My Life With Horses--Part Eight

                                                by Laura Crum

            I was thrilled to be pregnant. Neither my husband nor I had ever had a child, we were getting older (I was 42 and he was 49), and we really wanted a baby. At our respective ages it wasn’t that likely—without technical intervention, which we weren’t inclined to—so it seemed like a real gift. And I immediately resolved not to ride until the baby was born.

            This doesn’t mean that I think pregnant women shouldn’t ride. I just wanted to do everything possible to protect my unborn child at my advanced age. I gave Danny, the colt I had been training, to a friend. My old friend Wally was still riding and roping on Flanigan and Plumber, so they were getting plenty of exercise. And Gunner and Burt were turned out to pasture.

            Once again, I took a break from riding. I still fed my horses and saw them every day and I still loved them. In fact, I began to discover an interesting truth. The thing I enjoyed most about horses was not riding. It was living with them. This didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in riding any more. It just meant that I had come one step further in understanding my path with horses.

            Because I found that seeing my horses many times every day, feeding them and turning them out to graze, made me happy and content even though I wasn’t riding. I puttered around the garden, and I puttered around with my horses, and I waited for my baby to come and I was happy. I was aware that I was happy and this knowledge stood me in good stead, because having a baby wasn’t at all what I had expected it to be like.

            I had thought that the baby would be sort of an adjunct to our lives. My husband and I would do more or less as we had always done, the baby would just come along, too. But it wasn’t like that at all.

            I was unprepared for the fierce rush of maternal love, the absolute realization that I would do ANYTHING to protect and care for this little creature. If I had been asked, while I was pregnant, if I planned to give up riding for the next few years (or at least riding without a kid in the saddle with me) I would have said, “No, of course not.” But that is more or less what happened.

            This blog is about horses, not babies, and this saga is supposed to be about my life with horses, not my life with my child. But if you are to understand why my life with horses became the life that I have today, you will need to understand how I chose to parent my child…and why. I absolutely don’t blame you if you find this boring and not relevant, especially if you don’t have kids. Feel free to click that little “x” now.

            But, anyway, from the day of my son’s birth, the one main thing I wanted of life was to take the best possible care of my little boy. I’m not going to argue parenting styles here, but I will say that my own path became the “attachment parenting” path. I nursed my baby until he weaned himself (at 18 months), we slept in a family bed, and I carried my little guy in a sling and then later in a backpack, everywhere I went. I stayed home with him and took care of him (and this is one of the benefits of being an author—working at home was already my path). This is, I think, a wonderful way to raise a child, and I was very happy, but I did not find much time to ride. To be honest, riding wasn’t very high on my priority list.

            But I still had my horses and I still loved them. I carried my baby down the hill to feed every morning and evening. He grew up around horses. And when my little guy was six months old, I climbed up on my beloved Flanigan and took my baby for his first ride. After that I rode once in awhile—always at the walk and with my little boy sitting in front of me, always on Flanigan.

            Sadly, when my son was three years old, Flanigan died of an inoperable colic. He was the first of my “forever” horses to die and the first horse to die on my place. He is buried here…and I still miss him. I feel that his spirit both protects and guides me, however odd that may sound.

            After this I took my little boy for rides on Plumber. And we progressed to trotting and then loping. My son loved to ride. I think now that I should have put a helmet on my child, but I was confident in myself and my horses, and to be fair, we never had any problems. We rode a couple of times a week, in my riding ring or up at the arena, always with friends. For five years I rode only in arenas, at a relaxed walk/trot/lope. I can’t remember that I ever once rode without my child in the saddle with me in all those years. And no, I was not bored. I was happy. Plumber packed us like a champ until my son was five years old and just too big to ride comfortably in front of me any more.

            It was time for my boy to have a horse of his own. And thus came Toby.

            The saga begins here.

            I wrote Moonblind about being pregnant and Chasing Cans about having a nursing baby. Click on the titles to find the Kindle editions.

