29. VIDEO: Training clinic, part 2

After Alex practices with me being the horse and being the handler — she’s an excellent teacher, patient and kind, eloquent verbally as well as physically, and adept at pacing her comments and demos so the student can best digest them — she snaps the lead-line onto Gus's halter.  (She’s worked with donkeys before, and lately she’s adopted several goats whom she’s training to lead as well.)  For me, stepping back and observing her and him from a third-person perspective is really useful.  I get to see his frequent little hesitations and distractions as he walks.  And I’m glad to find that Alex’s answer is what I’ve been doing:  accepting, waiting until he’s ready again, and walking on.  But I notice an extra technique that I need to adopt:  she gestures with her hand like a maitre d’ to invite and guide his movement forward.  It works like a charm to help him step off promptly and without rubbernecking at every stray leaf or pigeon.  

She does a little "dancer's arms" with Gus and encounters the same issue I've had: a hand at his girth or shoulder sends him backward rather than forward.  I've been touching his hip instead, as that seems to send him forward more reliably, but Alex often advocates waiting and letting the animal figure it out.  With Gus, when he steps backward, she moves with him and doesn't change her cues, because he's clearly not upset by that but he needs time to figure out what she's asking for.  Eventually he offers a step forward, and he immediately gets a click.  The success lets him learn how to respond to that cue, without my having to dream up a different cue.  Smart lady, smart donkey.

Alex also notices my sloppy and unbalanced footwork, so when she hands me the lead rope, she suggests I make an effort to roll each foot, walking more deliberately heel-to-toe. Because Gus responds so well to matching paces, I know her point is important for us:  it could improve the focus and rhythm in his hooves if I could demonstrate more care and clarity in my feet.  I resolve to practice this whenever I’m moving with him.

Alex walks Gus around and between several mats, asking him to stay by her side rather than tacking over to one of them.  He knows that standing on mats will guarantee clicks and treats, so they’re hot items for him.  When he walks nicely around them, she leads him onto a mat as a reward.  

With some of today’s horse pupils, she introduces a mat-to-mat exercise that I also want to try with Gus.  One of its goals is to help the horse practice making turns in good balance.  She clicks the horse for staying on the mat, but she reaches under and past its chin to deliver the treat, so it turns its head away from her just a bit to take the food.  At the same time, she steps closer to its neck, filling the space left by its turning head.  A couple more of these small head-away moves serve to prime the horse’s posture for taking a step and turning its body — and the human comes along, leading it off the mat and toward another mat that’s over to the side.  This way, the horse decides when and how to adjust its balance front to back, as well as side to side, in order make the turn in comfortable self-carriage.  It’d be nice if Gus could teach this to me, but at least I can try teaching it to him.