Nube: When He Came Home

I was forty-nine years old with gray hair, calloused banged-up fingers, and chronic lameness in my left foot. He was two months old, brave, sensitive, and wildly athletic. He cantered at liberty throwing flying changes for the fun of it. I loved dressage, especially riding changes that skipped with energy and lightness. We were the perfect match.

It would be months before he was old enough to come home, so we had time to get to know each other. I took an afternoon every week to drive up to visit and he began to recognize me. The breeder did a slow, sweet weaning process, with short separations at first, then for the last few weeks, the colt had been out of sight of the mare and playing with others. No pleading calls, no pacing the fence line. During visits, I picked up the colt’s hooves to clean and he tugged my shoelaces loose. We played leading games, but mostly I stood by his shoulder and dreamed. His name was Donatello, but I knew that wouldn’t stick.

I’d been on my farm for three years by then. I moved there with two mature, advanced riding horses, two cattle dogs, and a couple of cats. Right away I got lonely, so I made the rational decision to get a couple of pregnant llamas, two pairs of goat twins, and a donkey who told me his name was Ernest. It isn’t like they all arrived on the same day. Besides, I didn’t move to the farm to read more.

I’d been pretending to be Jane Goodall. I wouldn’t admit it to her face or anything, but it’s how women like me play Superhero. No cape or tights, but we can be stealthy and have a special kind of vision that picks up nuance, remembers details, and translates behaviors into words. I believed I had discovered a new language in the remote wilderness just east of Colorado Springs. Maybe I spent too much time alone, but it seemed all the animals spoke it but me. Okay, to tell the truth, it was similar to the dog’s language but the horses were speaking it differently. By speaking, I mean using body language. By discovered, I mean it was always there but it was so quiet for so long that eventually, I heard it plain as day. By heard it, I mean I saw it.  So, I gave up talking to make the learning more intensive, like a kind of silent Berlitz course. It worked.

My horses, who I’d started as youngsters and thought I knew every ounce of, started telling (showing) me things. It was as if they’d been waiting for me, keeping faith that I might come around. For my part, they didn’t have problems and I wasn’t looking for solutions. Learning to ride up the dressage levels meant that I was quiet and had subtle cues. I’d changed for them and been glad to do it, but now that achievement demanded even more, the cues went even more nuanced and somehow they were getting even steadier and more confident. Not that there was anyone around to see us.

It was 2003. I wouldn’t start writing this training blog for seven more years. The language hadn’t been named yet (by someone else). I wouldn’t write about it for ten years. And I was bringing a new horse home!

Finally, the day came. I had everything ready, a small pen next to the big one, with fresh water and hay. I hooked up the trailer and loaded Dodger, who loved road trips, to come along as company for the colt on the way home. We got to the breeder’s farm in good time, it was a bright May morning, and I haltered the colt and led him to a stock trailer. Mine is a four-horse, that I use like two stalls so horses could move about. Dodger stood quietly in the front as I coaxed the colt. He looked back and then looked at Dodger. I clucked and after a few moments, he climbed in probably wanting to be with Dodger more than understanding what I asked. It was a smooth, even peaceful trip home, and soon we were pulling into our farm. The ride couldn’t have gone better.

The colt unloaded uneventfully and walked with me to his pen. His new barn family all came to meet him. No one nipped or spit, there was lots of sniffing and eye-blinking and the colt was curious. It was all a success. In an hour, some friends came to meet him. He’d eaten by then and he charmed everyone. In the afternoon, I put Ernest in with him and another visitor came. By then he’d pooped and drank. As we stood close praising him, he laid down right between us. It had been a very big day for this little horse, but we’d had no injuries or frantic drama.

I knew it was all going to be perfect. I threw hay for dinner and he pinned his ears at me.

When I went into the house, I called the breeder to let her know we were home safe and all the important “firsts” had been completed. She thanked me. I said she hadn’t told me he was food aggressive. She said he never had been. I believed her and didn’t think much of it at the time. I’ve replayed this conversation in my head hundreds of times since. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

I named my Iberian Sport Horse Nube, which rhymes with eBay, and is the Spanish word for cloud. Our first task was to tidy up the dinner conversation. No whip, no threats, I was kind and subtle, I asked him to stand while I brought the hay in. I praised him for learning so quickly, and he seemed to want to do the right thing. He was light and sensitive. A half-sibling of his was on the Olympic development team and this young horse was in my barn. It was a miracle under the prairie moon. I exhaled, he exhaled, and all was well in the world.

We train what we think we train and then the horse learns what makes sense to him. That was when I taught Nube to hide his pain from me. Worst of all, I thought I was paying attention.

Nube didn’t have Olympic aspirations. He had been kidnapped, stolen from his family, put in a noisy steel box, and taken to another world. The ground smelled different, the hay tasted different, and the horses were different. It was the worst day ever and he was scared. He was little and alone. The geldings licked and chewed for him. Their lips vibrated as they blew out long breaths to remind him to soothe himself. The llamas cushed in a line along the fence, chewing cud they barfed up to sociably chew again, moving their jaws in rhythm. The donkey stood close to the colt’s side like an oracle of wisdom. Living with humans is always a challenge, the donkey exhaled with half-closed eyes and a cocked hip. No, the human didn’t hear him and then told him to not say it again. The donkey rubbed his muzzle on his knee to let the colt know it would be okay.

It might have been the Grandfather Horse who said, with quivering whiskers and soft lateral ears, to give it time. He believed that some humans had souls and might even be capable of communicating.

And because the colt had no choice, he swallowed his feelings, and like bitter rocks, they splashed in his raw stomach.

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Research finds that 98% of foals develop ulcers within two weeks of weaning.       Read How We Met

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Anna Blake, Relaxed & Forward

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