 Both of these books have lots of horses in them, but perhaps a tad less action than when my protagonist was single. What can I say? My life had a tad less action in it once I became a mama. I did my best to keep both mysteries exciting and still be faithful to the reality of motherhood. I really love these books, but I think that those who are mothers themselves are more likely to appreciate them than those who are not. The absolute truth is that I loved (and still love) being a mama, but it is not a life that “sounds” as exciting as my earlier life training and competing on horses. The fact that this part of my life with horses has actually been the most rewarding and interesting part to me is something you may have to take on trust (or perhaps my novels can portray this emotion more clearly than I can convey it in a blog post).

            

Bad News and Good News

                                                by Laura Crum

            After Terri’s sad post yesterday, and the very sad news last week, my own bad news seems pretty minor. But I’m hoping that telling this story may help someone else. So here goes.

 I posted a while ago about the little horse near the school playground. See my post on this problem here. Some of you asked for updates. I do have an update, but I’m afraid it isn’t good.

            The last I had heard, the SPCA had been called by a “do-gooder” who felt the horse was too thin. When I came back to the school, five days later (our program only meets twice a week), the horse was gone. I asked our teacher what had happened; she didn’t know. So I asked the school secretary and the yard duty supervisor. The yard duty supervisor said that he had seen someone taking photos of the horse and the shed last week. The horse was gone when he came to school this week. He didn’t know more than that. Uh-oh, I thought.

            At a guess the photo-taking person was SPCA. And then the horse disappeared.

            I asked the school secretary. She said she didn’t know much, but one of the neighbors—not the neighbor with the horse—had said that they had seen a horse trailer pull into the property on the weekend. They did not see the horse leave in the trailer. But now the horse is certainly gone. No one at the school knew more than that.

            My heart just sank. It is possible the horse went to a rescue or was re-homed—but it’s  pretty unlikely, given the circumstances. Maybe he was euthanised. I don’t like to think about the other alternative, which is the most likely, unfortunately.

            I don’t like to think about it, but I’m going to spell it out here, in case it helps some other little horse somewhere. Here is what I said in my previous post:

“I have been around in the horse business for a long time. I know the conventional wisdom is to call and report a horse that is too thin. I also know that this course is as likely to do harm as it is good. Having watched this horse lead a reasonably contented life for the past eight years, I certainly would NOT have reported it to the local SPCA.

            There are a number of reasons why I feel this way. First off, I have known of a good many cases like this where the owner, who never was all that invested in the horse, simply gets rid of it after the complaint. Trust me, these horses almost NEVER end up going to a better place. At best they get euthanised. At worst they end up on a truck. It’s possible that once in awhile the owner takes it as a wake-up call and buys better feed for the horse. And its possible that one in awhile the horse is re-homed to a better home. Its possible—but I haven’t seen it that often. Especially with an older horse.”

            Now, I don’t know for sure what actually happened, and the only way I could find out would be to knock on the door of complete strangers who have already made their decision (whatever it was) and probably (and justifiably) feel pretty hostile towards anyone from the school right now. But from long experience in the horse world, I can tell you what probably happened.

            To begin with, I can’t know if these people were truly fond of this horse, but I never saw anyone with him, ever—in eight years. Still, I was only there on weekday mornings. If the people worked, they wouldn’t have been home then. Perhaps they lavished attention on him in the evenings and on weekends. In any case, the horse always looked reasonably content in his small falling-down pasture and the school kids regularly fed him apples. He wasn’t suffering. Yes, this fall he was a touch too thin. NOT starving.  You could see a shadow of ribs if you stared hard. His ribs did not stand out, his hip bones did not stick up, his fuzzy winter coat had some shine to it. He was a LONG way from distress. I know he was being fed, because I saw him eating hay in his shed. As I pointed out in my previous post, he would undoubtedly have gained weight when the grass came on strong in the spring.

 Now my guess is that the people who owned the horse weren’t very invested in him (judging by the run-down pasture…etc). Still, the horse was leading a decent life. I know. I watched him for eight years. The do-gooder who reported him to the SPCA initiated a predictable chain of events. It probably went something like this. The SPCA hassled the owners-- who weren’t wanting to be hassled, and the owners most likely called around until they found someone who was willing to take the horse off their hands. And I’m sorry to say it, but that person most likely hauled the horse to a livestock auction for the small amount of money to be made.

            From the auction the horse was very likely shipped to slaughter. It makes me very sad.

