Four blog-following friends come to the barn for a donkey-trick demo. Grateful for the company, Gus eats up their pat-pats and greetings with a spoon, and in return he gives them spoonfuls of cuteness and charm. We walk around the arena, retrieve a traffic cone, tilt a chair upright, bop the beachball . . . At one point, during his pirouettes on the pedestal, he pointedly looks over at the guests to make sure his adoring fans are sufficiently adoring him.
After this love fest, I can tell that Gus is distracted, gazing out the arena doors at horses in the pastures. Eating grass. Must. Eat. Grass. So I cut our session short and we adjourn to the driveway edges for some grazing. Before we leave the arena, though, I rig his lead rope for extra control, threading it through both sides of his halter, so that a pull on the rope will tighten it around his whole muzzle, exerting pressure over his nose and under his chin. Heh, heh, I chortle to myself: look at me, outsmarting this ornery ass.
And the plan works when he tries to trundle on down the driveway and I’m able to haul him back in the other direction. Now I can convince him to graze where I want him to graze. I let him loiter around the geldings’ paddock; they oblige by congregating at the fence to touch noses with him, and then everybody grazes, sharing a mood of sunshiny togetherness. For awhile, Gus leaves off grazing and just stands and watches the geldings — more togetherness. After 20 minutes of his alternately chowing down and casually communing with his posse, I propose that we move along.
Now the muzzle-snare rope system gets a thorough field-testing. Gus cranks his neck and tries to march away, but I resist, and he grudgingly relents. By way of thanks, I exhale and whisper sweet nothings and scratch his withers. He ducks his head and tries to squeeze under (or simply break) a fence board in order to enter the geldings’ paddock. I’m able to pull him off, delivering a sharp yank with the rope to indicate my displeasure. When I try to walk on again, he drags me right back and half under the fence, but again I manage to haul him away. Clearly the wraparound lead line is leveling the playing field for us.
Right about here is where a headstrong horse would surrender. But Gus ain’t no horse. Gus escalates. I can almost see his brain make the decision to grit his teeth and suffer the discomfort, and a half-second later he barges into me, pulls past, and overpowers my grip on the rope. Once again, sheer will and weight simply trump all modes of human opposition.
He canters away, but just as he tries again to scoot under the fence, I wave my spare lead line and yell, chasing him away. I begin plotting ways of herding him into a barn, any barn, in hopes of shutting him into a stall, any stall. (Fifty years ago, we might let Gus have the run of the farm, which is really all he desires. But these days the road is full of cars and trucks, and the humans have day jobs off site. It’s not a safe world for independent donkeys.) Recognizing the yells and curses that Gus so universally inspires, Sandy comes to my aid. I lead him, with grim determination and the rope held short, while she shoos him from behind. Outnumbered and outflanked, he walks up the path and into his paddock.
There I thank him with a handful of apple cubes, and I talk to him nicely as I remove his halter. But he’s holding a grudge: in no uncertain terms, he turns his back on me and stalks away.
After this love fest, I can tell that Gus is distracted, gazing out the arena doors at horses in the pastures. Eating grass. Must. Eat. Grass. So I cut our session short and we adjourn to the driveway edges for some grazing. Before we leave the arena, though, I rig his lead rope for extra control, threading it through both sides of his halter, so that a pull on the rope will tighten it around his whole muzzle, exerting pressure over his nose and under his chin. Heh, heh, I chortle to myself: look at me, outsmarting this ornery ass.
And the plan works when he tries to trundle on down the driveway and I’m able to haul him back in the other direction. Now I can convince him to graze where I want him to graze. I let him loiter around the geldings’ paddock; they oblige by congregating at the fence to touch noses with him, and then everybody grazes, sharing a mood of sunshiny togetherness. For awhile, Gus leaves off grazing and just stands and watches the geldings — more togetherness. After 20 minutes of his alternately chowing down and casually communing with his posse, I propose that we move along.
Now the muzzle-snare rope system gets a thorough field-testing. Gus cranks his neck and tries to march away, but I resist, and he grudgingly relents. By way of thanks, I exhale and whisper sweet nothings and scratch his withers. He ducks his head and tries to squeeze under (or simply break) a fence board in order to enter the geldings’ paddock. I’m able to pull him off, delivering a sharp yank with the rope to indicate my displeasure. When I try to walk on again, he drags me right back and half under the fence, but again I manage to haul him away. Clearly the wraparound lead line is leveling the playing field for us. Right about here is where a headstrong horse would surrender. But Gus ain’t no horse. Gus escalates. I can almost see his brain make the decision to grit his teeth and suffer the discomfort, and a half-second later he barges into me, pulls past, and overpowers my grip on the rope. Once again, sheer will and weight simply trump all modes of human opposition.
He canters away, but just as he tries again to scoot under the fence, I wave my spare lead line and yell, chasing him away. I begin plotting ways of herding him into a barn, any barn, in hopes of shutting him into a stall, any stall. (Fifty years ago, we might let Gus have the run of the farm, which is really all he desires. But these days the road is full of cars and trucks, and the humans have day jobs off site. It’s not a safe world for independent donkeys.) Recognizing the yells and curses that Gus so universally inspires, Sandy comes to my aid. I lead him, with grim determination and the rope held short, while she shoos him from behind. Outnumbered and outflanked, he walks up the path and into his paddock.
There I thank him with a handful of apple cubes, and I talk to him nicely as I remove his halter. But he’s holding a grudge: in no uncertain terms, he turns his back on me and stalks away.
No comments:
Post a Comment