136. VIDEO: Crabwise

As true twinkletoes, Gus’s little donkey hooves are flittering in all directions.  His chacha alongside me continues to improve, and his back-and-forward chacha facing me is so nimble and quick that he also uses it to locate and repeat-stomp the pedals for the hi-hat cymbals and the bass drum.  Now I’m teaching him how to sidepass, and he’s picking it up with his usual handiness and talent.

In Western and trail riding, a classic way to teach the sidepass is to have the horse straddle a rail laid on the ground: forefeet on one side of it, rear feet on the other.  Along with rein and leg signals from the rider, the ground pole encourages the horse to move only sideways so as to avoid clunking its feet against the obstacle.  

With Gus, since he’s so cued in on matching my steps, I wonder if I can simply stand next to him and model a sidestep.  To help light the path, I plop down three wooden mats right next to each other.  With him standing at one end of the mat row, I stand at his side, say “mat,” and kinda nudge him sideways while taking one big, dramatic lateral step toward his feet.  At first he turns a bit to face the next mat, or he takes a step back or forward, or he stands pat and stares inquiringly at my boots.  

I keep trying slightly different body language to see what might read to him best — not the clarity and consistency you’d want for training a dog or a horse, but I hazard that Gus can handle it.  Through it all, does he object?  Does he lose his cool?  Does he give up and quit the scene?  Not a bit of it.  He keeps lining up again, he keeps trying to decipher what the hell I’m asking for, and he keeps tweezing out the key information.  He also keeps getting treats for good efforts.  He might as well wear a sandwich board: “will work for food.”

After just three or four tries, I say “mat” and he shuffles sideways toward the nextdoor mat.  Big clicks and treats.  Soon he adds another shuffle to move all the way over onto the mat.  And before I know it, he’s actually crossing his feet to perform a genuine sidestep, at least some of the time.

 

As we refine the exercise, I’ll separate the mats farther apart and then do without them altogether.  And very soon, I’ll replace “mat” with “sideways,” so that we can keep our original “go mat” cue and also have an independent and distinct sidepass cue.

What’s it all in aid of?  Not one damn practical thing.  But how fetching will those little hooves look as they cross and recross in a donkey dance?