If you’ve known me a minute, you know I have two dogs with very strong personalities.  Brick, he’s a good boy – eager to please, one might call him painfully obedient.  Maybe, she’s a whole other animal, did not excel in school, has no interest in tricks or rules… We call her an “independent thinker” to avoid injury. If you need an idea of who she is, check  Machiavellian Maybe.

I sometimes stare at her and wonder, I’ve heard the jokes, seen the memes – you know – how people resemble their pets… It leaves me wondering: Do I somehow attract the pets with big personalities? Are they a reflection of me? Have I created them?

Before Maybe and Brick, there was Lady.

For many years I had this amazing beast of a horse, Lady.  That sounds so arrogant, but it’s the shortest way to say she was my friend but I paid all the bills.  I can’t even call her a freeloader because she did earn those carrots, but her personality was something money can’t buy.

My stepdad’s property was surrounded by miles of undeveloped land, both park department and water company, separated by barbed wire and leaning fence posts. His friends would stop by to hunt the wild pig that roamed under, around, and sometimes through those boundaries.  They were good guys, old timers, never broke the rules… that I am aware of.  They only hunted on ‘our side’ of the fence, as allowed by law.

I don’t know about anywhere else, but in California, those pigs are unwelcome, they destroy landscaping and golf courses, nobody cares if you shoot them. Once they hit the barbeque, everyone cares because the smell is intoxicating, and the taste is unbeatable.

(There go all my vegan readers….)

I was at the hitching post grooming Lady and the guys came off the hill, disappointed that they were empty handed. They milled about, half watching me while bellyaching and one was struck with an idea; would I be game to ride over to the neighboring property, rope a baby wild pig, drag it from its mother! and bring him back to the barn to be raised for slaughter. 

I wasn’t raised even in close proximity to horses. I started riding in my late teens, no lessons, if I fell off, I knew I did something wrong. I was what one might call a “greenhorn.”  Which, sidebar, you can shovel a million pounds of shit, get thrown into the dirt, kicked in the head…  I don’t think you lose that “greenhorn” label until you actually lose an appendage. To be sure, I am still a greenhorn. 

I’m also stupid.

It sounded like a great idea so I agreed and went looking for a rope.  We all had a good laugh as I missed the bucket a dozen times but surely it must be easier on horseback. I ran to the tack room to get my gear, saddled Lady up, and in the interest of safety, took her out to the back pasture where she’d be contained when I fell off and bled out waiting for help.  There were also all kinds of downed trees and stumps, things that wanted to be roped, unlike that stupid bucket.

I mounted with the rope in my hand and Lady stiffened, she had a good instinct for when things were about to get fun.  We did a couple warm up laps around the pasture; I needed to practice holding the rope and the reins and not fall off.  (It’s easier than I make it sound.)  When she was good and stampy – that tap dance thing she did when I’d say stop but she wanted to go – I started twirling.

I’d been to dozens of rodeos, I’d gone to local practice arenas, I’d even seen the young boys, sons of Charros, doing all those fancy hoola-hoop type moves – jumping in and out of the wildly swirling ring they spun from overhead. Totally know what I’m doing.

Got the spin, mastered the twirl, next logical step, the throw!

Totally do not know what I’m doing.

If you don’t know; you have the length of the rope coiled in your hand while your other hand is doing the twirling.  Your hands must talk to each other for this to be any measure of success.  When hand A, the twirly hand, throws the loop, hand B, the holder, has to unhold for the loop to travel.  Honest mistake. I got it.

I dragged up the short length of rope lying on the ground, Lady did a snorty side-step but I assured her, “Not a snake!” and I re-coiled.  (not recoiled, like in horror, this is cowboy speak for, all the rope is back in my holdy hand)

I begin again. I give Lady a little nudge toward a really big stump, it had all kinds of petrified roots jutting out at easy-to-rope angles, this is it, I’m gonna get it.  I twirly, twirly and try to throw…  but somehow smack myself in the head with the throwing end. Gave myself a huge welt right across my forehead, but clearly nothing inside to damage.

Back to square one, have gotten all the mistakes out, this is the one. I am roping that stump today, tomorrow a pig.  Here we go!

Holdy hand holding, twirly hand twirling, I throw and simultaneously let go, my loop soars… and lands three feet to the left of the stump.  But so much progress!  One more time…

Heels down, check. Seat seated, check. Rope coiled neatly in holdy hand, check.  Here comes the twirl.  I’m laser focused on one of the stumps most prominent roots, it’s short, it’s in front, it’s statistically my best chance.  I wind up to twirl – which, can I just say, nobody tells you how many times you are supposed to do the twirl.  Is there a system of 1, 2, 3, throw? Is it balance? I have no idea, but I’m in my head and I’m taking my loop into the third lap when Lady takes two giant steps forward, and she slams her hooves down to make sure I know she has taken those two giant steps. Then she locks her knees, and drops her head.

My horse mocked me!  She moved me closer, knowing there was no way I was hitting that stump ten feet in front of me, but now, at five feet, I might hit it if I just drop it straight down!

I didn’t.  I didn’t even hit the stump.  I was laughing too hard; I nearly fell out of the saddle.

Over our years together, people often said we were well matched. Lady was so much me… or perhaps I was so much her?  Either way, I confess, I’m tickled every time either of my dogs hand my sass back to me; Brick with his huffs of disgust, or the sweet little nips on the nose from Maybe…  That cosmic spaghetti monster delights in dishing out my karma, making me live with myself.  I must say, I keep me on my toes!

Yep, that’s me. A little feral. Riding in shorts, bareback, up a hill covered in dry grass during tick season. I trusted Lady with my life.