27. Stepping out

On first reading about matching paces, in the Wilsie “horse-speak” book, I admit I gave a snort — and not as a sentry, but as a skeptic.  Why would any animal care whether your left foot lands as his left foot lands and your right moves in synchrony with his right?  Gus is moderately willing to play I-step-you-step when we’re facing each other, and I figure we could develop that into a fun dancing-partners routine.  But marching along in unison? Pleeeze . . .

For the dressage exercise where I adopt “dancer’s arms” to frame his movement, with one hand on his halter and the other at his girth or hip, I do pay attention to our footfalls as Wilsie recommends.  To help us regulate our paces, I try to match mine to his — after all, the idea is to move very precisely, and we only go three or four steps in a row before I click and treat.  As I get better at mirroring his small and relatively quick steps, I’m noticing that he’s getting better at the exercise too: more rhythmic, less rushed and impatient.

After a two-day hiatus for dangerously high winds (if blustery is the new normal in our world of climate change, then we’re going to need a lot fewer metal barns and a lot more wooden ones), I show up with a headful of plans for basketball and other tricks.  But man plans; Gus laughs.  

First, before we reach the arena, he yaws violently and pulls the damn lead-line out of my hand.  He hasn’t resisted me so adamantly in several weeks, and it irks me.  But spring is in the air and he needs a little frisk; I get that.  He tries grazing the dead, dun-colored grass and the tiny hints of green sprouting below it.  It’s not yummy yet, so he visits the big pasture, drawing its gelding horses over to greet him through the fence boards.  He lets the young one nibble on his halter straps.  Sometimes Gus plays this game for minutes on end — usually until the big cheese of the group herds the young guy away — but today his rope-yankingly inexorable social imperative quickly fades, and he turns away from the prying lips of his playmate.  I gather him up and we proceed into the arena.

We dabble at basketball and other games, but Gus’s heart isn’t in them.  He stops to scratch his flank.  He wanders, nose to the ground.  He finds a brown leaf that has blown in; is it edible?  And lately there are a few downy pigeon feathers, and occasionally a fallen eggshell, which he minutely inspects one by one. To regain his attention, I get him walking alongside me, and, just to keep my own interest up, I decide to match my paces with his.  Almost immediately, he seems rapt.  He stumps along purposefully, ears busy, and when I consider switching to another activity, he’s clearly eager to resume walking.  So we do.  We make turns and loops, we walk over ground-poles, we halt, we walk on again.  He’s in the zone, perhaps even more so than with long-lining.  So much for tricks and games; today becomes all about marching along in unison — exactly what I’d scoffed at so recently.