveled in a custom built railcar with his picture appearing on both sides and its interior, they say, was lined in red velvet.  The Jersey Lilly, the famous Lillie Langtry, came to meet him.  President Eisenhower remembered seeing him at the Kansas State Fair in 1904 and Harry Truman sent him a fan letter.  He even had his own pet dog.

So dominating were his performances that often no horse would challenge him and he would pace against the clock.  Dan Patch lost just two heats in his career and never, that is never, lost a race. Fourteen times he broke world speed records and his official record for one mile stands at 1:55-1/4.

At the Minnesota State Fair in 1906 he scorched the track in 1:55 flat, an unofficial record which stood for thirty-two years until matched by Billy Direct in 1938.  It was a four horse race with two of the contenders staying close to Dan, but in the video of the race, both horses seem to have broken and appear to be galloping by the race's end.   It was not until 1960, when Adios Butler paced a mile in 1:54:3, that Dan Patch's unofficial record was broken.

As popular as Standardbred racing had become, no horse approached the fame and popularity of Dan Patch.  He had no peers.  Every other horse raced in his shadow.  They ran at country fairs and tracks in places that have long been forgotten.  Their careers and lives were the definition of anonymity.

B. F. Wano was one such horse.  Not much is known about him. Wano was a trotter (legs move on the diagonal: right front and left rear, etc.) and not a pacer.  Like Dan Patch, Wano was a stallion and for that time big for the breed at 15.3 hands, or just over five feet in height at the withers and weighing about 1100 pounds.  He was powerfully built, muscular and well proportioned, with a short back and very straight legs.  Across his form lay a lustrous, rich brown coat.  Most assuredly all comparisons with Dan Patch end there.

The weather on September 21, 1906 at Ft. Wayne, Indiana was undoubtedly fine as the average temperature for the month was 70.4 degrees, and it must have suited him because in the third heat of the day he set a race record of 2:141/4.  Or did he?  According to a piece used to advertise his availability as a "sure foal getter," he did.  But thanks to Paul Wilder at the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame in Goshen, New York, I learned that he tied the record and did not set it.

The race consisted of 4 heats with Wano finishing second in the first and second heats, first in the third and fourth.  His driver was obscure, someone named Morgan.  For now this is all that is known about B,F. Wano, but on this one day in 1906 he ran his heart out and proved himself to all who watched.

His owner, W. H Stults of Wren, Ohio claimed in his advertising that B. F. Wano had trotted miles in 2:10 and halves in 1:03.  Who knows?  Perhaps Stults engaged in a bit of advertising bombast so common in the early twentieth century when he said that, "In style and action he is perfect," and "his colts are large, with fine style and action."

I was able to find the following about W. H Stults on-line.  This from the Wilshire (Ohio) Herald, May 5, 1904.  "W. H. Stults and J. L. Moser of Wren were Wilshire visitors Saturday afternoon.  The latter is president and the former, cashier of the Bank of Wren.  They are both hustlers, and the leading financiers of their baliwick."  Hustlers?  Mr. Stults later lived in Indiana where the trail ends  - for now.

**My thanks to Jim Miracle for gifting me the photo and artifacts relating to B.F. Wano.  This story would not have been written but for his generosity.

**If anyone has more information concerning B. F.Wano or W.H. Stults, please contact me at pets@leadsandleashes.com.

**Thanks again to Paul Wilder at the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame in Goshen, New York for his help.

**Other resources include: Crazy Good The True Story of Dan Patch, The Most Famous Horse in America by Charles Leerhsen, published by Simon & Schuster and Copyrighted in 2008 by Charles Leerhsen.  I also queried Dan Patch on Wikipedia.

The photo of B. F. Wano and the advertising piece sited in the article are from the author's collection.

Watch Dan Patch race at the Minnesota State Fair in 1906:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiX6UJU2EVI

Copyright, Loren R. Schumacher, March 16,2015

My Article Appears In HorseCollaborative.Com

Recently, an article that I wrote for HorseCollaborative.com, an online magazine, was published. Needless to say I was thrilled, more so because the editor changed little more than a comma or two.

The magazine also published a link to my blog and I've seen a nice increase in readership as a result. I've even had a visit from Finland!

You can Google the article:  Wyatt and Callie: A Horse Rescue, or use the link below.

