February 11, 2013--Cavallo Horse & Rider Inc. has joined with the Equine Network, the nation’s leading publisher of horse-related content, as a partner in A Home to Every Horse, a national effort to help equines across the country in need of care and shelter.

A Home for Every Horse is a joint effort with The American Horse Council’s Unwanted Horse Coalition, which seeks to place, foster and sponsor America’s homeless horses. Partners of A Home for Every Horse include Tractor Supply Company, Purina Animal Nutrition, WeatherBeeta, the Bureau of Land Management and W.F. Young, Inc. Nonprofit equine rescue organizations can post free listings on Equine.com, the industry’s largest website for buying and selling horses, trailers and farms. The Equine Network is using its connection with more than 1.5 million horse owners each month to promote the program.

“We at Cavallo are very pleased to sponsor and contribute to A Home For Every Horse,” said Cavallo President Carole Herder. “This further fulfills my personal mission to improve the life of horses by providing increased comfort and care. Together with the other great companies involved, we take a significant step forward in the industry we are all grateful to be a part of.”

Herder founded Cavallo in 1993 on the belief that caring for horses naturally and keeping them barefoot is essential to long term health and well-being. The company developed Cavallo hoof boots, which are now distributed in 28 countries. The Cavallo team is dedicated to developing and distributing innovative products that provide comfort, protection, safety, security and support for both horse and rider.

“We’re so glad to have Cavallo join the group of companies that support the efforts of horse rescues through A Home for Every Horse,” said Dave Andrick, Equine Network Group Publisher. “The unwanted horse problem requires help from concerned equestrians across all disciplines, and assistance from forward-thinking companies is a huge step in the right direction. It is truly heartening to see Cavallo offering aid to the rescues that work tirelessly to find homes for our nation’s unwanted horses.”

To learn more about A Home for Every Horse and to view horses available for adoption, please go to www.ahomeforeveryhorse.com.

To learn how to sign up to list your shelter’s horses through A Home for Every Horse if you are a 501(c)(3), please go to http://www.equine.com/ahomeforeveryhorse_rescueadplacementguide.pdf.

To learn about sponsoring A Home for Every Horse on Equine.com, contact Dave Andrick: (717) 303-3790 ext. 1002, dave.andrick@equinetwork.com.

To learn more about Cavallo, please go www.cavallo-inc.com.

Winter riding is exhilarating, but it can pose some problems. Here, we outline six potential winter-riding challenges, then give you the expert fix for each one.

Challenge #1: Physical fitness. Your horse probably isn’t getting as much exercise as he did when temperatures were balmy. The end result is that he’s probably losing some of his physical fitness.

The fix: When you do ride, be considerate of your horse’s needs. Warm up slowly. Stay alert for any signs of fatigue, such as heavy breathing, sweating, “stumping,” or bad steps.

Challenge #2: Dander. Dust and dead skin cells tend to accumulate against your horse’s skin under his dense winter coat.

The fix: Spend time deep-grooming your horse to remove any buildup so you don’t risk dander irritation under tack. Clipping his belly, or doing a trace clip of the belly and halfway up the chest wall, will make these areas easier to keep clean. (If you clip, blanket your horse so he’ll be insulated from the cold.)

Otherwise, use a curry and lots of elbow grease to deeply clean and loosen material close to the skin surface. A vacuum works best for removing dirt, hair, and debris, but vigorous brushing with a fairly stiff bristle brush will get the job done, too.

Challenge #3: Joint stiffness. Cold weather quickly stiffens areas of arthritis or old injuries.

The fix: A brisk rub with a warming liniment, plus stretching and flexing by hand, will help your horse loosen up more quickly. Wear heavy rubber house-cleaning gloves to protect your hands from the chemicals and the cold. Wrapping legs overnight also helps keep the joints more flexible.

Challenge #4: Frozen ground. Frozen ground creates concussion on your horse’s feet and joints. It’s like working him on concrete. And frozen, uneven ground can easily bruise the bottom of his foot, and may even cut the frog.

The fix: Consider protection in the form of hoof boots for barefoot horses, or pads under shoes. Many hoof boots can also be worn over shoes.