            I wish I could have done something about this, and I was gearing up to try going to the door of the house and asking if I could help (as some readers suggested). But the horse was gone by the time I got back to school. And I will admit that I was struggling with the question of what I should do or say.

            You see the last two times I interfered in such a situation, I was told that the person could not afford to feed the horse any more, and would I take said horse. And both times I took the horse. However, I can no longer take any more horses. My corrals are full and I am maxed out with seven horses that I am committed to caring for for the rest of their lives. I had decided that I could offer to buy some senior food for the horse—but even this was problematic. I could buy a dozen sacks, sure. But I couldn’t afford to support that horse for the rest of his life…and the feed needed as a horse gets older can be very expensive. (Believe me, I know.) Wasn’t I just prolonging the inevitable? Still, if the horse put on a little weight now, and then the green grass kicked in, he might have another pleasant year.

            Anyway, I never had the chance to offer anything. Things happened faster than I was prepared for. But to be realistic, if the people had already made their choice, there might not have been anything I could do about it if I had gotten there earlier.

            And here’s my message. Stop and think before you interfere by calling “the authorities.” If a horse is truly starving that may be the best course of action. But be aware that when you report a horse like the little horse near our school, you may be sending that horse to slaughter—as a direct result of your “do-gooder” action. It might be best to try to determine if the horse has a decent quality of life FIRST, before you decide to drag in officialdom.

            As a case in point, last fall we euthanised two of our own older rescue horses mostly because we felt they were too thin. These horses were on free choice hay and a good pasture and we supplemented with lots of equine senior feed. The horses had been hard keepers all their lives and we had kept them in decent shape for many years by pouring LOTS of expensive food to them. But there came a day when even this wasn’t working any more, and we felt that they were too thin going into winter. They were 31 and 25 years, respectively. If you had driven by this pasture and seen that these two looked ribby, sure you could have called the SPCA. And what good would it have done?

            Such a well meaning do gooder would have no idea that we were pouring tons of money into expensive feed for these horses (and yes, regular worming) and agonizing over what was the best and most ethical thing to do. We monitored the horses carefully, checking to see that they both still seemed to be enjoying life and feeding them all they would clean up. We shed tears when we decided that euthanasia was the right option. We did our best to do right by those horses. We darn sure didn’t need some do-gooder deciding that we were “abusing” them.

            Again, I, too, would report a horse under certain circumstances. But I would try to find out the circumstances first. People who won’t buy feed when horses are starving need to be reported. But its best to be sure that the situation that the horses are in is WORSE than what may happen to them once you report them. We all need to be clear on that.

            OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now. As I said in the original post, its very hard to know what’s best to do in a situation like this. But “reporting” the horse very often leads to the outcome I just described. I think many “do-gooders” mistakenly suppose that reporting a thin horse will lead to the horse having a better life. Sometimes this may happen, but very often it doesn’t work like that. And it’s important to understand this going in.

            On to the good news, which is actually pretty minor in comparison. For those of you who are reading my mystery series featuring equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy (on Kindle), the last four books have been reduced in price—just in time for Xmas. These books have all been previously priced at $10.99, which is pretty expensive for a Kindle edition, in my opinion. Starting today they are $2.99 each. The books (in order) are Moonblind, Chasing Cans, Going Gone, and Barnstorming. Click on the titles to find the $2.99 Kindle editions.

            There has been some problem linking the editions (which should soon be fixed), so if you simply type in the titles you may not be able to find these editions. But the links above will take you there; you can also find them if you look for them under Laura Crum in “Kindle store.” 

            These four books are very special to me, and those who read this blog will recognize some familiar equine characters. I hope this lower price makes it possible for folks who are enjoying the series to complete it by reading the last four books.

            Season’s greetings from my family to yours!

            

Flanigan's Story

By Laura Crum


I just got back from vacation last week and was very happy to be reunited with my horses again. Almost the first thing I did on getting home was walk down to the barnyard and have a look at the four equines living in the corrals there—our current saddle horses. All looked as if they had weathered my absence nicely—a real relief. As always, my gaze eventually went to the large rock in the biggest corral, which marks the grave of what was argueably the best horse I ever owned, or more accurately, was partners on. Now Flanigan doesn’t appear by name in my mystery series featuring equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy, but he lends his abilities, personality, exploits and tribulations to several horses in the course of my ten books, and since he’s been on my mind lately, I’d like to tell his story here.

