Midget wrestling

It’s funny, in writing this I realized this story is less about a bull fight and more about my own struggle being the underdog or at least feeding my mini - ego.

You can imagine my surprise as I heard my husband talking to the neighbor. “Oh, ok, you caught up our cows? Our bull was fighting your bull? Oh, they are in your round pen? Ok, we’ll come get them in the morning. Thanks for catching them!”

Imagine this size difference, but between two bulls!

What? What is going on? We’re not leaving our little cows over there without water over night. That’s a bad idea, Captain Jack Sparrow won’t stand a chance fighting a full size Angus bull and what about our mini heifers! I don’t care if it’s almost dark. The trailer is hooked up, we’ll go get them.

And, my husband, dragging his feet, went with me.

We pulled into the neighbor’s stockyards and the cowboy met us at the parking lot. He let us know, we could back down the alley and he could rearrange panels (about half a dozen) to make a shoot and run our minis into the back of the trailer. I hopped out, no, no need, I’ll just catch them. By this point, I was anxious to see my minis and be sure they were ok.

The cowboy stuttered a bit, “um, I-I don’t think you want to do that. I don’t think it-it will work.” By then, I was three strides ahead of them, walking over to my itty bitty cows in this big, loud, scary place. That’s when I realized what was going on. Captain Jack Sparrow was still fighting the other bull through the fence, rearranging the round pen as he was going. He was literally, spitting mad. Froth at his mouth, blood dripping from his nose. Pawing the ground, charging the other bull, clanking and slamming through the panels. Oh, that’s not good. On one hand, I was happy we weren’t going to let this go on all night. On the other hand, my nice cuddly bull was a raging maniac and I wasn’t confident how we were going to tear him away from his arch nemesis.

I caught the heifers first, they were happy to see me and were a cinch to catch. I walked each over to my husband and had him hold them. He was chatting amicably with the cowboy. “How did they get over” … “not sure. I think your bull tore the fence down. Your little mini bull is quite the brute, honestly.” …. “No, the Angus definitely didn’t breed the heifers, your bull made sure of that.”

Fortunately, the Angus bull was a scrawny, yearling “clean up” bull that had been turned out with the full size cows to breed any remaining cows that hadn’t taken. Never mind that he was only a yearling, that Angus bull was definitely up for the challenge and was using his height to push down on Captain Jack. Through the fence, it was still a pretty good dual. Now, remember, any bulls, even mini bulls are full of raging testosterone when their cows are in season and I would never recommend doing what I did. I’m not even sure I would do it again. But I had my ego to maintain in front of the “real” cowboy, so with that, I grabbed the last halter, opened it up and walked right over to Captain Jack Sparrow.

I could hear from the far side of the fence behind me, “oh, no, don’t do that! That’s not going end well.” … “you can’t tell her what to do” I pictured them turning away or at least cringing a bit, knowing I was about to get pummeled as tried to separate two fighting bulls. I stopped listening to the cowboy and started talking to my little Captain Jack Sparrow “buddy, what are you doing? It’s time to go home. I got you. I got your ladies.” I slid the halter right over his head like I had a million times before. I reached over and squeezed the halter between his bloody nose and the round pen panels, because, trust me, he wasn’t letting up against his arch nemesis. I swear it was at that point, he let out a big sigh, an audible sigh of relief. I tightened the halter and asked him to walk with me. I swear to you, he was thankful that he could finally quit fighting. He immediately turned away and walked proudly, quietly by my side as if saying “ha, ha, I’m going home with my ladies.” He swaggered away swishing his tail in disdain for the lanky Angus, his arch nemesis.

My husband and the cowboy quickly scurried away to open the round pen panels to let us out. Complete silence ensued. I, for one, was hoping that Captain Jack didn’t turn his frustration out toward me and that his calm demeanor would hold until we were loaded in the trailer. The cowboy, probably concerned about the same thing, jumped back to the top rail of the panels and yielded our path to the trailer. My husband stood in shock about what was transpiring right in front of his eyes. Captain Jack and I stomped past them like we owned the place and marched right up into the trailer. And then I let an audible sigh of relief. The heifers loaded easily, too. We closed the doors and the cowboy found his words. “Well, I’ll be damned, never, ever would have I expected that.”

Me either, never, ever would I have expected that. But, sometimes the ego is mightier than the brawn…