Challenge #5: Icy ground. Ice is a particularly treacherous situation, as your horse can slip and fall, risking serious injury.

Studs in shoes provide traction on icy surfaces, but they also increase leg strain.

Photo by Bob Langrish

The fix: A barefoot horse will have better grip on ice than a horse in shoes. But even the barefoot horse will be safer on ice with boots. Borium, or studs in shoes, provide much better traction, but at the price of more strain on the joints, ligaments, and tendons. Boots over shoes is another option.

Challenge #6: Snowballing. Riding in snow is fun, but can result in snowballing — the accumulation of ice and snow in the bottom of the foot. Snow melts a bit on contact with the hoof, then refreezes quickly, creating a mound of snow and ice that is difficult to remove.

A barefoot horse with a well-maintained, nicely rounded, concave foot may be able to pop out the snow naturally. But a longer-toed, flatter-footed (or shod) horse cannot. Regular full, flat pads don’t solve the problem, because snow will still build up between the pad bottom and the shoe walls.

The fix: Full pads with a large bubble in the middle, called “snow popper pads” used to be popular. They work by compressing when the foot hits the ground and popping out again when the leg is lifted, forcing the snow out of the bottom of the foot.

That part works well, but some horses find the pressure uncomfortable. Such pads also don’t allow the bottom of the foot to “breathe,” predisposing the hoof to softening of the sole, along with bacterial growth.

A better solution is a rim snow pad. These pads fit under the shoe and extend out over the sole for a short distance without covering the whole sole. Pad movement when the horse walks and trots forces out the snow.

Another solution is boots over shoes. When you’re done riding, just take them off.

Eleanor M. Kellon, DVM, currently works as a writer, teacher, and internal medicine/nutrition consultant. Prior to this, Dr. Kellon has had more than 10 years experience in private practice. She also has extensive experience with performance horses. She’s based in Pennsylvania, where she and her husband raise, train, and race Standardbreds. Her most recent book is Horse Journal Guide to Equine Supplements and Nutraceuticals (Globe Pequot Press).

When Obie's pupil suddenly became dilated, his owner was immediately worried.

Photo © EQUUS

Obie caught the eye of an excellent eventing trainer seeking a new prospect, and we agreed to deliver him to her farm on July 9th for an evaluation period.

Jason bathed Obie the evening before he was scheduled to leave and then, to keep him clean, placed him in a stall for the night instead of turning him back out in his dirt paddock. Noticing that the flies were bad that evening, Jason went back to the tack room, grabbed the nearest fly mask and put it on our horse.

When I arrived early the following morning, Obie came out of the stall looking great. Even with the barn lights turned off I could see that he was gleaming. He was still wearing the fly mask, and we decided to keep it in place for the trip. My trailer has stock sides, and the mask would provide protection from any debris that might come up off the road. Jason took a quick peek under the mask to make sure Obie’s eyes weren’t gooey, and since everything looked good, we loaded up and left.

We pulled into the trainer’s farm two hours later, and Obie, always a good traveler, came out looking relaxed and regal. It wasn’t until we led him into the barn and took the fly mask off that we discovered a problem: Obie’s left eye looked strangely blue. On closer inspection, we saw that the blue appearance was the result of huge dilation of the pupil.

Although more oval than round, a horse’s pupils function just as our own do: They expand to take in more light when necessary, then constrict to limit the glare in brighter conditions. And, also as in people, both of a horse’s pupils ought to be the same size at the same time. Any noticeable difference between the appearance of the pupils can be a sign of serious trouble.

That was exactly the problem confronting us: Obie’s right eye looked normal, and the left pupil was wide open and completely unresponsive to light.

No clues
My first thought was that Obie must have hit his eye or whacked his head in the trailer. But we found no other signs of trouble---no tearing, swelling, discharge or any marks that would indicate trauma. Obie didn’t appear to be in pain; he let us touch his face all around the eye without protest. In fact, he was acting perfectly normal---interested in his surroundings and even more focused on the possibility of getting some of the hay stacked in the corner. Neither Jason, the trainer nor I---all lifelong horsepeople---had ever seen anything like this.

