Myriad and sublime are the blessings of retirement, not the least of which is the absence of annual “performance” evaluations. If you’re on good terms with your boss, you both communicate well and often, making a yearly questionnaire just an empty ritual, a sham with the sole purpose of satisfying some CYA policy in the human resources department. If you’re on bad terms with your boss, it’s still just HR balloon juice, plus it’s fraught with festering mistrust or veiled disrespect or baleful innuendo or uncomfortable pressures or all of the above. Either way, it’s not a useful stock-taking or planning exercise.
By contrast, when it comes to animal training, I do find it edifying to look over the past year or so and meditate on our progress together. It was early last September when I first took Gus’s lead rope in hand and we began sizing each other up. While he’s still a little Caesar, mercurial and inscrutable, I can hazard a few then-and-now generalizations:
* manners indoors and out: steady improvement, to the point of near-angelic sweetness, except when paddock flies are most torturous
* refusing or pulling away during a session: waned pretty steadily, returned a bit as the grass greened, and waning again lately
* refusing or pulling away around the farm property: waned in the winter, returned with knobs on [<—video] as the grass greened, and waning again lately, except when flies are most torturous
* busting out of paddock: great improvement through the winter and spring, but backsliding lately when flies are most torturous
* personal hygiene: quite tolerant of sponge-bathing [<—video]; much more cooperative for hoof-picking (especially if I remember to start with the right-front foot, proceed counter-clockwise, and finish with a treat); minimally more tolerant, or at least less explosive, about spray bottles
* distractability and sniff-wandering during a session: gradual, steady improvement
* staying in his lane in hand: still tends to veer wide, but good improvement since I adopted Sharon Wilsie’s matching steps and Alex Kurland’s coaching in [video—>] shoulder-yield and rope-handling
* welcoming when I arrive: started early and still going strong
* complaining when I leave: none early, then frequent in winter, but rarely now
* tricks learned: added pirouetting to pedestal standing; invented tilt-a-chair; added mat and pedestal as destinations for fetching, and added pompoms and other fetchable objects; extrapolated barrel rolling from beachball bopping
* movement quality: better energy and impulsion at the walk, especially as I match steps; easier backup (with my improved cueing — duhhh!); stiffer when moving to his left than his right, but overall limberness and fitness may be improving
Not too shabby, eh? Most gratifying for me has been the slow but steady blossoming of our relationship, particularly the trust and comfort that’s now plain to see in his (almost always) soft eye and relaxed jaw and floppy ears.
Happy anniversary, Gus.
By contrast, when it comes to animal training, I do find it edifying to look over the past year or so and meditate on our progress together. It was early last September when I first took Gus’s lead rope in hand and we began sizing each other up. While he’s still a little Caesar, mercurial and inscrutable, I can hazard a few then-and-now generalizations:
* manners indoors and out: steady improvement, to the point of near-angelic sweetness, except when paddock flies are most torturous
* refusing or pulling away during a session: waned pretty steadily, returned a bit as the grass greened, and waning again lately
* refusing or pulling away around the farm property: waned in the winter, returned with knobs on [<—video] as the grass greened, and waning again lately, except when flies are most torturous
* busting out of paddock: great improvement through the winter and spring, but backsliding lately when flies are most torturous
* personal hygiene: quite tolerant of sponge-bathing [<—video]; much more cooperative for hoof-picking (especially if I remember to start with the right-front foot, proceed counter-clockwise, and finish with a treat); minimally more tolerant, or at least less explosive, about spray bottles
* distractability and sniff-wandering during a session: gradual, steady improvement
* staying in his lane in hand: still tends to veer wide, but good improvement since I adopted Sharon Wilsie’s matching steps and Alex Kurland’s coaching in [video—>] shoulder-yield and rope-handling
* welcoming when I arrive: started early and still going strong
* complaining when I leave: none early, then frequent in winter, but rarely now
* tricks learned: added pirouetting to pedestal standing; invented tilt-a-chair; added mat and pedestal as destinations for fetching, and added pompoms and other fetchable objects; extrapolated barrel rolling from beachball bopping
Not too shabby, eh? Most gratifying for me has been the slow but steady blossoming of our relationship, particularly the trust and comfort that’s now plain to see in his (almost always) soft eye and relaxed jaw and floppy ears.Happy anniversary, Gus.
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