Flanigan was a team roping horse, and a good one, which was how he came into my life. At that time, I was competing at ropings on my horse, Gunner, and my team roping partner purchased Flanigan from a well-known rope horse trader for a fair chuunk of change. When Gunner started to suffer from sore hocks and I decided to quit roping on him, my partner offered to sell me a share in Flanigan, so that I’d still have a mount for the ropings.

I was doubtful. The horse trader had informed us that Flanigan’s previous owner had been so afraid of the horse that he’d attempted to starve the animal into submission; it had taken the horse trader six months to feed the horse back up to a normal weight. Flanigan was cinchy, and if a certain careful protocol was not followed with his saddling and warm-up, he would buck. He’d bucked my partner off several times and I wasn’t eager to be the next victim. Nevertheless, my partner insisted that Flanigan was a “babysitter.”

This seemed like somewhat of a paradox to me, as I’m sure you can imagine. Neither did Flanigan attract me, as some horses in my past had done. Plain, brownish bay with a little white, Flanigan pinned his ears in a grouchy way whenever one looked at him, and he did not have a particularly “pretty” way of moving or working. In short, on the surface there didn’t seem to be much to recommend him. Nonetheless, I tried him.

The horse amazed me. If you’ve ever had the experience of a mount who would really pick you up and carry you, who attended to his job without needing much if any help, leaving you free to concentrate on your end, then you know what I mean. I saw instantly what my partner had meant by telling me the horse was a babysitter.



I bought a half share in Flanigan and roped on him for many years. In the photo above I am turning a steer for my good friend Sue Crocker, who is heeling on Pistol (who also appears in my mystery series as an equine “character”). I mastered the art of Flanigan’s warm-up program, and though he crowhopped with me occasionally on the first run of the day (something he would do right up until the time he was retired), he never bucked me off. I also rode this horse on numerous pack trips through the rocky Sierra Nevada Mts of California, where he proved to be just as reliable as he was in the roping arena. Flanigan and I traversed many tricky trails together over those years (including some spots that brought other horses and riders to grief), and I will be eternally grateful for his calm and responsive reactions, as well as his strength and surefootedness. Our travels in the mountains form the basis of my fifth book, Slickrock, and though the mount Gail rides in the story is Gunner, the horse who crossed those passes with me in real life was Flanigan.

Flanigan had other virtues, too. He would work a cow as well as a well-trained stock horse; he would pack an outright beginner and/or a small child willingly and calmly; he won many dollars and numerous trophy saddles and buckles as a competitive team roping horse. For me, though, the thing that mattered the most was the incredible “feel” I got from Flanigan. An immensely strong, intelligent, self-assured and capable horse, he made me feel safe and centered, whether we were traversing slickrock passes in the mountains or charging at full speed down the arena after a steer. Flanigan was one of those horses who simply would not fall down. Didn’t matter if a cow turned right in front of him at a dead run or a foot slipped as he followed a narrow crack in the granite---the horse stayed up.

I grew to love Flanigan as much as I’ve ever loved any horse; I understood his grouchy behaviors and saw through them to the great heart inside. I nursed him through many bouts with colic, which he was prone to, and made sure that he spent long periods of time turned out in my sixty-acre pasture getting some well-deserved R and R. When my baby was six months old, the horse I chose to take my child on his first ride was Flanigan.

Sadly, though Flanigan stayed sound and usable until he was twenty-one, at some point that year while he was turned out in the pasture, he suffered an injury (we never knew what happened) that resulted in a diaphragmatic hernia (diagnosed through ultra-sound at a major equine veterinary center). From this point on, he could only walk about the pasture. Moving faster than the walk caused him to gasp for air. (More about this in my novel, Moonblind.)

We kept Flanigan for another year, and he was able to enjoy a reasonably pleasant season in the pasture, but eventually he came down with a severe colic which wasn’t responsive to drugs. Since surgery was impossible due to his condition, we chose to put him down rather than let him suffer. He is buried here on my small horse ranch and every time I look at the stone that marks his grave I remember him, and what a magical horse he was for me, enabling me to do many things I didn’t think I was capable of. I will always be grateful to him.