I was truly alarmed, so we called the trainer’s veterinarian, who arrived within the hour. After her initial examination, she agreed there was no obvious sign of trauma or disease and that Obie didn’t seem to be in pain. She did offer one possibility---glaucoma, an increase of fluid pressure in the eye that is a common cause of pupil dilation. In horses, glaucoma is usually secondary to a disease such as uveitis or a tumor within the eye. If the pressure within the eye remains elevated long enough, the optic nerve can be damaged, leading to blindness. The good news was that Obie didn’t show any other signs of glaucoma, such as pain or squinting.

To get a closer look at the internal structures of the eye, the veterinarian gave Obie a dose of tranquilizer and a local anesthetic. Once the gelding was relaxed and numbed up, she examined the retina more closely and found it to be perfectly normal. She also stained the eye with a fluorescein dye, which would settle into any scratches in his cornea to appear as bright yellow streaks or spots. But the veterinarian saw no evidence of even subtle trauma.

Next, she used a small penlight to check what is known as the “consensual response.” Normally, if you shine a light into one eye, the pupils in both eyes will react in exactly the same way. If they don’t, then the horse may not have vision in the eye being tested. Fortunately, shining the light in Obie’s left eye caused his right pupil to constrict, so he still had at least some sight on the left side. But we still had no clue what was wrong---or if he was in danger of going blind.

As she finished her examination, the veterinarian was unable to make a diagnosis. Based on the clues she had, her best assumption was that the dilation of the pupil was due to some kind of trauma, despite the lack of cuts, bumps or scrapes on Obie’s face. She prescribed a course of phenylbutazone, in case there was any inflammatory process at work, and suggested that, if there was no improvement within a few days, we take Obie to the ophthalmology department at the University of California–Davis for a more thorough workup. As she packed up to leave, she told us to keep a fly mask on Obie to protect the eye---too much sunlight entering through the dilated pupil could damage the retina and create a very real danger of blindness.

A flash of insight
After conferring with the prospective buyer we decided to leave Obie at her place rather than trailer him again with this undiagnosed ailment. We were also hoping that the problem would resolve on its own, as quickly as it had appeared. Unfortunately, after three days there was no change in Obie’s pupil, so my husband and I brought him home.

Back at our place, Obie still seemed completely normal except for that ominous eye. I was worried about the possibility of sun damage, so I made a “pirate patch” by cutting up an old fly mask and sewing two extra layers on top of his existing mask. He accepted this impediment to his vision with his usual good nature. Meanwhile, I went into research mode and read up on every equine eye problem I could find on the Internet. Obie’s single sign of trouble didn’t seem to match up with anything.

I also called the ophthalmology department at UC–Davis and was put in touch with Ann R. Strom, DVM. I explained Obie’s case and asked what they could do that the trainer’s veterinarian hadn’t already done. Strom explained that the UC–Davis clinic had specialized equipment that would enable them to detect problems not visible with the tools available to a veterinarian in the field. If the physical exam turned up nothing, they would start looking for possible neurological causes, such as a brain tumor or a tumor between the eye and the brain, which could best be viewed with a CT scan. Unfortunately, the cost of all this could easily run into the thousands, which we simply couldn’t afford. I had no idea what to do.

My friend Jason had also been racking his brain, trying to think of anything he had seen or done that might offer clues. He was absolutely certain Obie’s eye had been fine after his bath on the evening before the problem was discovered. What he didn’t know was whether the eye was dilated before the trailer ride the next morning
---although he had glanced under the fly mask, it was too dark for him to have noticed any changes in the pupil.

Then Jason had a light bulb moment: He remembered that the last horse to occupy the stall Obie had been in was a mare who was being treated for an eye problem. He dug through the ranch’s medical records and discovered that six weeks previously, this mare had sustained an injury to her left eye. She had been treated with atropine ointment, a powerful and long-lasting drug used to dilate the pupil. Could that horse have rubbed her medicated eye on something in the stall, something that Obie then rubbed on, too, causing him to get some residual atropine into his eye? It didn’t seem entirely implausible.

