Over the years we’ve had lots of horses at the ranch. My mom and dad used to rodeo some when they were younger – my dad competed in calf roping and my mom ran barrels.
I was born a horse nut too, and growing up, spent most of my time on a horse when I wasn’t in school. My mom gave me her barrel-racing horse, “Star”, when I was around 9 or 10. We spent many a happy weekend hauling that horse to rodeos and playdays.
Right now, there’s only one horse on the ranch, and he earns his living taking care of the cows. Petey is a cow horse in the sense that he thinks he is a cow. He shares his feed with them, hangs out with them in the pasture, and prefers the company of cows to other horses or people.
Pete is a rescue and doesn’t have to work for a living except for his self-imposed job of watching out for his herd of cattle (which he takes very seriously). He tries to keep them all together and gets very anxious if they wander too far. If there’s a hole in the fence or someone leaves a gate open he will even go and round up cows in the other pasture and bring them over to his side to join his little herd. He’s done this a couple of times with a neighbor’s cows, much to the neighbor’s aggravation!
My mom and Petey have a special bond. She can walk out on the porch and call him and he’ll come running no matter where he is. She brushes and talks to him and calls him “pretty boy”, which he loves. He stays and enjoys the fuss for a little while, but then he’ll remember his duties and hurries back to the cows.
I was born a horse nut too, and growing up, spent most of my time on a horse when I wasn’t in school. My mom gave me her barrel-racing horse, “Star”, when I was around 9 or 10. We spent many a happy weekend hauling that horse to rodeos and playdays.
Right now, there’s only one horse on the ranch, and he earns his living taking care of the cows. Petey is a cow horse in the sense that he thinks he is a cow. He shares his feed with them, hangs out with them in the pasture, and prefers the company of cows to other horses or people.
Pete is a rescue and doesn’t have to work for a living except for his self-imposed job of watching out for his herd of cattle (which he takes very seriously). He tries to keep them all together and gets very anxious if they wander too far. If there’s a hole in the fence or someone leaves a gate open he will even go and round up cows in the other pasture and bring them over to his side to join his little herd. He’s done this a couple of times with a neighbor’s cows, much to the neighbor’s aggravation!
My mom and Petey have a special bond. She can walk out on the porch and call him and he’ll come running no matter where he is. She brushes and talks to him and calls him “pretty boy”, which he loves. He stays and enjoys the fuss for a little while, but then he’ll remember his duties and hurries back to the cows.
Pete with a couple of his companions
RSS Feed