This summer I've had the opportunity to begin riding horses on a more regular basis. It's been great to bring Kachina out to Cathy's "ranch" and go for a ride. Cathy's ranch is a big section of land out by Turner Valley where they keep their horses. They have a rustic cabin on the property but we haven't spent the night there since we were teenagers. It was more fun then to "rough it", now a days we both have too many animals at home that we can't leave and we like running water and indoor plumbing. Ha ha wimps, I know.

 

Anyway back to Kachina.  The remote training collar is a wonderful tool. When I first brought Chena out to the ranch and she had her first urge to chase the horses, I gave her a strong correction. My goal was for her to associate being close to the horses with an unpleasant feeling. Mission accomplished. 

 

There is this hay field that a person leases from Cathy's dad and in this field he keeps a bunch of cows. One day we decided to ride through the hay field and when we got to the far corner, there was this one cow ... alone, separated from the herd. I thought it would be interesting to see what Kachina would do, so I didn't call her when she cautiously approached it. The cow being smarter than one would normally give a cow credit for, decided to get the hell out of there. Kachina's prey drive kicked in (which it will when anything runs away from her) and started chasing it. Oh what fun, a chew toy that runs! Yippee!

 

She chased the cow across the hay field, back to the herd and then chased some of the herd around for a while. Our saying that day was "Lean Beef". 

 

Last weekend, we went for a ride and Chena chased the cows for a bit and then we continued on. We were coming down the road, which is usually quiet, when this big semi truck came across one of the cattle gates. The horse Cathy was riding got spooked and started bucking. Cathy got bucked off the horse and Kachina went after the horse. So much for avoidance training. Kachina almost got kicked, Cathy hurt her leg and hit her head. It was a chaotic few minutes. My attention was divided between helping Cathy get up and getting Kachina away from the horse. Luckily Kachina was not hurt and Cathy, although hurt, did not sustain any life-threatening injuries. 

 

In retrospect, I wonder if allowing Kachina to chase cows eased her fear of approaching horses? Maybe Kachina thought the horse was attacking and felt the need to protect us from it?