Jason and I ran this scenario by several veterinarians, all of whom seemed to think the idea was too far-fetched. My own veterinarian, Jen Powers, DVM, of Above and Beyond Animal Care in Redding, California, was also dubious, but she didn’t discount the idea entirely: “I think it’s highly unlikely, but stranger things have happened.”

Powers, like Strom, mentioned the possibilities of glaucoma or a tumor, although she agreed that it would be unusual for a horse to have either condition without showing any additional signs of trouble. She was fairly sure that the dilation was not due to trauma. In her 18 years of experience as an equine veterinarian, she said, she had never seen a traumatic eye injury with a dilated pupil as the only sign. Any blow severe enough to cause the pupil to dilate that much should have caused some other obvious injury to the head or eye itself.

If exposure to atropine had caused the dilation, Powers said, we would start to see gradual improvement within seven to 10 days of the initial exposure, although it could take a couple of weeks to fully resolve.

Jason then contacted us with another important clue: After consulting with his staff, he discovered that the fly mask he had put on Obie that night was very likely the same one the injured mare had worn during the course of her treatment. We found no sign of any ointment on the mask, but it seemed more plausible that he might have come in contact with residue from the fly mask than from some random spot in the stall.

With this news, my husband and I decided to wait a few more days to see if Obie’s eye showed any improvement. If it didn’t, we were going to have to bite the bullet and haul him to Davis.

Back to normal
To our joy, we found that the dilation of Obie’s left pupil did begin to subside, all on its own, exactly one week after that fly mask was first put on him. The progress was slow, but the eye continued to improve day by day.

On July 19, the 10th day after the trouble began, I emailed Powers a photo of Obie’s eye and asked if she felt it was OK to continue to wait or whether we should go ahead and take him to Davis. She responded, “The amount of dilation Obie shows at this point is not severe, which decreases my fears of glaucoma, tumor or blindness. I think you are fine to wait another week.”

We continued to see improvement with each passing day, and by July 21, his pupil was able to constrict enough that we felt we could safely remove the extra layers of material on his fly mask, and five days later, his eye seemed completely normal again. The entire ordeal had lasted 18 days.

Powers now agrees that atropine was the most likely cause of this strange problem. “Without the stimulation of pain [there was no injury] or light [due to the eye patch], there was no stimulus for the pupillary muscles, so it is possible for the effects of atropine to have lasted this long,” she told me. “The atropine theory is also supported by the resolution course and the story of the fly mask---a good example of why it is important to wash and disinfect shared items!”

I am happy to report that Obie now shows no sign of having ever had a problem with his eye, and he has a wonderful new home.

This article first appeared in EQUUS issue 424.

Is your barn safe for your horse? Take a look at the following six barn hazards, then tour your barn. If you spot a hazard, fix it today!

Hazard #1: Sharp protrusions. If there’s anything sharp in your horse’s stall — such as nails, splinters, or sharp edges on a broken plastic manger — he’s likely to scrape, puncture, or lacerate himself. His eyes are particularly at risk. Action steps: Visually scan stall walls, then run your hands over all surfaces, including feeders, waterers, and feed buckets. Check the ceiling, too. Remove splinters, and replace any broken boards. If the sharp object is hard plastic, remove it, replace it, or wrap it in duct tape. If you find sharp nails, pull them out, or whack them in.

Hazard #2: Unsecured feed. Rodents and birds can contaminate feed with urine and feces, which can make your horse ill. Mice might chew on the insulation around any accessible wiring, which can cause a barn fire. And if your horse gets into the grain, he could colic, suffer laminitis, or both. Action steps: Keep pellets and grain inside heavy metal containers. Make sure the lids fit tightly. Look for locking lids. For maximum protection, keep feed in mouse-proof cans inside a horse-proof (closed and locked) feed room.

Hazard #3: Improper hay storage. Hay dust interferes with your horse’s breathing and can harm his respiratory system. Hay is also a major fire hazard. Action steps: Store hay away from your horse, preferably in a separate, well-ventilated building. Keep hay on pallets to keep it safe from ground moisture. Stack bales on their sides, and leave spaces between bales to promote air circulation, which helps keep the bales dry. If necessary, make a “floor” with pallets, stack the hay, and cover just the top two-thirds of the stack with tarps, so air will circulate.

