118. The big drop

After Gus and I commune so sweetly on the floor of the arena, he trots around with me in perfect partnership.  We practice our cha-cha, we walk and trot figure-eights, and we engage with the pompom.  As he stands on the pedestal, I proffer the pompom high and low and off by his side, and he never hesitates in reaching for it, bringing it back to center, then waving it up and down in cheerleader mode.  He adores playing pompom.

Suddenly I notice what I’ve never witnessed before: Gus is so mellow and happy that he’s dropped — that is, his penis is unsheathed, utterly relaxed, and dangling down to his ankles.  Geldings will sometimes drop for awhile when they’re eating really good hay, getting brushed and scratched, or otherwise transported in bliss.  It’s not sexual; it’s just another version (a much, much larger version) of a dangling lower lip.  You pretty much never see geldings drop when being traditionally trained or schooled, but we clicker-trainers find that it’s fairly common during our slow, unpressured, positive training sessions.  Still, Gus has never done it, ever.  Until today.

Its long, flaccid firehose-ness is not particularly attractive, but it’s such a sign of unguarded comfort and contentment that I nearly jump for joy.  This is even better than when he first — well over a year into our partnership — emptied his bowels in my presence.  And, yes, I do hear myself:  I’m glorying in Gus’s basest bodily functions.  It’s just that his openness with those functions clearly charts his ever-so-slow-growing trust and bonding. I wouldn’t hesitate to reveal my most indelicate bodily functions to him (I mean, who doesn’t pee in front of the dog?).  Now I know my troth-plighting isn’t unrequited.  Methinks I am enamored of an ass.