141. Disobedience training

Just as Gus gets rejuvenated by antibiotics (had he been harboring some other, subclinical bug for awhile, and the doxy has cured that too?), winter weather puts a nip in the air that perks up all the equids.  After a summer and fall of exemplary cooperation in the training arena, Gus 2.0 is sass on a stick:  refusing to budge, spinning away, barging, and generally blowing a big raspberry at humans one and all.

He happily enters the arena with me but immediately acts up.  I’m hurrying to unbuckle and remove his winter blanket, but he won’t stand for it — he tries to pull away and go roll.  Once he's naked and he does roll, he wants to run, run, run.  And I accommodate him, trotting alongside over ground poles and between mats and around in big circles.  When I get winded, I shove the enormous beachball for him to chase and bop with his nose.  He doesn’t just trot after it; he gallops and kicks out behind and grunts with gleeful ferocity.  He can barely contain himself.  So of course the arena can’t contain him either.  Suddenly he veers away from the beachball chase and makes for the arena gate, diving under it and scooting out of the barn at warp speed.

I follow along and find him trotting silly circles around his favorite grazing field.  The grass (its sugar content rises, I’m told, when it’s stressed by cold nights and sunny days) seems irresistible to all the horses these days.  But Gus is so jazzed that he doesn’t settle right down to grazing.  As I enter the field, just ambling and with no intention of trying to catch him, he bounces away on his short little legs, farts in my general direction, and kicks up his heels.  I join the game, clapping my hands and swirling the lead rope, which sends him cantering off like a goat on a pogo stick.  After a few circuits of the field, he does get down to grazing, and I let him.  No point in fighting that kind of energy.

Two days later, I attempt again to lead Gus in his favorite games, trotting from mat to mat, stomping the pedal of the bass drum, honking the horn, pushing the baby carriage . . .  Except for drumming, he has no patience for any of it.  He trots to one mat, tries to yaw away, consents to be led toward the next mat, and then stops dead and won't budge.  Next he pushes the baby buggy for a few feet, then bops it violently and upends it.  I barely foil an escape attempt, and I get him to cha-cha backward away from the arena gate.  He loves the cha-cha, but after several repetitions when I suggest we move to a mat, he actually rears a bit, two inches in front of me!  Then he cranks his neck and hauls me away.  

Whatever I offer him, he gives it the bum’s rush and pulls toward the exit.  I drape the gate with a tarp so his escape route under it looks blocked, but that only ratchets up his destructiveness:  he rams his chest against the gate like a linebacker, detaching its far end from the wall and knocking over nearby chairs . . .  Might as well try to keep Godzilla behind velvet theater ropes.

It’s at this juncture that, I confess, I punch him hard in the neck and call him a Very Bad Name.  He notices just enough to fling his chin high in defiance; there’s no penetrating that thick ego of his.  I collect my cool, entice him into one more set of cha-cha, and promptly effect our exit, this time with human consent and proper escort.  

As he gobbles the turf like a starveling, I use the time to recall the mayhem and despair of many a puppy kindergarten.  In these “training” classes, hapless dog owners are each orbited by an out-of-control puppy spinning on the end of the leash like a pinwheel.  The humans try to impose some modicum of order on each furry blur by means of voices and hands and treats, until they’re red-faced and casting around for a stout length of two-by-four.  Every time I’ve joined a puppy class, I’ve been convinced my dog is learning nothing and the training is useless.  But by the final session, I notice that the chaos has ebbed to a dull roar; and by the time I enroll us in adult-dog class, I realize that my youngster absorbed a lot of the puppy lessons and is fully able to learn more.

I also reminisce on the first few times I worked with Gus.  He refused to cooperate, he ran away, he broke things — and I came back the next day and simply tried the same training again.  And again.  And again.  Consistent repetition, frequent reinforcement for the right behaviors, steady expectations, unflagging persistence . . . they do eventually succeed.  

At least that’s my mantra for riding out this latest surge of asininity.  The new and improved Gus may bash me with his tidal waves, but I am a rock.  Eventually his seas will calm again.  Either that, or Sandy and I will shoot him dead and bury him in a shallow grave.