66. Cabin fever

I’m in the throes of selling one house and buying another, both of them fixer-uppers with olfactory evidence of long-resident pets.  To let realtors bring in prospective buyers for my old house, I’ve got to vacuum the ankle-deep tumbleweeds of dog hair that develop overnight, launder or hide or spray nasty extra-strength Febreze onto the throws and sheets that cover my furniture and reek of pond-swimming dog, ditto for the two dog beds and big crate that are also favorite canine resting spots, then load my car with my own dog and often one or two or three visiting dogs, and flee the premises for the 30 or 60 minutes of each realtor’s showing.  I’ve had about 20 showings in the past few weeks. 

In exile from one dinnertime showing, I drove a quarter of a block down the street to a florist’s parking lot, where I set up shop to return three different day-care dogs to their three different owners.  Dealing dogs from the back of one car to the back of another cannot have looked very kosher to my neighbors . . .

Meanwhile, I’ve been working overtime at my new house, to paint walls and remove carpet and clean windows and fight leftover litterbox stench, in between meetings with tree surgeons, carpenters, septic-system excavators, electricians, well-water inspectors, fence installers, and Habitat for Humanity donation takers.

All of which means I’m struggling to continue my every-other-day schedule with Gus the donkey.  Today, not only has Gus languished unentertained for three straight days, but it’s poured chilly rain for 24 hours so he’s been stuck in his stall.  When I show up, he’s so impatient that he nearly bursts through his stall guard.  In the arena, he gets down to business by rolling in the dirt at least six or eight times on each side.  Then he jumps up and mugs me for treats.  I take advantage of his intense focus to do some at-liberty work:  I unsnap his lead line and get him to walk along with me in circles and loops and halts.  Poor thing is so starved for treats as well as attention that he sticks by me eagerly.

He’s still antsy and feisty, so I focus on lively, determined walking, and very quickly he starts trotting.  I trot along, clicking and treating after several paces so I can catch my breath — but, without finishing chewing, off he goes again, trotting me around and around without mercy.  I use our matching-paces practice to slow my walk in hopes of influencing Gus to slow down too.  It works a little, but soon I change our focus to games and tricks.

He jumps onto the big pedestal, and before I even ask he’s pirouetting around it fast.  Next I tip over the 50-gallon drum: though we haven’t played barrel-roll in many weeks, he remembers that pushing his nose on the center of it, not near the ends, is the way to get the click.  Now we resume some walking, this time around the big circle and emphasizing self-carriage and shoulder-yielding.  He gets so limber and light doing this that he transitions almost imperceptibly into a trot again.  As I trot with him, I extend my arms and he keeps his pace and distance from me very consistent.  I click and treat for that, and I think, Oh, boy, we might be ready for actual lungeing -- sending him around in a big circle with me standing at the center.  Aping our lead-line trotting, my back hand would hold the whip toward his hip or shoulder and my front hand would hold the long lunge line toward his nose.  He could trot all he likes, without wearing me out trying to keep up.

Still full of piss and vinegar, Gus notices the toy basketball hoop.  I toss the ball for him, and he busts a trot to retrieve it.  He whaps the ball against the backboard and bangs it on the rim a few times and then pokes it right through the net.  Swish!  And click!  After many such vigorous dunks, I run out of treats and Gus agrees to end our session. 

Back in his stall, he tucks into his hay and enjoys being groomed and even reblanketed.  All our energetic work seems to have taken the edge off; now he appears content and settled for the evening.  I resolve to do my very, very best to keep up our schedule, regardless of any realty or renovation crises.

65. VIDEO: Noodling

Using the outdoor arena again, Gus is less driven to sniff every single manure pile, and he’s less distracted after I let him sniff those he finds of interest.  He gives me even more, and more sustained, periods of walking in excellent form.  He paces right alongside me, needing just a few brief and subtle takes on the leadrope to keep him light and nimble as we make arcs and turns.  When I hold the lead lightly and openly, and when I match paces with him, his walk gets more limber, relaxed, energetic, and rhythmic.  Dressage donkey!

Along with walking over the wooden bridge, and dunking the basketball there (click here for video), we walk through the arch of breeze-blowing pool noodles, which have replaced the strips of tarp.  Gus was fine with the tarp, but he seems to actively enjoy the noodles, pausing and nosing at them:

64. Here, there, anywhere

Generalizing a skill from one context to another isn’t always easy.  Especially if you’re a Bear of Very Little Brain.  But if you’re Eeyore, it appears, you’re a flexible thinker who can nimbly adapt to changing circumstances.

Today is cool and breezy enough to keep the biting flies largely at bay, so I take Gus into the outdoor arena for a change of scenery.  He’s tempted by the grass underfoot which I don’t let him munch on, and he’s enticed by the remnant evidence of the horses who spend their nights here.  Also, he’s distracted by the worlds outside the fence: people walking around, horses in nearby paddocks, a roaring lawnmower, etc.  First, the minute I remove his light blanket, he rolls in the bare dirt near the gate.  Next, we walk a full circuit of the perimeter, in both directions, stopping at each and every pile of manure new and old; he places his nose right on it and inhales in a deep, scholarly manner, then moves on.

With the tour of inspection finished, we do some walking and turning and halting and backing.  Gus doesn’t love this, and once or twice he tries his obdurate routine, stopping dead and/or pulling his head away, to see if I’ll just let him graze.  But without much effort, I’m able to resist and then cajole him back in step with me.  After just a few minutes of nice walking, I lead him to the toy basketball hoop that I lugged out earlier.

I figure that doing an old trick in a new venue will challenge his mind at least a little bit, yet he barely hesitates.  When I toss his rubber lattice ball, it takes just a half an extra second for him to fetch it.  To start, I ask only that he put it in my hand — going back to an earlier level of the trick, to compensate for the unusual surroundings.  Well, Gus don’t need no stinkin’ compensation:  the next time, he clearly turns toward the basket, so I cue him with “Dunk,” and as if nothing has changed from our usual indoor setting, he flaps the ball on the rim and backboard and then spits it into the net.  I toss the ball farther away, and he almost trots over to it, snatches it up, and heads to the basket for a lively flap-and-dunk.  He does this several times, so I figure we can up the ante yet a little more.
 

 I set the hoop at the far end of the low wooden bridge, and I set the ball on the ground near the other end.  This time, Gus does require a minute or two to wrap his mind around the new gestalt.  I chirp “Pick it up!” and he walks right by the ball, then steps across the bridge and half-off again.  We reset, standing on the ground near the bridge.  I pick up the ball and hand it right to his mouth, he takes it, and I click and treat.  The next time, I hand him the ball and get him to take one pace forward to return it to my hand; click and treat.  Now I set it back on the ground, and he reaches down and picks it up, but with a little question-mark forming in a cartoon thought-bubble over his head.  Quickly I render roadside assistance, singing “Good!” and tapping the basketball hoop.  He drops the ball, then walks onto the bridge and shoves his face into the net.  No click, but I cheerily urge him to step down and try again.  And sure enough, he bites up the ball, walks onto the bridge, flaps around the hoop a few times, and dunks.  Click!  Peppermint!

Would a dog or a horse succeed so quickly with such a new trick arrangement?  I suspect most would struggle a lot more to remember such a recently learned trick when suddenly flooded by new body sensations and surroundings and object placements. 
 
Memo to self:  try putting Reggie the brown dog’s footstool out on the sidewalk and asking him to sit on it and give a high-five.  Without succumbing to his powerful canine urges to pee on the lamppost and bark at a stray cat and sniff the neighbor's garbage can.