3. Adorably abominable

Session 2. Two days later, I return.  This time, as I walk across the big pasture to fetch Gus, I whistle a little five-note phrase that I use to bring my dogs back when they’re off-leash in the woods.  He pointedly ignores me.  When I reach him, though, he doesn’t pull away from the halter at all.  We have another good session in the indoor arena, though he does plant his feet in sudden, temporary refusal a couple times and pulls the rope out of my hand once.  I even try lunging him — sending him in a circle around me on a long lead line — but I’ve never been good at lunging, and now I’m rusty.  He moves around me if I beat the whip onto the ground behind his heels, but then he slows and turns in toward me.  I can’t get him to return out to the end of the line even if I press on his ribs with the flexible tip of the whip.  We barely get a few circles of walk or trot in each direction, and I give up.  He figures I’m some fly-by-night know-nothing as it is; I don’t need to prove that he’s right.

Session 3.  A couple days later, I’m back.  As I enter Gus’s pasture, I whistle my little tune and he looks up.  I only take a step or two, when he begins walking toward me.  (!)  And he keeps walking the whole distance to reach me.  (!!!)  In the arena he presents his signature mix of adorable and abominable, obedient and obstreperous.  As Sandy says, “Gus is Gus.”

Isadora meets Bugatti

Session 4.  In the paddock, Gus lets me approach though he doesn’t meet me halfway.  As I just begin to get his halter on, he jumps sideways, which slips the halter down around his neck, and he takes off, giving a little kick behind.  It’s naughty, and it’s cute, but it’s also risky to be trailing that big lead rope off his neck. I’m calling “whoa” and trying to recatch him, but now he’s cantering toward his horse buddies and tossing his head mischievously to get them to join him.  As they all pick up and prance around together, I wring my brain in fear, thinking of Isadora Duncan, her trailing scarf, and the wheel of her convertible.  Pleeeeze don’t anybody step on that lead rope!  All I can do is wait for those four or five powerbodies, with their 16 or 20 hooves, to slow down. Luckily, the afternoon is hot and the horses lose interest.  I round up Gus and get the halter off his neck and onto his head where it belongs.  He’s perfectly happy and has a fine time doing his tricks in the arena.