If you didn’t know monkey cowboys were a thing, congratulations, now you do, and your life is a little better for it.

It’s actually an old tradition to train monkeys to ride dogs, going all the way back to the 1930s. They used to be jockeys riding racing greyhounds, and some of the vintage photos are cool enough to rival the toughest human cowboys of the Old West.

Eventually, monkeys rode out on their own and left their racing days behind. They switched from greyhounds to sheepdogs, and now spend their days riding the open range, herding goats, and making crowds go bananas.