113. VIDEO: Circle game

After our successful free-lungeing exercise, I’m emboldened to retry regular lungeing, on a long line in a circle.  I’d given it up last year, when Gus and I just couldn’t get on the same wavelength:  he was objecting and/or I was screwing up my cues.  But again today in the very chilly arena Gus seems eager for some high-energy work, so I hook the lunge line to his halter and send him out away from me.  He trots in a perfect circle around me, several laps, with no problem.  The instant I click, he leaves the circle by executing a crisp 90-degree turn and trots directly to me for his treat.  Then I send him around in the other direction, and he’s a veritable trotting machine.  (Sorry about the video quality:  the arena's chemical-vapor lighting is both insufficient and sickly green.)

If I accidentally walk a bit too far forward as Gus moves around me, seemingly blocking his forward path, he stops or veers farther out.  If I forget to point the whip at his shoulder at the right moments, and only keep it swinging behind him to drive him forward, he leans into the circle and gets too close to me.  But mostly I must be doing it right, because mostly he keeps up a rhythmic trot on a consistent circle.  I’m not sure if I’ve somehow improved at lungeing or if he’s just more willing and eager to do it.  But I ain’t looking that gift-donkey in the mouth — I’m delighted we’re sympatico.  Warming him up on the lunge line is much easier for me than having to run alongside him until my lungs burn. And watching a donkey trip the light fantastic — a pudgy performer on tiptoes, like Jackie Gleason dancing for joy — is worth the price of admission.