The Haxtun-Fleming Herald - What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope

I often say cows and horses are some of the best people I know. They’re smart and nearly always make sense. As a result, I like spending time around them some than most folks I bump into.

It’s sort of a chicken and egg situation with me. I’m not sure if I spend so much time with animals because I like them or if I like bovines and equines because I’ve spent so much of my life around them. Truth of the matter is I get a little confused thinking about it.

Basic to my affinity for cattle and horses is that I was raised like they were. That’s right, I’m saying I was raised like an animal. Don’t rush off to turn my parents in to social services, though, because this is a good thing. My animal training began at a very early age.

Anyone who has ever raised a foal is familiar with the term imprinting. For the uninformed, imprinting goes something like this. In the early stages of a foal’s life, he is very impressionable. During these early “formative” hours the human in attendance approaches the youngster, with the mare’s approval, more or less. Human being proceeds to restrain the foal from moving around as he wants. If the leggy youngster falls to the ground during the process, human falls on top. It’s sort of a “big dog” routine. From an early age the foal learns these two-legged animals has unequaled power. The idea is for this baby who will grow to about 10 times the weight and 20 times the speed and power of the spindly human to never know they really have the upper hand. That one session forms his outlook on the world. It will stick, too, unless he later meets a really dumb version of a human who disproves the theory.

I too, was imprinted at an early age. At about the same relative age, I got knocked down, sort of. Because we inferior humans tend to learn slower than our animal neighbors, I had to be imprinted fairly often. It usually was my parents who did the imprinting. My father imprinted me most often but Mom could make a pretty fair imprint herself. My sister even got into the act occasionally, once leaving an imprint of a glass milk bottle on my head when she caught me bending over the fence surrounding our mother’s strawberry patch doing a little unauthorized early harvesting.

Even though I needed imprinted more often than my Sorrel soul mates, it was no less effective. Most of those early lessons stuck with me. I guess I’ve just been lucky to grow up surrounded by so many who cared about my continued growth and well-being. A boy in the eighth grade felt the need to imprint me about twice a week after school. A high school principal not fond of my hallway hijinks between classes walked up behind me with a surprise imprint thump to the top of my head that nearly drove me to my knees. Most importantly, it made an impression, not only on my skull, but my behavior.

My closeness to the horse world has continued to this day with a few modifications. Sorrely, all 1,300 pounds of him, has his imprinting days years behind him. I’m much luckier. I was fortunate to have married Sue who reminds me almost daily she can imprint me on a moment’s notice.

There might be more people out there I’d like if they had been raised like animals, too.