Rodeos and Rustlin'

Though every good 4th of July should end with the rodeo, we skipped out this year. However, our extended family invited us out to watch Don break colts that afternoon. I'll try and translate some of the cowboy, but I'm not very good at it, so these are my suburban approximations of what we did. Breaking colts is taking wild horses and getting them ready to ride. Don worked on Bugsy, a mustang they picked up last year. Also the mustang that broke a few of Don's ribs last year, but those are just old details I guess.

Anyway, it was quite fascinating watching Don work on this horse. He is quite the horse trainer and does a lot of his training with very subtle body language and gestures. By the end of the afternoon, the horse was following him, and had stopped leaning away and holding his mouth tight. (Apparently when horses are relaxed, they lick their lips.) He got the saddle on the horse and was working on getting Bugsy used to the rope. However, when he caught the rope under the stirrup it spooked Bugsy and he bucked. It was still too soon to ride him, but that day will come soon.

Don and Tina then invited us out to watch them rope on Friday. We went out and took Sky with us for extra entertainment. Sky did incredibly well with their dog Lily, though Lily didn't take too nicely to Sky. Sky also had his first encounters with horses and steers. Sky took a liking to one steer specifically. James likes to call the steer Skeletor, as it has a white face with dark circles (think goth eyeliner) around the eyes. Either way, the steer is kinda creepy and Sky decided to follow it around the arena. Eventually, he began to posture and the steer just looked at him funny and he went running with his tail between his legs.

More excitingly, James rode on a horse for the first time! It was a short ride as it was getting dark so no pictures, but we'll make sure to take some next time.
All in all, a good day at the arena.