The article was published on Monday and the following Sunday I received a call from a horse rescue whose concern was that my negative experience might effect their efforts to place rescued horses.  I certainly hope not and I offered to interview the principals and give a hearing to their story.

I hope you enjoy my story and that you'll continue to visit my blog.  There will be a new story shortly.

http://www.horsecollaborative.com/wyatt-callie-rescue-story/

Shoot, It's Only Money!

Well, now that the plumber has gone and the bill was six hundred dollars instead of sixty thousand dollars for a new septic system, I feel a good bit less tense and more like writing.

I've been thinking about sharing with you what it cost to keep my horses during the past year, 2014.  None of the costs shown will include the cost of the horses, truck and trailer, our humble stable or the cost to run water and electricity to it, or the cost of our little farm.

So here goes.

The Basics:

Feed: $672.15 

We use a combination of sweet feed and ADM StayStrong.

Bedding: $849.52

Callie's penchant for peeing in her stall bloats this figure.

Hay: $720.00

We buy our hay from the field at a considerable savings.

Salt: $15.98

Treats: $98.96

A friend says she spends more than this on her dog's treats!

Wormer: $128.56

I use a three wormer rotation.

Fly Spray: $264.85

There are two farms with cattle and horses nearby, not to mention our own manure pile.

Bute: $80.98

Callie gets about 1/2 scoop per day, much less than she has been prescribed, and she is doing well.

Taken New Year's Day.  A horde of Harley's thundering by got Stormy's attention.  I really like this picture of her.

 Health:

Annual Vet Checkups and Shots: $566.00

Our vet is a bit pricey, but he shows up and the horses are not bothered by him.  And I like him.

Farrier: $$720.00

Neither horse wears shoes, so we use a specialist in natural hoof care.

Miscellaneous:

Taken January third, just before an inch or two of snow fell and the temps plummeted.  Otherwise, it's Callie and me.  Looks like I have a black eye.

Middleweight Blankets; $309.55

A great buy.  The girls only wear them when there are very low temperatures and a substantial wind-chill factor.  They've been wearing them for the past three days.  I'll take them off when this siege of bad weather passes. Both horses also have a full hair coat, so they won't be unduly cold.

Brushes, Hoof Picks, ETC.: $96.87

Trailer Tires (3): $366.87

Stall Mats; $135.97

Dan James Clinic: $315.00

Out Of Pocket Medical Bills (Mine): $873.63

This one hurt, literally.

Horse Blanket Cleaning: $46.00

Training: $360.00

Total:

$6620.89

This year, 2014, was unusual because of the James Clinic, trailer tires, the wrist injury, and winter blankets.  If not for these, the total would have been more than $2000.00 less.  I don't know about you, but I'm not a rich man.   I love my horses, but this still looks like a lot of money to me.  The satisfaction, companionship as well as the breathtaking foolishness they get involved in actually does make the expense worthwhile.

Another Winter's Day, Horses and A Coyote

"A winter's day, in a deep and dark December..."*  Seems like I am always moaning about the weather.  It is cold today and the air is raspy and ragged like a file. It's damp, a sly dampness that penetrates your boots and arrows its way to your knees.  Soon you realize that you are just cold, cold all over, and your mind begins to drift ahead to the hot cup of tea you've promised yourself.  All of this misery and it's just thirty degrees.  I've been warmer at ten degrees below zero.

The sky is a seamless soup, the color of old bath water and the remaining snow that hides in the leaves or just under the pasture gate is a pockmarked froth.

As my wife, Carol, said recently on her Facebook page, "Every day begins with the horses and cats." That's just the way it is and today is no different.  We take the truck, my old faithful Dodge Hemi, eleven years old now, but still a workhorse.  I add three bales of hay to the tailgate and drive across the lower part of the pasture, hoping I'm not leaving a rutted trail behind me.

Isn't this what the horses are supposed to do?

Today's load is large: eight bags of bedding, one hundred pounds of feed and the hay.  We feed, water and clean up after the girls and drudge the truck's load to the feed room in the wheelbarrow.

I use a three wormer rotation on my horses and today Stormy and Callie will each get a dose of Panacur.  Stormy is an easy horse to medicate, she sucks on the syringe and is on her way, just the way she is when the vet gives her shots or draws her blood.  Callie is usually a head-tossing diva when it comes to taking a dose of wormer, but today I gave her a treat or two and when I rub her mouth with the syringe she opens up and...all gone!  Wow, that was easy.  Give credit to Carol whose patience in dosing Callie has been greater than mine.