Hazard #4: Electrical wiring and cords. An exposed electrical cord can electrocute your horse or cause a barn fire. Horses will chew anything. Action steps: Enclose your permanent wiring in PVC conduit. Use extension cords

Photo by Heidi Nyland Melocco

only when absolutely necessary, and then use only heavy-duty models designed for outdoors. Be very careful with fans and water heaters, and protect these cords with conduit. Avoid heat lamps, which can start a fire. Don’t overload your circuits.

Hazard #6: Cobwebs and dust. The cobwebs that accumulate in barns are dangerous because they’re flammable, and they trap dust, bits of hay/straw, and bedding particles. Action steps: Routinely dust and remove cobwebs. A long-handled feather duster is ideal for dusting light fixtures; a light broom is useful for stall grilles, walls, and corners. Pay special attention to light fixtures, outlet covers and switches, and panel boxes.

Jessica Jahiel, PhD, is an internationally recognized clinician and lecturer, and an award-winning author of books on horses, riding and training. Her e-mail newsletter is a popular worldwide resource.

You can haul your horse all year long, even in the dead of winter, as long as you do so safely. Here, I’ll first tell you how to ready your rig for winter hauling. Then I’ll go over how to help keep your equine friend comfortable when you haul him in winter conditions. Finally, I’ll give you six ways to ease trailer-loading in snow and ice.

(For my on-the-road hauling guidelines, see “Safe Travels,” The Trail Rider, January/February 2013).

Note: You may wish to sign up for USRider Equestrian Motor Plan, which covers both your towing vehicle and your trailer, and will help you find a safe place for your horse, in an emergency. (USRider is a sister company of The Trail Rider and EquiSearch.com.)

Ready Your Rig

Before you set out with your horse in tow, you need to ready your rig for winter conditions. Here’s how.

Apply reflective decals. Apply extra reflective decals on the back and sides of your trailer, so that other drivers can see your rig in poor conditions. One good source for trailer decals is Caution Horses Safety Products.

Invest in good tires. Invest in quality tires for your entire rig. Check tire pressure before every trip; comply with the manufacturer’s recommendations.

Check all lights. Recruit an assistant to help you check all lights on your towing vehicle and trailer. Replace any nonfunctioning lights.

Carry chains. Keep quality chains handy if snow and ice are significant enough to use them. Check your state’s chain requirements. Generally, if you have to chain up the drive axle of your towing vehicle, you should have chains on the trailer as well.

Top off the fuel tank. And don’t let your fuel tank get below a half-tank. If you’ll be driving in remote areas, carry extra fuel.

Top off the windshield-wiper fluid. And make sure the windshield wipers are working. Place a long-handled windshield scraper in your vehicle.

Comply with local brake laws. Every state has its own laws related to trailer brakes. To find out the laws in your state, consult AAA’s website.

Turn off the Jake brake. Engine brakes are wonderful for towing vehicles — they do a fantastic job slowing the rig to minimize brake wear under dry conditions. But a diesel engine’s compression-release engine brake (also referred to by the brand name Jacob’s brake, or Jake brake) can lead to a jackknife if used in slick road conditions, since they slow your towing vehicle first.

Sync the brakes. Make sure the trailer brakes complement the brakes of your towing vehicle. When you’re on a steep downhill in slick conditions, you might need to slow the trailer with brakes greater than your vehicle’s brakes.

Consult the manufacturer’s instructions. Generally, brakes are best set on dry, flat ground at a slow speed and need to be adjusted for the load. Position the electronic brake so you can manually engage it via the thumb control.

Turn off cruise control. If you get into a slide, the precious second or two that it takes to turn off the cruise control may doom your chances of maintaining control.

Weight your towing vehicle. If you’ll be towing an empty trailer, note that it’ll jackknife more easily than a loaded one. For better control, place concrete blocks or bags of sand into the back of your truck to add weight over the rear axle.

Pack cold-weather gear. For the horses, pack extra hay and at least 10 gallons of water (nonfrozen). For you, carry a cell phone with charger, emergency blankets, jackets, high-energy snack foods, and a thermos of hot drink, in case your towing vehicle or trailer breaks down and you need to wait roadside for help.