I still miss Flanigan, even though I lost him some years ago, but I feel his spirit stays with me—a protective guide. I’m sure that others who have lost beloved horses will understand.
Cheers—to Flanigan
Laura Crum and Flanigan
http://www.lauracrum.com/

Why Ever Did You Pick That Cover?

By Laura Crum

As the author of ten mysteries featuring equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy, I’ve frequently been asked the above question. Believe me, on some of those books I would have asked the question myself, if I had been the reader. The truth is that I didn’t pick that cover(!) In fact, I had virtually nothing to say about it.

My first mystery, Cutter, came out in hardcover from St Martin’s Press in 1994. Needless to say, I waited with great excitement to see what the jacket would look like. (For those unfamiliar with this process, it takes roughly a year from the moment of turning a manuscript in to the publisher until the finished book arrives in the mail…a long wait.) I can still remember my immediate sense of deflation when I finally saw the book. It looks like Nancy Drew, were the words that came to mind.

This was my first experience with a phenomena that I later became very familiar with. For some reason, books with horses on the cover have a tendency to look “YA” (publishing industry slang—means “young adult”), unless the cover artist is quite skillful. Cutter looked very YA from my point of view.

Still, I had no idea how dire things can get in the book cover department. Not until I saw the paperback version of Cutter. Not only did this cover also look very YA, the artist had depicted my western cutting horse with an English saddle (!) You can imagine the comments I got on that one. Unfortunately, most of the world believes that an author personally chooses or designs the cover—I hate to think how many folks may consider me dismally ignorant on the subject of cutting horses, based on this jacket.

As you might imagine, at this juncture I called up the St Martin’s art department, wanting to be sure I could have some input into the cover of my next book. To make a long story short, the answer was “not”. A midlist author (publishing industry slang for anyone who’s not a bestseller but is still getting published by a big publisher), it turns out, has very little control over what cover her book will have. I could whine to the art director about what I wanted and didn’t want, sure, and he would agree to pass this on to the artist, but the net result was that the art director was interested in his/her concept, not mine.

Fortunately Hoofprints, my second novel, had a much more pleasing cover than Cutter. Or at least, I thought so. (Not coincidentally, at least in my opinion, it sold a lot better, too.) When I praised the cover to my agent, however, she sniffed dismissively. I was quite surprised that she didn’t seem to like the jacket. Novice in the publishing business that I was, I had paid no attention to the lettering. My agent was no novice. “I wish they’d done your name a little larger,” was all she said.

Sure enough. Now that I considered this aspect, I saw that my name was printed in such small letters it was hardly legible. Another lesson learned.

Finally, on my third mystery, Roughstock, I hit the jackpot. I loved the cover, and virtually everyone who saw the book did, too. Not to mention my name was nice and big. (Roughstock also sold very well, by the way.) The cover artist, Peter Thorpe, had emailed me in the course of his work (being one of that lovely breed who actually reads the material and tries to make the cover fit), so I was able to thank him for a great job. Naturally I requested him thereafter.

This system didn’t work all the time. The art director at a big house like St Martin’s has a tendency to be a “revolving door” position. Seldom did I have the same art director from book to book. So, periodically the current inhabitant of the office would decide to replace my favorite artist with someone else, usually not to good effect. For instance my sixth novel, Breakaway, which is one of my favorite books, but also probably the “darkest” of my mysteries and the least suitable for young readers, has a cover that looks more YA than all the rest. Needless to say, I was not thrilled.

So the answer to my title question is that I have mostly had very little control over the covers of my novels, which is unfortunate, as I think many people do judge a book by its cover. I have to admit, I find it easier to buy a book with an appealing cover than one with a repulsive or boring jacket (in my eyes), despite the fact that I may be familiar with the author and able to evaluate the book more fairly on its merits. I’m a big believer in the idea that covers are very important. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that overall, those of my books that have what I would call appealing covers have sold better than the others.

Thus I’m grateful that my last two books have been published by Perseverance Press, who has been willing to use Peter Thorpe as the cover artist (and thank you, Pete, for being willing to do the work). Moonblind and Chasing Cans are two of my favorite jackets—I’d welcome your input.
Cheers,
Laura Crum