Callie testing this year's hay crop.

Stormy trotted along beside me when she saw Callie's syringe in my hand.  No doubt she'd figured a treat must be hiding somewhere in the folds of my sweatshirt.  She was right, of course, but no sooner had I finished with Callie, when Stormy, who had been facing Callie, wheeled 180 degrees.  Her movement was so swift and fluid that I felt her absence before I realized she had gone.

Someone might pay big money for my jeans, but I think I can still get a little more use out of them,

Stormy charged toward the pasture fence that runs parallel to Princeton Road with Callie close behind, their ears pinned straight ahead, tails aloft and feet scarcely touching the tacky ground they were crossing. A coyote, a big one, maybe the biggest I've yet seen, trotted in its straight line predatory way across our neighbors alfalfa field.  Prey animals, the horses dark eyes followed the coyote with their bodies rigid and electric, ready to fight or flee.

I watched the the coyote's rusty winter ruff flow like wind-blown grass across its shoulders. As it trotted, the coyote never veered from its path.  When a white service truck slowed to have a look, the coyote slowed as well, raising its head, its yellow eyes watching.  When the truck passed, the coyote dropped it head and ran faster than I could have believed possible, crossing Princeton Road and angling out of sight.  In the truck the coyote saw a threat and its eyes never left it until it drove out of sight.  The coyote never seemed to worry about the horses that were now in full flight.

Stormy began her breathless run from among the blackberry bushes on the fence line, making huge sweeps around the pasture.  She screamed frantically, much as she does whenever she is excited, but there was animal urgency to it now.  Every time she passed by me she flattened her ears, why, I don't know.  I watched her change leads over and over again without slowing.  Callie, feeling Stormy's stress, began bucking and kicking, her breath roaring through her nostrils.  I was trapped against our round pen fence as she did.  I  expected to be kicked and kicked hard, but with all four hooves in the air, flailing and pounding the soft ground, she changed her direction and slashed the air on the side away from me.  She had purposely avoided me.  Her soft eyes told me so.

My hand is on top of her nose to keep her from throwing her head.  I like the way Stormy looks in this pic.

After two or three minutes Callie, tired and wet with perspiration, ground to a stop and began grazing once more.  Very soon Stormy stood with her.

*I Am A Rock by Simon and Garfunkel

Copyright, December 24, 2014 by Loren R, Schumacher
All photos by Carol Lang and Copyrighted, December 24, 2014

Sometimes You Just Have To Take A Moment

My wife says that snow is one of God's greatest miracles.  I tell her that she feels that way because she doesn't have to shovel it.

Monday morning saw our first snow of the year, five inches of new, pristine snow, blessing us with a surreal world, quiet except for the sound of wet snowflakes.  Tuesday's forecast sounded pretty threatening, but I determined to deal with Tuesday on Tuesday.

Because it was raining we put the horses in their stalls early on Sunday evening, so by the time I got to our stable on Monday they were excited and very, very hungry. I guess so, because they had been stalled for about sixteen hours, And for horses that are on pasture twelve to fifteen hours a day, that's a long, hungry time.  I said good morning to them and while I swept snow from in front of the stall gates they fretted, grunted, nipped at one another and kicked the sides of their stalls and generally acted like the spoiled children they are.

Soon enough I opened their gates and out they came in a rush, brushing past as though I weren't there. Free at last, by golly, free at last.  And look at all this snow!

10 a.m. not quite a whiteout, but close.  Callie sizing up the situation.

The rodeo about to begin.

Callie, not flat out but close.

I missed the bucking but still got the head tossing.

Stormy, tireless and fast.  I think all four feet are off the ground in this photo.

Stormy on her right lead.  I have no idea how many laps of the pasture she may have made.

The shutter was too slow, but I did get Callie with her front feet off the ground.
Shortly after this was taken and along the round-pen fence, she cut too sharply, lost her footing and
fell.  She cuts with such power that sometimes her feet are left behind,

Stormy and Callie have spied the two Belgian draft horses across the road,
so some of their shenanigans may have been an effort to impress the male.
The two Belgians remained impassive and clearly unimpressed.