In-Trailer Equine Comfort

Here’s how to help keep your horse comfortable while hauling him in the winter.

Invest in quality tires for your entire rig. Check tire pressure before every trip; comply with the manufacturer’s recommendations.

Provide good-quality hay. Even in really cold weather, horses create more heat than you think they do. The best way to keep your horse warm in the trailer is to provide good-quality hay.

Watch over-blanketing. It’s easy to over-blanket your horse. Most trailers are poorly ventilated, so they tend to get very warm with body heat, even in below-freezing temperatures. A light sheet or blanket is sufficient for most horses.

Apply leg protection. Apply leg protection, such as polo wraps or shipping boots. In winter, it’s especially important to protect your horse’s precious lower legs from slips and kicks.

Increase ventilation. Humidity and condensation buildup from your horse’s breath can cause respiratory illness. Improve the indirect ventilation in your trailer to counteract this risk.

Avoid drafts. That said, make sure that there are no direct drafts hitting your horse, especially on his face and eyes. Freezing-cold temperatures with wind can result in damaged corneas from frostbite.

Monitor your horse. On the road, check your horse frequently. If there’s sweat under the blanket, he’s cooking inside. If he’s clipped and lacks natural insulation, carefully monitor him for sweat or shivering.

Trailer-Loading Tips

Here are six ways to ease trailer-loading in snow and ice.

Train your horse. Prior preparation and good training are important to make sure your horse is a good loader; if he rushes in or out, he can easily slip.

Wear good boots. Slipping, falling or breaking a limb is really a downer on your planned trip. Find good-quality boots that will keep your feet warm, protect your feet, and provide good traction.

Lay in supplies. Keep sand/shavings/salt and a broom/shovel in the trailer so that if you must load in icy conditions, you can minimize the chance of injury.

Find traction. Park so that the trailer’s ramp is positioned on the best traction you can find. Dirt is preferred, but snow is better than ice or asphalt.

Check the trailer stalls. Check the inside of the trailer. Frozen urine and manure are slippery. A fall inside the trailer can lead to serious injury and even death.

Create an inviting environment. Put fresh hay in the bags and a little grain in the manger. Open the doors and windows, so there’s plenty of light. The more inviting you make the trailer’s interior, the more likely your horse will feel confident enough to step in.

“Amish, you dumb dog,” yells rancher Ed Hanks. “Get back!”
Amish cowers. The cow bolts, jumps a fence, and that’s that. Nothing could have stopped this frustrating scene from unfolding. Hanks is red with anger.

“I’m going to kill that cow,” he grumbles. This renegade cow has been giving him hell, evading him for two years. On another attempt the day prior, I’d seen her jump a four-foot fence like a deer.

“I never carry a gun when I gather cattle,” Hanks had casually remarked to me over his shoulder earlier as we rode across the northern Bradshaw Mountains. “I’d likely shoot a dog.”   There’s no doubt in my mind that Hanks, had he been armed, would have shot (or shot at) his beloved corgi this morning and possibly the cow, too.

Spend any time on a ranch, and you’ll quickly see that to earn a living, a cowboy needs to draw on a broad skill set—including self-restraint. He or she works the livestock market to buy low and sell high, farms hay, tracks animals, and repairs and maintains all manner of equipment: leather, metal, wood, and mechanical. Cowboys practice most forms of veterinary care, short of outright surgery, and deftly employ psychology to train and move animals. Perhaps not cosmopolitan, ranchers are savvy observers of nature, picking up chemistry (soil analysis), botany (the nutritive value of different feeds), and hydrodynamics (swales, berms, and ponds) to fit their land into—and maximize—an ecosystem.These were my essential impressions of Hanks. During the week I spent at the Arizona Cowboy College to, um, beef up my ranch skills, the guy showed himself to be overwhelmingly competent—an army of one. But boy did he have a temper.

