152. VIDEO: Walking in circles

A large circle, marked by eight traffic cones, has been a popular arena installation lately.  Sometimes wooden mats are set just outside the cones.  It’s an easy way to help horses practice things like bending their bodies on an arc and matching paces with their humans.  As soon as Gus sees it, he's intrigued.

First we walk around it, me just inside the cones and him just outside them.  He already knows — and loves — stopping with his front feet on a mat.  As always, he gets a click and treat for each mat stop.  After one complete round, I begin to hang behind him just a bit and send him on ahead to each mat.  At first, he turns toward me and waits for me to catch up, but by adding a little finger-wave behind and a maitre d’ arm ahead, I can usher him to the mat pretty easily.  A few more clicks, and he’s got it down pat.

A couple of sessions later, I begin to sink away toward the center of the circle and hang back.  Now his concern about my distance from him actually trumps his supermagnet attraction to the mat:  he slows, he bumbles, he misses the mat.  I simply go back to him, start him off again toward the next mat, and shrink away a teeny bit less far.  When he does it well a few times, I try shrinking away a bit more again.  Cueing him with a verbal “mat” helps him remember that the goal is to reach the mat regardless of my location.

At this point, we reduce the number of mats, so they’re now several paces apart.  As I recede more toward the center of the circle, I resort to a tai chi-ish energy move, as suggested by Alex Kurland the clicker guru, to keep Gus from drifting inward with me.  It’s a slow pushing gesture, with my arms but also with my brains and bowels, to project outward energy and keep him on the perimeter.  

At first, I’m astounded that it actually works, as a midair energy transfer sounds like it’s straight from a kids’ comic book.  But then, Sharon Wilsie and other animal-whisperer types all agree that horses routinely communicate among themselves using, as it were, energy fields.  Minuscule changes in their posture or balance or breathing are enough to speak volumes, from invitations to requests to objections.  So, a little body English, some close observation, an assertive thought . . . and you’re talking right from the horse’s mouth.

It’d be fun someday to remove all the mats, stand in the very center of the circle, and just send Gus strolling around on his own.  For now, it’s all about how much he dotes on this exercise.  He wants to keep walking around and around and around.  When I switch to a pedestal game or some cha-cha, he often blows it off and returns to the cone circle.  Whatev:  it’s always donkey’s choice.