Belle the Horse Dog

I rolled out of bed at 6:00am this morning with the wild idea that I might sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee by the fire before going outside to feed Grace. While daydreaming under the covers about moving slowly on a Saturday morning I forgot to take one thing into consideration – Belle theHorse Dog. I am convinced that Belle and Grace have some sort of agreement worked out and it goes something like this; Belle gets me to feed Grace before the neighbor’s horses get fed and Grace won’t kick her in the head. Belle, who had already been out to do her business within the last hour, sprang out of bed as soon as I started to stir.

After starting the coffee I got to work on the fire with Belle attentively watching over me. Anytime I looked in her direction she spun around and ran for the door. Keep in mind that this is 6:00am – on a Saturday. I am in the office at 6:00am during the work week, so sleeping in until 6:00 is a real treat. Grace is fed no later than 5:20am 5 days a week, so in preparation for the possibility that I might sleep in on Saturday I always throw her a little more hay on Friday night. With the coffee still brewing and my dog waiting at the door I gave in, there would be no relaxing until Grace was fed.

I suppose it is really is my own fault that Belle is like this. I made it her job when she was 8 weeks old to feed Grace with me twice a day. Being the herding dog that she is, Belle takes her job very seriously. She had only missed a handful of feedings over the years when she was sick or injured and we wouldn’t let her go outside. Even then she managed to get past my husband when she was recovering from Ivermectin poisoning; with limited eyesight she found her way up to the pasture.

Belle had made it very clear to me that she is a horse dog. She accompanies us on most of our rides and takes on the role of lookout/bear bait when we head down the trail. Years ago I had her enrolled in an agility class which was held in the indoor arena of a local barn. Belle was a stellar student, often getting frustrated with me for not keeping up with her. One night we were in the middle of a course someone brought a horse out into the attached round pen. Belle broke off course ran to the gate and sat waiting for someone to let her in with the horse. She let everyone there know that she had a job to do and didn’t have time for playing around. She had a unique relationship with Grace and has claimed Grace as “her” horse. There is no better illustration of this than the greeting I received from my loyal dog last weekend. After getting home from the horse show I unloaded Grace and tied her to the trailer so I could get Belle. She hadn’t seen me in 24 hours so I was expecting a big celebration when I let her out of the house. I opened the door only to see a flash of blue heeler run past me; headed straight to the trailer. Only after she confirmed that I had indeed brought her horse come did she greet me before hightailing it up to the pasture for feeding time. At least I know my place in the herd.

Coyote Trail Ride

I hauled Grace and Belle out for a much needed trail ride today. The trail head is about 20 minutes from my house and gets us access to over 8,000 acres of heavy forested logging trails. I left early to beat the rush and assure myself a good spot to park the trailer. There was one other trailer and a few cars in the lot when we arrived. I kept Belle in the truck until I had Grace tacked up and ready to go. I go out of my way to be cautious with my dog as I know that not everyone else out there appreciates her like I do. With that in mind I headed out to a less active logging road, further away from the main trail head to reduce the chance of running into people who might be walking their dogs on leashes.



Grace and Belle perked up when we came off the muddy trail head and hit the wide dry logging roads. Belle zigzagged along the side of the trail following the scents of the variety of animals that had been out the night before. About 20 minutes into our ride I saw a coyote cross the trail in front of us and jump into the bushes. Belle took off after it, but came back to me when I called her out of the woods. I had my helmet camera on and was disappointed that I didn’t get any film of it. Little did I know that I would soon grow tired of capturing a coyote on film.


I swear the coyote that I saw go into the woods had dark fur on its back. Within seconds of passing that spot in the woods, a taller lighter color coyote started to follow us. I stopped to look at it, this time turning on the camera. Belle caught sight of it and chased it back to the spot in the woods where it came from. I called her out of the woods and we headed on our way. The coyote started to follow us again and they played the same game of chase. I started to feel uneasy about it; I have heard stories of coyotes luring dogs into the woods where the rest of the pack then ambushes them. I knew I was dealing with at least two. I told Belle we were getting out of there and proceeded to lope up the hill.


Belle stayed with me all the way up the hill, I even got some good video of her running alongside Grace. When we reached the top of the hill to where I thought we must be safe, I heard the sounds of both a dog and coyote yelping. Belle was no longer with me. That damn coyote had chased us all the way up the hill. When I caught up to them Belle’s hair on her back was all raised and she was backing away from the coyote. She seemed really confused about the fact that it wasn’t scared of her. I put Grace between them and convinced Belle to move up the trail. I then set Grace after the coyote, screaming like a mad woman the entire time. The coyote dove into the bushes and I headed back to Belle. She didn’t seem to be physically harmed, but she was out of breath and still seemed to be confused. I’m not sure that she had fully accepted that she had gone from being a predator to prey.


Grace swung her head around to look behind her and sure enough, that coyote was there again. Now I was afraid to run from it. I knew it could keep up and the last thing I wanted to do was to tire out my dog. I started to regret my decision to go out of my way to avoid people. I was far from the trailer and all my screaming at the coyote hadn’t attracted any attention. I kept telling Belle to stay in front so I could at least keep Grace between the coyote and his potential meal. I let Grace chase him again when he got to close, but he only went into the woods to run parallel beside us. This went on for miles. Belle in front, Grace and I right behind her and the coyote several yards behind.