Faced with a conundrum of ranching life, he’d spit his stock phrase before getting down to business: “What in the hell!?”
This morning, he regroups and continues sorting the cattle and newborns we’d gathered then sends us off to survey his lower pens and watering holes. When we return many hours later, Hanks is scratching his head before a corral. There stands the renegade cow’s yearling, bawling for its mother. It turns out the wild cow hadn’t bolted far, and Hanks had been able to quietly urge her and the yearling to join their friends.

“She jumped and got caught up,” he says, motioning to a pretzel of a panel. “Thought I was going to have to butcher her. Ran for my gun, but she was gone when I got back.”

Riding flank, Triangle M.

Americans are too fond of hamburgers to allow maverick cattle free passage. Hanks will eventually outsmart his livestock and win this game of patience and perseverance. But no one ever claimed that cowboying was easy, and that’s why I came. I’m a desk jockey by trade. Though my wife and I own five acres and a fledgling equine-assisted therapy business, my sensibilities are more computer than cow. The six-day Arizona Cowboy College is designed for people like me who want to go beyond the dude ranch. Call it cowboy boot camp. The trail rides here actually have a purpose, like gathering up cattle or counting cow-calf pairs. I’m a game enough ranch hand and can work a shovel and a post-hole digger and toss hay bales with the best of ’em, but this program expanded my field of view. It taught me to look beyond the task at hand and to respond better to the animals and land in my care.

Rocco Wachman and Lori Bridwell  run the Arizona Cowboy College from Bridwell Ranch near Scottsdale, Arizona, with a Wednesday to Saturday visit to Schmidt Ranch in Seven Springs, Arizona, serving as the final exam. (Hanks’ Triangle M ranch is no longer in regular use.) A cowboy evangelist of sorts, Wachman hosted the program Cowboy U for six seasons on Country Music Television, for which he once rode a horse under the spinning blades of a helicopter. He has appeared on the Biggest Loser with Dr. Oz, where he lost 51 pounds, and occasionally serves as a personality or speaker at various events, like the 100-year anniversary of the Oklahoma Land Rush at the Flying W Ranch in Sayer, Oklahoma.

“Train a horse, and you’ll quickly learn to never ignore bad behavior. Or you might as well be rewarding it,” he tells me in one of our first encounters. A former grocer from New York, Wachman had a come-to-Jesus moment 20 years ago when his grocery chain moved him to the Phoenix area and a friend got him into riding. By training a horse, he was himself trained to listen and learn in an entirely new way. He was a changed man. These days, Wachman signs his emails: “The cowboy knew his life had a purpose. It was a gift from God to be steward of the land, livestock, and the people he loved.” It’s a sentiment fully expressed at the college and in his book, Cowboy: The Ultimate Guide to Living Like a Great American Icon (Harper Paperbacks, 2010).

“Cowboying is not a job, it’s a state of mind,” he likes to say, and from day one Wachman had us doing barn chores and practicing ranch safety. “I need to teach you, so I don’t get hurt.”
For three days, we rode slalom around saguaros and learned to shoe and care for horses. (“Any chance I can get to practice my craft,” is another of his sayings.) Then six of us, four clients and two instructors, set off for the hills in a Ford 350 Powerstroke, hauling a six-horse trailer stuffed to the gills with four leggeds, tack, camping gear, and food. Air conditioning on full blast, we roar out of the Phoenix basin and climb from 2,500 to 4,500 feet near Prescott.

As we cross the Agua Fria River, Wachman melodically recites one of his favorite poems, Sancho, by R.W. Hampton: “In the Arizona desert where the tall saguaros grow; Where the Purple Bradshaw Mountains rise and the Agua Fria flows; Down in a lonesome sand wash where no man should ever go; A buzzard picks the sun-bleached bones of a horse that I called Sancho…”

Lashes the horse at sunset.

My first sight of Hanks is of a wiry man bent to his work, shoeing a rank mare.

“What ya doin’?” Wachman asks playfully, jumping out of the truck.

Usually quick with a glib response, Hanks smiles and shakes his head but recovers quickly, “Well, I could have shaved with the old ones,” he says. Ask him how he slept, and he’ll say, “lying down.” Or how he feels? “With my hand.” Or where he wants that salt block? “On the ground.”

