Some people are tuned into animals, observing them closely, and some are not. This story below is hilarious because the perpetrator is a true South Texas cowboy-- not a dimestore cowboy, but a real roper and horseman who's grown up on horses. He's known as Outlaw Les.
Recently Les moved to the creek house at my ranch and told me he was going to get his roping horse, Llegua, in a week or two soon as nis nephew could rope her and bring her in. "She's a little hard to catch," he mentioned. Saturday I saw him trailering out, waving merrily on his way to pick up his good horse. What happened is as follows, in the cowboy's own words....
"As I had told you before, Casey, my nephew, was having a problem catching my horse in this huge pasture down around Carrizo Springs. Anyway, he finally called and said that he had managed to catch her and she was up at his house in a pen. I got there early Saturday morning and my lazy nephew was still sleeping and wouldn't come to the door. So I looked in the pen behind his house and there was my bay along with two sorrels. I thought, "Man, she is really good for being out in the pasture for so long". I guess I should have gotten a hint when I saw she was shod. Because I know my cheap nephew won't pay for that. But he does surprise me sometimes so I thought he'd done that for me. Anyway, there stood my good looking blood-bay mare with one white back stocking and all. I thought "She has sure filled out since I've seen her last. Boy, she's looking good." I was glad to see her. When I caught her and loaded her up she seemed a little more gentle than I remembered, that was nice. I headed back to Austin and rode her when I got here. Boy it was great to be back on my horse.
First thing the next morning I get a call from my aunt, alarm in her voice. "Les, Casey says you have the wrong horse!", she cries over the phone. I told her horse puckey, I've been riding that horse for 4 years, and this horse reins like a race car, just like my horse It looks just like my horse, it doesn't like me just like my horse, it has one white stocking just like my horse, it's just a little filled out a bit more than my horse -- this is my horse! Casey thought it was my horse enough to chase it around for two weeks - it's gotta be my horse.
My aunt said they had even called the Highway Patrol trying to get me stopped before I made it too far out of the county so we could change horses. Turns out that the horse I now have is a $10,000 ropin' horse, as Casey's lying ass claims.
I told 'em, well, you'll just have to come get this identical twin horse, 'cause I'm not about to haul it all the way back down there. If he wants it bad enough he can bring me the right horse. In the mean time I'm just ridin this $10,000 horse......"
The only other mistaken pet identity story that rivals this is the one about my aunt, Liz Carpenter. For years she was a professional political journalist in Washington, D.C., and Lady's Bird's press secretary in the White House, so she was about as tuned into animals as a turnip.
One day she had to take the kid's dachsund, Mitzi , to the vet for spaying. She didn't get by for a week cause she was so busy, so when she did pick her up, they brought her out and she thought, "Hmp, Mitzi's gotten fat!" She plops in the car and drivs her home. Mitzi happily jumped out and ran up the sidewalk to their house and my cousins ran out to hug her. They took one look at the dog, stopped in their tracks and wailed "Mom, that's not MITTTTZZZI!" Liz had to take the dog back to the vet's and exchange her. She says she was not embarassed one damn bit. "I was busy with people making history and besides that, one damn weini dog looks like another!"
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