26. VIDEO: Doublicious

After a two-day hiatus, I park in a dry area a good distance from the barn and whistle for Gus before we can see each other. Instantly he honks his bagpipes, and I find him still braying and trotting hard to the pasture gate as I arrive.  Usually a full-throated hee-haw  (which, unlike a horse's neigh, is vocalized during the inhale as well as the exhale) is a stationary activity.  It never occurred to me that donkeys could bray while trotting, but now I can testify that they can and do.

Little Caesar's eagerness to get released from the paddock for some fun doesn’t last long.  Mostly he wants to wander and sniff around idly.  I want our sessions to provide him an opportunity to do what he likes, so I’ve been allowing his independent explorations, recesses for rolling, and general lollygagging.  But lately I think he’s been taking advantage of my indulgence.  So now I clip on his lead line and get him trotting, walking, halting, and backing.  Once he does a little of this, he seems reattuned and engaged.  

Along with some of our usual tricks, we play double tilt-a-chair, with two plastic chairs in a heap.  A few times when his efforts are thwarted by the entangled arms and legs, he turns his head to me for help, but I offer only encouraging words, and he quickly returns to “working the pile” on his own.  If the muddle is particularly intractable, I click and treat for a good maneuver or a near miss, to keep up his incentive; in a pinch, I reach in and detangle just a bit.  As soon as he rights one chair, I move it behind me so he can focus on the other one.

This higher-order problem-solving seems to tax his cerebrum pretty thoroughly.  He’s tired enough to be congenial in his stall and almost entirely acquiescent on the walk back to his paddock.  We practice I-step-you-step [above], and he seems to be catching on that it’s a simple, slow little game of companionship with no agenda.  He likes that.  I think . . .