112. Behavior mod

I’m not sure if it’s the constant blanket-wearing that makes him itchy, or the lack of grass to nibble that makes him twitchy, but Gus has been a big, hairy pill of late.  He’s happy to come out of his paddock and into the arena, and he barely waits for me to remove his blanket before he crumples down and rolls luxuriantly in the nice, scritchy arena dirt.  Then he comes along willingly for a trot.  But within a few steps, I realize the lead line is behind me and Gus is back there tossing his head around, pulling on the line, and hauling me in any direction other than where we’d been heading.  What the . . . ?

I figure he wants to roll again, so I let him sniff and wander and scrape the ground with his front hoof.  But instead of collapsing his knees, he stiffens up and flings his head violently straight upward.  Wherefore?   Then he pulls me hither and yon, and when I resist, he surfs the ground for dropped treats.  I give him a minute or two of that, and when I lift his head and bring him along with me, he insists on going only to a wooden mat that I’ve set on the ground.  I allow that and dutifully click and treat him for standing on it.  After that, he agrees to trot with me — but yanks really hard and, almost while still trotting, throws himself down to roll again.  Fine.  I wait for him to stand back up.  Again I get him to walk along . . . and again he abruptly refuses and marches off on a hard tangent.  Why, oh, why?  I explain to him just how much I’d like to punch his lights out.

I unclip the lead rope, fetch a lunge whip, wave it and crack it behind him, and send him off at a canter.  Each time Gus comes around toward the arena gate, I take the whip in my other hand, stretch out my arm, and send him back the other way.  This is the I-am-the-boss-of-you exercise that Sandy showed me on an earlier occasion of donkey misbehavior.  After less than five minutes of trotting him around and changing directions, I lower the whip and Gus walks right to me for a treat and patpat.

Now when I rehook the lead line, isn’t he the perfect gentleman?  We walk and trot nicely, practice our tricks, earn our treats . . .  Whether Gus simply needed to engage in a little wilding to warm himself up, or he indeed needed to be reminded that obedience is the price of this game, the lunge-whip exercise gives me a perfect reset switch — another tool for staying, just barely, one step ahead of Superdonkey.