A cold spell descends, so I take Gus into the indoor arena. He hasn’t been there for three weeks or so, and he’s enthralled by the new data: leaves that have blown in, various horses’ spoor (both prints and scat), new bits of pigeon down, etc., etc., etc. But we manage to focus on some walking in hand, and Gus is delighted to return to tricks such as pirouetting around the pedestal and tilt-a-chair. We end with some standing on mats, which seems to interest him a lot, and as we exit I tell him what a stupendous donkey he is.
He instantly proves me wrong by digging in his heels when I try to lead him toward his paddock. He sees Barbara grazing Henry nearby, and he wants some grazing too. The swaths of emerald-green spring grass look succulent even to me, so to him they must be irresistible. To get at them, he hauls me forcibly to the edge of the big pasture and thrusts his head to the ground. Well, I rationalize, he needs some grazing, and afterward I’ll get him into his paddock.
I give him 15 minutes of nonstop noshing and then suggest that we move on. He begs to differ, pulling away and trotting onto the lawn of the barn owner’s house, a forbidden area. I notice that, in heading there, he shows me a swish of his tail. As the “horse-speak" author Sharon Wilsie points out, a tail-swish is a common goodbye signal among horses. Per Wilsie’s recommendation, I routinely give Gus this signal, by swishing my arm behind my back, to let him know I’m leaving for the day. But it can also signify a blow-off, a dismissive back of the hand. Which is pretty clearly what Gus is sassing me with right now.
I scrape up my dignity and quietly retrieve him, but my request to come along is again rejected: he pulls, I pull back, and he pulls harder until I’m running (read: being dragged) alongside him, impotently shouting “No!” I angrily punch his neck, but that leaves my lead-line grip one-handed. He freakin’ wins. I toss the line over his back and call him bad names. As he canters off — flipping me the bird with a tiny back-kick? — he draws three big geldings into his powerful magnetic field of naughtiness. Gus runs the outside of their fence and they follow along the inside, fairly chortling in their glee. He really is a pain in the ass, of the ass, and by the ass . . .
I blame myself for not switching from his light lead-line snapped on the underside of the halter to his heavy rope snapped on the over-the-nose side ring, and for using up all my carrots and apples in the arena. I should know better than to go up against Gus with no physical leverage and no gustatory enticement. So I turn my back on him and return to the barn to fetch his other rope and some horse cookies.
On this third approach, once he feels the weight of the bigger line and gets a whiff of the oat-and-peppermint treats, he’s all mine. He forsakes the grass, abandons his ego trip, and follows me like a puppy. I match his paces as we walk, which helps get him into the zone; I ask him to stop and walk on and back up once or twice; and I bung him into his paddock without further ado. There we play some I-step-you-step, which earns him the rest of the horse cookies, and we part on the friendliest of terms.
He instantly proves me wrong by digging in his heels when I try to lead him toward his paddock. He sees Barbara grazing Henry nearby, and he wants some grazing too. The swaths of emerald-green spring grass look succulent even to me, so to him they must be irresistible. To get at them, he hauls me forcibly to the edge of the big pasture and thrusts his head to the ground. Well, I rationalize, he needs some grazing, and afterward I’ll get him into his paddock.
I give him 15 minutes of nonstop noshing and then suggest that we move on. He begs to differ, pulling away and trotting onto the lawn of the barn owner’s house, a forbidden area. I notice that, in heading there, he shows me a swish of his tail. As the “horse-speak" author Sharon Wilsie points out, a tail-swish is a common goodbye signal among horses. Per Wilsie’s recommendation, I routinely give Gus this signal, by swishing my arm behind my back, to let him know I’m leaving for the day. But it can also signify a blow-off, a dismissive back of the hand. Which is pretty clearly what Gus is sassing me with right now.
I blame myself for not switching from his light lead-line snapped on the underside of the halter to his heavy rope snapped on the over-the-nose side ring, and for using up all my carrots and apples in the arena. I should know better than to go up against Gus with no physical leverage and no gustatory enticement. So I turn my back on him and return to the barn to fetch his other rope and some horse cookies.
On this third approach, once he feels the weight of the bigger line and gets a whiff of the oat-and-peppermint treats, he’s all mine. He forsakes the grass, abandons his ego trip, and follows me like a puppy. I match his paces as we walk, which helps get him into the zone; I ask him to stop and walk on and back up once or twice; and I bung him into his paddock without further ado. There we play some I-step-you-step, which earns him the rest of the horse cookies, and we part on the friendliest of terms.
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