79. On again

Today, Gus evidently feels fine.  We enjoy a few bursts of sustained trot, then he beelines for a wooden mat and hits the brakes to land on it.  He tosses his head and dances in place.  We run-and-stop between two mats again and again — to his mind, a very exciting game.  I’m tickled by how tickled he is every time, so the first six or eight repetitions don’t drive me insane.  After that, I change the subject:  we pirouette on the pedestal, we dunk the basketball, we walk figure-eights.  

I bring out the 55-gallon drum, to see if he’ll lift it upright as he did so spontaeously and unexpectedly a few days ago.  He doesn’t.  He bops it to roll it all over the arena, and when he does put his nose on the flat end, I click and treat; nevertheless, he makes no effort to push it upright.  Has he utterly forgotten that he did it twice before?  We’ll keep experimenting . . .

At least Gus won't have the weight
of a rider on him

Meanwhile, the clicker-training-for-horses expert Alexandra Kurland has just published a new edition of her book The Click that Teaches, and I bought a copy.  It includes instructions for the Take a Bow trick.  Dogs can bow simply by lowering their front end, putting their elbows on the floor with their rumps in the air — a natural gesture both for stretching after waking up and for inviting playfulness in another dog.  Horses never ever do this, ever.  But it’s a trick they can learn, and I figure it’d be relatively easy for a built-like-a-fireplug donkey.  So we start the first steps, and Gus likes it immediately.

I begin, standing Gus on a mat to help indicate that this is a stationary exercise, by lifting one of his front legs and bending it at the knee.  Because he knows how to lift his foot for hoof-picking, he pretty easily raises his foot when I stroke down his leg.  I just build on that until he picks up the foot at a brief touch and lets me cradle his knee in one hand and his hoof in the other, to bend his leg pretty tightly.  We do this many times with each front foot, going through a pocketful of treats in short order.  We take a break by strolling around, and then we return to the mat for more leg lifts.  Now I also try guiding his bent leg back and down a bit; when his shoulder relaxes and goes with the movement, I click and treat.  

We’ll be doing weeks and weeks more of this leg work.  And once I decide whether he seems more limber or comfortable on his left or right leg, we can pursue the bowing trick on that side.  The other front leg will need to stay on the ground to prop him up as he lowers his head and chest.  But that’s probably months in the future.  One day at a time . . .