89. VIDEO: Pain and pleasure

The soppy, gloppy springtime is always risky for Gus’s hooves.  Last spring he picked up a touch of thrush — a fungal infection of the frog, the soft V-shaped lump on the underside of the hoof — which cleared up easily with medication.  This spring he’s been a tiny bit sore on and off, and since it seemed to resolve once he got warmed up and moving, I figured it was just arthritis.  But today he’s almost head-bobbing lame when each front foot hits the ground.  I find iodine and a dropper outside his stall, and Sandy explains that he has white-line disease — it’s fungal and bacterial, and it can cause the outer hoof wall to crack and pull away from the core of the hoof.  Ick! and owww!   It needs to be stopped pronto.

I figure some games and treats will help distract Gus from his ouchiness, so we try some slow, easy interactions.  When I offer him the baby carriage, he perks right up — the joy of pushing it clearly trumps the pain of walking.  But I don’t want him stressing his hooves too much; to save him from himself, I put the carriage away early.  Now he indulges in his favorite self-soothing activity: rolling in the dirt.  Weight is off his feet, the dust and wood shavings provide a nice back scratch, and he luxuriates in the whole procedure:

I give him a nice rubdown, and Sandy adds an anti-inflammatory to his dinner.  I squirt iodine onto his hooves, aiming for where the white-line crack might be developing.  Now he’s frankly limping on his way out to the paddock, and Sandy contemplates soaking or packing his feet, to keep more iodine on them longer.  We’ll see how he does tomorrow.  Ever the hedonist and never the stoic, he’ll show us clearly just how he feels.

88. VIDEO: Chain of events

Gus now has the pram-pushing down pat.  And he has the pompom retrieve.  And he has the pedestal.  All three are pretty “hot” in his mind:  he loves doing them (for whatever inscrutable asinine reasons).  Our current project is to chain them into a full-blown stupid pet trick:  push the carriage, stop and reach inside to pull out the pompom, bring the pompom to the pedestal, step up and wave the pompom.  

To teach a multistep behavior, many trick-trainers use “back-chaining” — teaching the final move first, then adding the next-to-last move with the final one, then adding the previous move in front of the last two, etc., etc.  Since Gus has already learned the pedestal and the pompom, we’re essentially back-chaining by putting the newer pram-pushing trick at the front of the sequence.  Anyway, Gus is such an A student that it probably doesn’t matter; he easily handles new and old learning in any permutation.  (I can’t believe I’m discussing this ridiculosity in a serious, expository format, but we’re in semi-lockdown because of the coronavirus, so donkey training is one of my few remaining outlets for work or play.)

For our audience-pleasing Pompom Surprise, the main complications for our intrepid performer are (a) reaching into the pram when you have a short donkey neck and (b) resisting the urge to reach in and reveal the pompom too soon.  Here’s how it’s going so far:

I’ve learned that Gus does not have a reliable “leave it” on a verbal cue after all; that will take more practice, with the pompom and in plenty of other contexts to make sure it’s solid.  And I’ve seen that Gus will have no trouble adding a move-to-the-side maneuver in order to position himself for reaching into the pram comfortably.  Our fine-tuning agenda is clear and achievable.

87. Sprung

Spring has begun just enough that Gus has the fever — grass greed, reefer madness — and, with it, shocking bad manners.  Under the matted, dead, yellow, dry turf he’s found a few quarter-inch shoots of fresh green grass, and he’s adamant that nothing can come between him and them.  

Two days ago, after an excellent session of dressagey work and trick performances, I took him outside to graze, and he mashed his muzzle onto the ground to tweeze up the tiny grasslets, after 15 minutes of which, he consented to be led into his stall.  Today as I bring him out of his paddock, he eyes the ground tentatively before coming along to the arena.  Once inside, he rolls luxuriously, stands up, and immediately drags me back toward the arena gate.  For months, we’ve worked in the arena day in and day out, so it’s high time for a day off; I surprise him by opening the gate and leading him straight out for grazing.  I give him a full 30 minutes of chewy indulgence.

