Bo won’t go!

I have a second home in the small, rural community of Skull Valley, just west of Prescott, where the pace is slow and life is simple. Big news in Skull Valley is centered on a little girl and her stubborn horse.

The eight‑year‑old girl, Heather, lives up the road and has an old, retired ranch horse named Bo which has become a topic of interest for most of us in the neighborhood. You see, sometime last winter Bo decided he no longer wants to be ridden.

That’s right, Dear Readers, the puzzler in Skull Valley has become: Why won’t Bo go?

Ask ten horse owners for their opinion about a horse problem and you’ll probably get ten different viewpoints. Well, it’s no different in Skull Valley. A few of the local ranchers say that Bo has just gotten lazy and needs a good cowboy to kick‑start him. One lady who owns six horses thinks that Bo’s saddle is ill‑fitting and he needs new gear. Another neighbor claims Bo is depressed because he misses all of his horse buddies from the ranch. Heather thinks Bo has decided he’s done all the work he’s ever going to do and has just quit. To my way of thinking, Bo seems too skinny and needs to be fattened up. 

It was always grand fun to watch Heather trotting Bo up and down the quiet country road, with her cowboy hat hanging on the back of her neck, little red boots and small quirt kicking and nudging him along. What a snapshot–a tiny, gutsy girl on a great‑big horse, whippin’ and spurrin’, laughing all the way. Now it is not uncommon to see Heather walking up the road, tugging Bo behind, for he has become an unwilling participant. I have ridden my horse, Baxter, leading Bo while Heather is in the saddle, and it works pretty well. But when I let go, Bo immediately stops and no amount of little red‑boot kickin’ in the world will get him moving forward.       

A neighbor, who is a pilot, thinks it might be a good idea to give Bo a send‑off like a glider plane: Lead him along behind Baxter on a downhill trail, then break into a canter. When he’s loping along like crazy, have Heather lean over, unsnap the lead rope and use the quirt to keep up the gallop. His theory is that once Bo is loping at 30 miles per hour down a hill, he will be “airborne” and he’ll have to keep galloping due to momentum. But doesn’t this sound a tad dangerous? When I asked our pilot neighbor if he’d like to ride Bo during this send‑off, he thoughtfully declined.                

Okay, there are more important matters than why one old horse won’t move along. There’s a war raging, immigration concerns, global warming, corrupt government, drought, sky‑high gasoline prices and worse. But maybe it’s the little things that cause us to carefully consider our state of affairs. We can’t seem to solve the huge problems looming over us, so we focus on the small stuff for which we might be able to come up with an answer. Why worry about Iraq or the threat of bird flu that could kill 200 million people? Better to ponder issues that might be more within our control.       

Oh, but I digress. Getting back to Bo, I suppose he’s not the only living creature that has stopped doing what he used to do. A woman in Cave Creek e‑mailed me to say that her dog, named Spunky, one day refused to go for walks. This nine‑year‑old dog, who used to love long walks in the morning and evening, will now only walk the necessary ten paces to relieve himself and then lie down. She has taken Spunky to her veterinarian and an animal behavior specialist, and they found no reason for his sudden sit‑down strike. One day, he simply quit. Spunky lost his spunk.          

My Aunt Mildred was married for 51 years to Uncle Henry, when one morning she woke up and loudly exclaimed, “I’m done with cooking.” No idle threat, no discussion, just a simple life‑altering declaration. Aunt Mildred proceeded to give all of her baking pans and utensils to her daughters, cleared out the pantry and, rumor has it, never touched her stove again. Sadly, her abrupt cessation of cooking probably killed Uncle Henry, for he died six months later.          

What keeps us going? Or why do we decide to quit? Once we’ve lost our spunk, how do we get it back? And do send‑offs really work?

These questions, and more, Dear Readers, will have to wait until next time. As for whether Bo goes, I’ll keep you posted.