Belle stopped to wallow in a cold mud puddle. I parked Grace right beside her for protection. As we walked on I saw the coyote stop and urinate in the puddle that Belle had just been in. It got me to thinking that he communicated through smell and maybe he didn’t know yet that I was a human, I have heard and seen on our own trails how coyotes don’t seem to be as skittish around someone on a horse as they are around a person walking on foot. I’ve been told that it happens when a person is no longer a “two legged” being. The same phenomenon happens when they follow the farmer’s tractors. I spit on the ground as we were walking, at the same time I could hear fireworks and the sound of a road off in the distance. The coyote stopped, almost like he had hit an invisible line that he could not cross. I wasn’t sure if it was the scent I left behind, or if we had really hit the end of his vast territory, but I was relieved to not have it stalking us anymore.


The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. Belle perked up along the way and started to wander down side trails again looking for trouble. I checked her all over back at the parking lot and couldn’t find a scratch on her. Grace was calm as could be during the entire incident, she was more than happy to give chase every time I asked her to.


The video didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped; the coyote is a small speck on the screen. I apologize in advance for my foul language after our run up the hill, I was convinced that I was going to lose my dog and was pretty fired up at the time. I think from now on we will stay on the more populated trails. If you see someone out there spitting from the saddle every 5 strides, it’s just me keeping the coyotes away.

Go Pro Helmet Cam!

My husband bought me a Helmet Cam! I was so excited about trying it out after work today that I completely forgot to change out of the pair of Ariats that I wear to the office. It wasn't until I put my feet into my stirrups that I noticed I had the wrong pair of boots on. I'll have to make sure to clean the mud off them before heading to work tomorrow. I took a bunch of videos of Grace today. There were a few of the Connected Ground work, and under saddle at the walk, jog and lope. It wasn't until I went to load the videos on the computer did I find out that all but one of the videos I took were taken as pictures, and not very good ones at that. I did get one good video out of the experiment. I let Belle into the arena at the end of our ride. So here you are, Grace, Belle and I playing the game we love the most; chase the cattle dog!

Happy Girls!

This morning I hauled Grace and my blue heeler "Belle" out for a trail ride. There is 8,000 acres of private forest land about 20 minutes from our house. Even in the middle of our muddy winter, the wide logging roads are very rideable. Every time I get out there, I always say I need to get out there more often.

One winter a friend and I were out there almost every weekend. We would meet early for breakfast and then head out to the parking lot at the trail head. I will always remember one morning looking out the window of the restaurant at the horse trailers in the parking lot. There was rain mixed with snow coming down. I think we were both hoping the other would back out on the trail ride, but neither of us were willing to be the chicken. We ended up having the place all to ourselves, from what I remember once we got out there, it wasn't that bad.

This morning it was raining, but it was a light rain. I put on my best rain gear, loaded up the horse and dog and headed out.

We were early enough to get a good parking spot at the trail head. Getting a good parking spot is easier when its raining.

Belle is saying "Hurry up! Let's go!

Belle and Grace have somewhat of a love/hate relationship. Grace will act like she can't stand the dog, but when Belle gets distracted and falls behind on the ride, Grace will stop and look back for her. I think Grace prefers to have Belle in front, that way if we run into any predators, they will eat Belle first! Grace very rarely spooks at anything. Every once in a while we will come across something that she just can't figure out, so she will stop to look at it before going past. If I want her to keep going all I have to do is send the dog out in front. Grace will then walk past the horse eating bolder, bush or turned over leaf, like "I never had a problem with it, jeez!" She will not be one upped by a mere dog.

Belle never got the memo that she is not a water dog. She loves to wallow in mud puddles like a little pig. Today there were tons of puddles out there for her to play in.

Grace wanted you to see that she had no problem crossing mud puddles either.

Here she is crossing a creek. No hesitation, she jogged up to it the second time we crossed. I had to tell her to slow down.

There's my happy dog in the water again!

Today was Belle's first big trail ride since she went blind a few weeks ago.

She can see today, her vision is 100%. I had paste wormed Grace with Ivermectin and Belle got into it the next morning. I'm still not sure if she got it from eating fresh poop, or if there was a small about of Ivermectin on the ground that I did not see. That afternoon she was blind and was having trouble walking. I rushed her off to the vet. I was told she would regain her vision in a few weeks. It only took 3 days. Even when she couldn't see, she was a happy dog.

"Who's Blog is this??"

Oh, sorry Grace! Back to you!

Grace loves going out on the trails. It's a nice break from all the arena work we do. She has no idea that I actually get some training done while we are out there. I use the wide roads for side passing and moving her shoulders and hips. I use the trails for building her wind up so she can run barrels. Today we took it easy, Grace is pretty fit for February, but Belle is still a little portly.

We did lope a little and as we were coming around a corner we found this:

I fully expect to see areas of cleaning in a private forest land. Grace seemed really surprised. She kept stopping and looking at the piles of brush and trees. She may have been a little disorientated, I know I was. I had to keep checking that we were on the correct trail. The surroundings had completely changed since I was on that same trail last summer.

We found our way out of the cleared land and headed back towards the trailer.

Just in time for the rain to stop and the sun to come out!