Horsewoman, Has Your Neighborhood Gone to the Dogs?

I traipsed across Minnesota and North Dakota through factory farms and cemeteries this summer. Trying to link childhood memories with physical locations, only to find they were gone. The only building standing seventy years later was a big white barn. Is that how long it takes for things to become unrecognizable? The span of a life? 

When I bought my farm, it was the most run-down, trashy, but charmingly affordable property on our road. The horses joined me as soon as I got the pen up and a gate on the driveway. And like all farms, regardless of size, there was work to be done, and I did it. My time here has flown by, but my trip north has me thinking. Remembering generations of animals that have shared my farm. The ways I have changed over these years, my life expanding in ways I could never have dreamed. The only thing that hasn’t changed here is the dirt road out front. 

Twenty-six years later, there’s only one neighbor on our road who has been here longer than me. Kids left home and people retired. Some moved to town, tired of the upkeep, and some moved farther out as the population encroached on our quiet. There are upscale McMansions within a mile, but the median income on our road stayed the same. We’re blue-collar here, and so were the incoming neighbors. People live out here because they have habits not welcome in town. I think you know mine.

The farm across the road was sold to a family who brought us all together for the first time, but for the worst reasons. Their dogs ran free through their three-wire fence and maimed or killed the neighbor’s goats and dogs. Those dogs disappeared and a new crop of dogs arrived almost bi-annually but no apologies. They always had horses that whey chased on dirt bikes. Mostly lame and always underfed. Their kids had friends over after school, spinning donuts and fighting in the yard.

They were not great criminal minds. The kids robbed the neighbor whose goat had been killed, so things added up quickly. You would have thought the deputy sheriffs had lunch there, as often as they prowled up the driveway. Nothing brings neighbors together quicker.

It was impossible to look away. Our farms faced each other. For almost fifteen years, that one neighbor cast a dark cloud over all of us. Sadly, I’ve written about this neighbor. She’s the one who shot her horse in their front pasture.

Not long after that, their farm went on the market. The siege was over, and our little road exhaled, sleepy again. Their farm sat quiet for months. I hadn’t noticed until then how much anxiety had knotted up in my gut over the years. The threats, the restraining orders, the constant low-level of fear. I outlasted them. 

Over all these years, generations of animals came and went from our farms. Not just horses, but llamas and goats, donkeys and cats, and all manner of chickens and ducks. And of course, we had dogs. Always, dogs. Mister’s ears perked up. You had dogs before me?? I nod, there were eight dogs here before you. He looks betrayed. Inconceivable, he said. 

Initially, I was one of seven properties that had horses. Folks rode by in the evening and waved. We helped each other when needed and were peaceful loners the rest of the time. An early horse friend was one of the first to move after a family tragedy. A couple who only rode in parades was next. Over the years, other farms sprouted for-sale signs overnight.

Now there are only two of us with horses on the road. That’s if you count my farm, more of an equine retirement community. My farrier says it’s happening all over. I ask other trainers, barn owners, and clinic organizers to take the temperature of the horse industry. Everyone feels a shift. I see it in my clients who are aging out or downsizing for financial reasons. It’s normal, even expected. What I don’t see is the next generation coming up. The dozens of horse-crazy thirty-something women who rode posse with me.

Like my road, change was happening before we recognized it. Not the farms so much as the people living here. New families arrived who saw the land differently and had different goals. Will my farm become part of a suburban wasteland of jumbo-sized homes with white carpets one day? 

I recently spent time with a dear horse friend. She’s a bit younger than me, but no longer has horses. Dogs have become her passion. A lateral change. We went to a dog show and spent most of our time watching dogs compete at fastCAT and dock diving. Jolene says, what? You went without me? I told her it wasn’t her kind of dog trial. Inconceivable, she said. 

After a line of dogs had flown yards through the air over water, a small dog got coaxed to the edge. He flew several inches through the air and dropped like a rock. We cheered him as he coughed out the water he had swallowed and ran up the ramp to jump again. Jolene and I mostly stay dry at scentwork, but it’s the same amusement park kind of fun.

As the afternoon stretched, we saw people laughing and cheering their dogs, laying on the grass with them, and the dogs having so much fun barking and running fast and splashing. It slowly dawned on me these dog-crazy thirty-something women would’ve had horses in my generation. Not lost, they have dogs that don’t require a trailer and shoes every eight weeks, and acreage to live on. They played hard, like my friends and me back in the day. Have they gone to the dogs? Jolene says just because it isn’t the change you want to see, that doesn’t make it wrong. When did she get so mature?

Another set of new neighbors has bought the farm across the road. Again, I have a front-row view. It’s a young couple with a toddler. Seeing a child on this road is like spotting a rare bird. They also have five dogs. I think they bought the farm for them. One night the woman was out throwing the ball, and I came to the edge of my property and waved. She put all five of her dogs on a down-stay and walked across the road to talk. The dogs stayed. Times are changing indeed.

The neighborhood has never been more peaceful, I think. Right about then, Jolene body-slams my chest with a tug toy, but she doesn’t quite knock the wind out of me. Mister lifts a disapproving eye. He needs only one eye for that. He says, the future will be what it is. Much will be lost, but also gained. When did he become a politician?

And I have begrudgingly changed. My old horses still nicker at me, but almost by default, I’ve been caught up in change that doesn’t negate my past, so much as it announces my future. And the ghost pack says high time.

Would I rather be cantering a half-pass before my tempi changes on a horse young enough to still have a spring in his back and half a desire to run away with me? Maybe, but whining about the past pollutes the present. And living on a farm taught me to want what I can have.