I’m not much of a traveler, partly because of the need for domestic-animal care in my absence. My serial standard poodles each had rare and chronic illnesses that required medications and special feeding and an eagle eye on symptoms. I hated to leave them. But truth be told, I usually find time spent with my pets, in any condition, equally enjoyable as time spent away from home. Before I started having dogs, I had cats, and they were easier, of course — although my Russian blue, named Vlad (the Impaler), was known to hiss and growl and slash at any and all humans except me. Anyway, I’ve always taken my dogs along on any trips I could, whether camping or hoteling or staying in friends’ houses. And now I’m about to spend a week at a lakehouse in Maine that’s been a favorite summer destination for me and my current canine, Reggie the browndog.
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| "Don't forsake me . . ." |
But this summer for the first time, I’m leaving an animal behind. Gus. And as I end my last barn visit before heading out of town, I find myself lingering, putting off the goodbye, feeling bad about ditching him. He was frustrated when I took just a couple days off to nurse my concussion. This time it’s nearly a week that I won’t be able to call on him, to practice tricks and reward him with treats, to brush him and rub his ears, and to take him grazing. I used to pooh-pooh my horse-owning friends’ concerns about leaving town — I mean, a horse is not a house pet; it has pasturemates and is Just Fine spending many hours without human interaction — but now I feel their pain. Gus is my every-other-day good buddy, and we’ll miss each other.
I feed him a few treats as a not-so-fabulous parting gift. I employ my usual upbeat, crisp tone of voice to tell him goodbye. And as I drive away, he bellows a hee-haw at my departing tailgate.
Three days after the violent accident with Gus, I go to the barn to reassure him that I haven’t inexplicably disappeared from his life. I’m still woozy and weird, so I stay outside his paddock fence and feed him chunks of apple through the bars of the gate. He’s restless and fussy, pacing back and forth, all but shouting at me to get him the hell outta there. But I’m too feeble to handle him safely. I give him my regrets, scratch his neck, and leave him to his ennui and frustration.
Two days after that, I return. It’s a hot, sunny day and I figure I can poddle around well enough to bring him into the coolth of the indoor arena for some lazy, hands-off trick-training. When I arrive, though, he’s not stewing in his usual paddock. Because it’s a weekend when Sandy can stay on the premises all day to round him up if he escapes, she has turned him out in the wide, multi-horse paddock with all the good grass. Will he want to come play with me, or will he blow me off to continue grazing?
I take his halter and walk way, way out through the grass to fetch him. I give him my signature whistle, but far from stirring him to bray and run to my arms, as he usually does —
— today it barely elicits an ear-twitch. At one point, he raises his head and gives me a look, but he ponders my approach, weighing its value, for only a second or two before he opts for more munching.
Just to be sure that he's sure, I feed him a treat and slip the halter on, and I lead him toward the gate in a very clear attitude of questioning and offering, not commanding or expecting. He kinda comes along and kinda resists, but soon he pulls enough to tell me that he wants to stay out here. So I promptly unbuckle his halter, give him a farewell treat, and walk back. It’s a rare privilege for him to graze in this pasture, and I’m in no condition to provide him with a training session that he’d enjoy more.
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The next day, my noggin is feeling appreciably better. I load my apron with the carrot and apple chunks I’d saved from yesterday, and this time the sound of my car arriving is enough to get Gus hee-hawing. He’s back in his own boring paddock, it’s late afternoon, and he’s ready for some diversion. I try not to be too gingerly around him (I mean, what are the chances of lightning striking twice?), but I’m relieved that he walks politely into the arena and behaves nicely in everything we do.
I take off his lead rope and we walk over a few ground rails together. I send him to his pedestal and he pirouettes. We walk to a wooden mat and practice standing still on it before I invite him with slow, grand arm gestures to walk around to the next mat. He stays with me for awhile, but then the siren song of the arena dirt lures him away to inspect and sniff all over. I reattach the lead line and he willingly rejoins our walking and mat-standing.
I also practice asking for the backup the way clinician Alex Kurland had showed me. I slide my hand up the lead rope to the clasp, and I turn my arm to take more control of the rope right under his halter, but I only lightly suggest a backward pressure. And I wait. Eventually he does start backing, and I immediately release the rope pressure. If he stops, I ask again. After two tries, I can keep him backing for a few paces just by “pushing” the loose belly of the rope a bit under his chin. Much kinder and gentler than poking my finger on his shoulder and leaning my weight into his halter.
We end on this high note, and he barely tugs at all as I lead him to our usual grazing field. I make a point of standing farther away and farther back, but nothing happens to startle him anyway. Without meaning to (or maybe it’s a deliberate plan?), he eats his way toward the unmown grass against the doorway of the small barn, and in he walks. He looks with interest at the first few stalls and tack trunks as we stroll down the barn aisle, but then he stops dead. Is he just now realizing where he is? Or does he suspect a trap? I manage to keep him going out the far door, and only a blip of resistance darkens his brow as we head for his own barn.
He walks right into his stall and behaves like a gentleman, even when his grain arrives. I groom the bejeepers out of him, rolling up wad after wad of loose hair. I pick out his mud-impacted feet. And I leave — him to his freshly bedded stall and hay tub, me to my dinner at home.
It’s another daylong seminar with clicker-training expert Alex Kurland, and Gus is not happy waiting his turn. He’s stuck in his stall, right around the corner from the arena where others are having fun without him. And he's obsessing about his durance vile.
Along with hay, we’ve given him a treat-dispensing toy similar to a Bustercube for dogs. His is actually a keg-style beverage cooler from which the spigot has been removed; we fill it with hay-stretcher pellets, and he uses his nose to roll it around, making the treats fall out sporadically from the small hole where the spigot was. He rolls it fast, backandforth-backandforth-backandforth, and eats a few treats, but then he abandons it, the better to scold us by blasting his bagpipes in a tantrum of braying. Listen here:
After a few of these concerts, we decide to work with him next. He gladly shoves his face into the halter and is pleased to see the little audience waiting for him. He only gets a brief session of lead-line walking and mat-standing, with me and then with Alex, but it’s enough. As I take him out to his paddock, I apologize to him for having no time to allow for grazing, and he only tries a few evasive maneuvers before succumbing and walking into his outdoor jailyard.
The next day, I return to give him a lot more arena fun and plenty of grazing time.
