72. Attitude adjustment

Again Gus plays the pill.  I don’t even try any lungeing, but he still resists half of the requests and offers I make.  He pushes his forehead against my chest, using me as a scratching post; I step away and scritch him with my hand instead.  I invite him to walk with me, and after a few steps he pulls in the opposite direction.  I get him to back up, and I click and treat for it. Then when I walk along on his other side, he veers behind me and wraps the lead rope around my back.  He drops to the ground and rolls — for the third time.  Next he hauls me over to a mini-traffic cone and picks it up.  I ignore him and keep us walking along, and he soon spits it out.  A few moments later, I lead him to another cone and chirp “Pick it up!” and he tramples it under foot.  I offer to trot alongside him, but he just walks slower.  

In exasperation, I unhook his lead rope and walk away, leaving him in the arena.  Sandy asks what the trouble is.  I tell her what a refusenik Gus is being, and she says he’s been like that for the last couple of days.  She blames the rain, which he hates, and also her sheltering him from the rain by keeping him in his stall, which he hates too.  No excuse.  She immediately marches into the arena and commences to fix his wagon.

She posts me at the arena gate to prevent Gus from escaping under it, and she takes up the long lunge whip.  She whaps it on the ground behind him to make him move out, but then she scoots to the side wall and holds out the whip sideways to block him as he comes around.  If he stops, she makes him go again, so he has no choice but to change direction.  When he comes along the other side wall, she scoots over there and turns him back the other way again.  This is a modified round-pen exercise, such as several Western-style “horse whisperers” swear by.  They do it in order to scare or overwhelm the horse, control its every move, and if necessary run it to exhaustion — the result being that a wild or unbroke horse relents and becomes submissive.  The technique is often called natural, inasmuch as a stallion or alpha-mare may exert its dominance by herding and driving a lower-ranking horse.  Humans can’t do it naturally, though; we can only pull it off with the help of a whip, a rope, and a sturdy enclosure.  For busy horsemen, it’s a same-day shortcut to gentling and training and earning a horse’s trust over weeks or months.  In Sandy’s milder, moderate version, it’s just one of many ways to help establish or clarify the horse-human relationship.  

For Gus, who’s seen this before, it takes no more than five minutes to remind him that humans call the shots and equines have to follow their lead.  As soon as Sandy stands still, drops her body energy, and exhales, Gus walks right up to her for some pat-pats.  Now when I re-enter the arena and snap the lead line on his halter, he’s acquiescent and content — whatta good boy!  We can walk and turn and halt, and even trot together with almost no head tossing or line tugging.  He earns lots of clicks and treats and scrubs and nice-nice.  Such a team player.  At least for now . . .