When dealing with the awful reflexive tendency of cops to shoot dogs in SWAT raids and other times (e.g., a dog barks at them), I’ve said some pretty direct things to both cops and the survival community.
If you are a law enforcement officer and know nothing about animals, are frightened all of the time around them, and cannot assert yourself at the proper time and in the proper way, there are options for you. You can volunteer your time at local farms, ranches and dog breeders, and you can purchase and raise your own dogs. You need to become accustomed to being around cattle, horses, goats, dogs and other such animals. If you choose to ignore this gap in your training and life experiences, and you choose to run around frightened of everything that moves, but you relinquish your badge and gun, then who am I to infringe on your rights? Do as you wish, and leave me out of it.
But if you choose to be that kind of person, where you ignore gaps in your knowledge and experience base, but you continue to carry a badge and gun, I think you’re a panty waist. You are an irresponsible person who should feel bad about themselves, and you’re dangerous to those of us around you, and especially dangerous to animals. You’re unqualified to have your job, and you are basically a liability to the community.
[ … ]
Now a note to survivalists. You might spend time, money and energy on being prepared to survive in the wilderness, or perhaps being tactically competent. But if your planning, education and preparation doesn’t include a moderate knowledge of and mastery over animals, then your preparations are incomplete and your calculus is faulty. There are animals out there who truly can harm you, such as (in the West) brown bear, cougar and moose, and (in the East) black bear if they’re badly hungry, or feral hogs.
I’m not telling people to do something I’ve never done myself.
I have fallen off, been thrown off, bitten, run over, kicked, and just about anything that can happen on or around a horse. I have ridden horses all day long, and I do mean all … day … long, and gotten on to do it again the next day. And the next day. And the next day. I have fed them, herded them, doctored them, and assisted them to mate. If you’ve never witnessed horses mating first hand (and I’m not talking about watching the Discovery Channel), it can be a violent affair. I’ve ridden with saddles and then also (in my much younger years) bareback over mountain tops along narrow trails while running the herd). The hardest ride was bareback and (on a dare) without a bridle, only the halter.
From the age of fourteen and beyond into my early twenties, I worked weekends and summers at a Christian camp above Marietta, South Carolina named Awanita Valley (and Awanita Ranch in Traveler’s Rest). We trained and trail rode horses, fed them and cared for them, hiked the trails and cleared them of snakes and yellow jacket nests (have you ever been on a horse when it came up on a yellow jacket nest?).
When we weren’t doing that, we were cutting wood, hauling supplies, digging ditches, and baling hay. My boys did the same thing, and Daniel later (before the Marine Corps) worked for Joey Macrae in Anderson, South Carolina, an extraordinary professional horseman, breaking and training horses. I have ridden in the rain, blazing sun, and snow. I have seen my son Joshua and his horse buried up to his thighs in snow, and watched him ride the horse up from sinking in the drift and stay on him while keeping the horse and him safe.
Why is all (or any) of this important? Because as I tried to convey in my earlier post, it is critical to have an understanding and mastery over animals [if you care about your life] …
The same thing goes for preening, smart ass little girls who get talked into doing something stupid. Like this girl (courtesy of reader Ned in Horses in Austin).
So listen to me girl. Let me explain something to you.
You survive around large farm animals like horses not because they love you or just like being around you, but because you make a deal with them. Here is the deal: the horse will not kill you, and in return, you covenant to take care of the horse. And you have to mean it – a horse knows if you’re lying.
You learn the horse’s language, from directional signals to foot pressure to voice commands to neck reining. You learn the “warp and woof” of how the horse thinks. You must learn what your voice inflections, timbre, volume and frequency do to the horse and how s/he will interpret them. The horse will know if you’re unsure of yourself and don’t know what you’re doing, and despite what you’ve been told by your idiot college professors, there is no non-binary for horses.
Mares can be handled, geldings are a little more difficult, and studs are very hard to tame and usually dangerous. Oh, and walking up behind a horse and surprising it will inevitably lead to a kick, and that in the superlative for running up to the horse. To the horse, you are a threat and s/he will treat you as such.
A horse can stomp you, bite you, throw you off, run over you, and (here’s the worst part), kick you. When a horse decides to kick, if the horse lands a hoof on your forehead, you’re likely going to end up dead or with severe and permanent brain injury.
That kick was merely a warning, and it was glancing at best. You’re very fortunate to be able to stagger away from that with minor injuries. So here’s a suggestion. Drop out of college, it’s probably not doing you any good anyway, and it’s running up a mountain of debt you can never pay off.
Go volunteer at a local farm or ranch, and get some real like experience working for a living and learning to handle animals. And don’t ever do anything like that again.
Then again, if you actually learn to work, you may not want to be out among those idiot protesters anyway.