Not long after we unload the animals and set up camp, Hanks comes over to visit. Wachman gives him a new rope as a thank you for having us, and Hanks deftly spins it through his hands, feeling its weight.

“Does it catch?” he asks. Hanks can go weeks without seeing anyone but his wife and a neighbor or two, so he’s delighted to have company. We get to talking about the wisdom of breeding older mares for the first time. (A bad idea, unless you’re planning to breed her several times. A mare’s first and last foals are typically her worst.) He speaks in the measured, thoughtful way of someone who has all the time in the world. We spend the next three days horseback six to eight hours a day, gathering with Hanks. His 30-acre spread and 36,000-acre lease is steep and rocky. He had to spend his first year on the property hauling water, installing watering troughs, and repairing many, many miles of fence.
John, one of the college’s clients, displays the “when not if” axiom about riders eventually falling off their horses. A wandering mind and an unfriendly tree branch had knocked him on his butt.

“Are you hurt?” Hanks calls back.
John would never have answered “yes” to this cowboy, even if he’d broken his femur. Remounted, we ride on and “mash rocks” and “bash brush” past Indian ruins and blooming cacti to survey the cattle. Hanks pulls a tiny notepad from his breast pocket whenever he sees one.

“If I see a bull a few times without cows, he’s gone,” he says. Hanks grew up in Boulder County, Colorado, and has been ranching all his life. His father ran cattle, too. It’s in his blood. He was even an extra in a Western, the Father Keno Story.

“You’ve got to farm what you see,” he comments about working with nature, perhaps harkening to his Indian ancestry. Hanks has Hopi blood from his mom’s side and Cherokee from his dad’s. He smokes a steady stream of Marlboros, of course, and likes to point out “bald-headed crows” (Bald eagles).
Rocco and his string boss, Elaine Pawlowski, meanwhile, carry cell phones, which they answer regularly. When your office is a saddle, you make due.

“The fastest way to move a cow is slow,” says Hanks. “Otherwise, all you do is chase.” And work the weight off them. He’s also adamant that ranching benefits the desert.

“Cattle improve watering holes,” he insists. “Their hoofs aerate the soil and promote plant growth.” Who else is going to care for all this acreage? The BLM could never pay staff to do what ranchers oversee themselves on the nation’s hundreds of millions of acres of public land.

In the evenings, we practice roping. (Pawlowski, a former Chicago firefighter, dismisses my technique: “You throw like a girl.”) Come nightfall, we sit around a fire corralled in an oil drum and nestle the cowboy microwave (aka Dutch oven) into the coals. The stories meander, as we ogle the constellations in the darkness.

Back in Scottsdale, Wachman takes me to the Scottsdale Gun Club, a nondescript box store in an ocean of air-conditioned  malls. The clothes and home décor you might have expected inside have been replaced by a deadly arsenal. I’m asked to watch a five-minute safety video then handed a 45-mm Magnum revolver, ammunition, and ear protection and pointed to the indoor shooting range.

To my left, a young woman in a tank top and flip flops fires an array of weapons with her boyfriend. To my right, a small child fires his rifle with an instructor. I raise a handgun for the first time in my life and fire booming reports at the human-shaped target.

“You’re a natural,” Wachman encourages and gives me tips.

He holsters a loaded Ruger Vaquero .45 Colt at all times and brought a cannon-like Smith & Wesson AR15 to the Triangle M. “It’s a matter of principle,” he explains.

The funny thing about Wachman is that he’s a cowboy by choice, not birth. This former New York grocer is particularly keen for the Cowboy Way, because it’s given him so much. He believes whole-heartedly that nothing could be more natural—more American—than to re-imagine yourself and make a better life. That’s the promise of the West: new beginnings.
Describing the cowboy’s lot in life, Wachman says: “Failure is not an option.” No one pays a rancher for effort. He must deliver sound cows. Period. Successful cowboys show results. The rest quit.

For my part, I can now rope my dog with ease, and I can fork a horse long after it has stopped being comfortable. Though I’ll likely never be faced with producing livestock to survive, the time I spent in Arizona taught me not to be a nuisance on a ranch and to perhaps lend a hand—better than Amish the corgi, at least.