So, in celebration of a new day and the joy it gave me to watch Stormy and Callie play like little children in the snow, I offer this bit of doggerel:

Untitled (And It Should Remain So)

Whilst I was sleeping, and much to my surprise,

five inches of white stuff fell from the skies.

Releasing the beasts seemed the right thing to do.

while they frolicked and gamboled, I cleaned up their poo.

So if you're here in southern Ohio when rain turns to snow,

take a moment to lean on your shovel and just enjoy the show,

Copyright, November 19, 2014 by Loren Schumacher

All photos by the author and are Copyrighted, November 19, 2014 by Loren Schumacher

Black Clouds, Rainy Days and Thunder

That's what you get when you dive the Caribbean during the rainy season.  Cozumel it seems, is not exempt.  There was a storm that lasted all of last night and well into the day today and still shows little inclination to stop now that it is 10 AM.  There was so much water that I took a seasickness tab just to retrieve our wetsuits from the balcony this morning.  My wife's sandals were actually floating.  We're not diving for the second day and have just one more day in which to dive.  I love to dive, but not so much that I'll dive in poor visibility with the chance of being struck by lightning.  No thanks.



Flooded streets and rooms.



Waiting for our ship to come in.







We dove Champion's and Tormento's Reefs yesterday.  Champion's was a perfect dive with little current and rich light.  The reef here is nearly pristine and teaming with fish, coral and sponge.  We saw three huge Tiger Grouper, a Nurse Shark that was actually moving (usually they stay on the bottom to feed and rest) a large female Southern Stingray and a Lion Fish, which sacrificed its life because it is a rapidly reproducing predator which threatens the ecology of all Caribbean reefs.  And a Rock Fish that remained as still as if it were asleep when surrounded by divers.

Friends, Kathy and Mark Cowen geared up and ready to dive.





We rode gentle currents among towering coral heads, exploring their nooks and crannies and wriggling through tiny passages into still more kingdoms.

Tormento's Reef was just that, torment.  The current was ridiculous. The dive was made worse when my mask filled with sea water through the hole in its plastic frame discovered when the dive was over.   As soon as I entered the water I wanted the dive to be over and it turned out that my wife, Carol, felt the same.  But there was a fascinating sand dune with fine white sand and pressure ridges that showed the passing of water and its slowing.

Nearly everyone in Cozumel commutes by scooter or small bore motorcycle.  Tired and ragged, some more than thirty years old, these little engines chug on and on while the paint fades, the chrome rusts and ripped and torn seats show their yellow-brown foam stuffing.  Scooters are so important to the economy that they are even sold in grocery stores.

One of many.

Another one and a few more.



Cars seem to be decades old, rusted and dented warriors of tough island life, survivors of the indifferent care of many owners, but without the character of Cuba's 1950's era cars.

The municipal police patrol with their lights flashing at all times.  I'm not sure how you know when you are being pulled over, but these guys, the police, are tough guys and I am sure can make their point in a number of ways.  You have only to see a truckload of police in battle array with training inspired hard, steely looks to understand that they tolerate very little.  Heavily armed troops in the streets is so foreign to the U.S. that they capture you gaze and hold your attention and linger in your thoughts until long after they pass by.

A new recruit class passed us yesterday afternoon, running and chanting as the military will, with young faces that will soon turn to stone.  One large busted young woman pressed her hands against her breasts as she passed, her face a mask like all the rest.

Each shop you pass has it's own pimp hawking the shop's virtues, button-holing you with absurd enticements like free tequila.  At first you are polite, "No, thank you," and after a good while you dismiss them with a wave of a hand.  There are Cuban cigars, T-Shirts with the likeness of Che,  panama hats and cheap trinkets that are the difference between walking and riding, eating and hunger.

Even the postal service building, Correos de Mexico, speaks of use and decay.  The windows have not been washed in years and are smudged with oily fingerprints, fly specks and the accumulations of neglect.  The architecture is dated by its curious flying buttress style and what paint remains has faded to unintended colors, red to rose and blue to a chalky hue.  The interior is bleak in an uncompromising utilitarian way. 

One clerk, a woman, helps a customer fill a bag with what appears to be second hand baby clothes and a second, sweet with kind dark eyes and flawless toffee skin, helps Carol select stamps for her
collection.  The young clerk rings up Carol's purchase and thanks her with a smile.

 Until the shops close and the weary walk or ride into the evening, Quitana Roo, Cozumel, is a place of smiles and laughter.



Quintana Roo