When I lead Gus off the grass and back into his stall, he barely demurs.  But when I latch only the top part of his stall guard and turn away just to grab a brush and hoof pick, he suddenly lowers his head, crouches, and slams under the guard.  He heads for the barn door, but Sandy and Barbara happen to be standing there talking and intercept him.  I rehalter him and suggest a return to his stall.  He’s having none of it.  He surges ahead, Sandy tries to block him head-on, and he offers to plow her down in her tracks.  She sidesteps and grabs his rope, and both of us get towed out to the driveway until, with our four hands and two body weights, we manage to stop him.  Gus at full steam is so powerful that, in his effort to wrestle free of us, he actually rears a bit.  Once I get him turned back toward the barn, I begin leading him semi-forcibly while Sandy shoos him with outstretched arms, and about halfway down the barn aisle he formally surrenders and walks into his stall.

I latch the top and bottom of his stall guard (which he realizes with a thud when he tries to reprise his ducking-under escape) before I reach for his brush.  Once contained, though, he summarily mellows out, chews hay, and welcomes affection and grooming.  You’d never know this was the same madding brute that nearly trampled two strong women just a half-minute earlier.  One deep ear-scrub later, and his bottom lip is dangling in a trance of bliss.

86. VIDEO: Parts per million

With Gus’s tolerance of the spritz bottle getting stronger every day, I now up the ante and switch from water to actual fly spray.  This stuff combines permethrin with a lemony citronella scent.  It’s not a chemical/medicinal smell, but Gus knows it’s fly spray and he says the hell with it.  When I squirt just a teeny bit out into the barn aisle and then offer the butt end of the bottle to him, he backs away with an unmistakeable pee-yew expression on his face.  As I catch a whiff myself, I can hardly blame him:  the citronella is strong and sharp, and it’s a scent commonly used not only in mosquito repellent but in dog and deer repellents too.

We dial back several steps.  First, I mix just a drop of the fly spray into a bottle full of plain water.  I can still smell it, but it’s a lot less noisome.  Gus agrees, and touches the open bottle a few times.  Since the crappy little trigger on the bottle jams and fails, I return to using the actual fly-spray bottle, with its full-strength scent.  This, of course, is a mistake.

Gus tolerates the tiny squirts out in the aisle, but when I spritz in just a nanosecond burst anywhere nearer to him, he departs and refuses to play this smelly game.  I wait.  And wait.  And finally click him just for looking at the spray bottle.  That entices him to return to me and even touch the bottle again.  But I press my luck, spritz again, and lose him.  

I’ll need a working spray bottle, for ve-e-ery gradually increasing the solution strength.  And I’ll need plenty of patience, for even more gradually moving the spritzes nearer to him.

85. VIDEO: Call the nanny

Gus is now pushing the baby pram pretty reliably, with just a few regressions into Godzilla mode.  Much as he enjoys ramming it hard and watching it topple, he'd almost always rather earn treats for pushing it gently and smoothly -- and many paces without my touching the handle at all -- in a consistently forward direction.  While his early pram-pushing would've appalled even the stoniest Child Protective Services veteran, he might soon enter the elite ranks of super-nanny:

84. VIDEO: Kegger

When the equines have to stay in their stalls because of bad weather, Sandy gives all or most of them an executive desk toy to help pass the time.  A Bubba Keg is a cylindrical, screw-top beverage cooler with a spigot near the bottom.  Just pop out the spigot, fill the keg with hay stretchers or other small treats, and let the horse knock it about to make the treats fall out sporadically from the spigot hole. For dogs, I've found the keg more durable (and quieter) than a Bustercube, a plastic toy with a labyrinth inside from which treats are dispensed eratically with motion.

While Reggie the brown dog pushes the keg with his nose, just as the horses do with theirs, he still hasn’t learned the horse-sense technique that gets the highest ratio of treat-release to time spent.  While he just rolls it along in one direction until it hits a wall or a piece of furniture, Gus and his cohorts make sure to orient the Bubba Keg with the hole downward and then rock it, in short strokes, back and forth very quickly.  Here, Gus provides a brief demo:

83. Mistified

Donkeys are both spunky and spooky, using skills of fight and flight much more equally than horses, who are top contenders for the barnyard freestyle fleeing championship year in and year out.  Donkeys share — or even surpass — horses’ vigilance toward potential dangers, and they’ll jump, spin, and gallop away in violent panic at the drop of a hat.  But donkeys also evaluate threats with more confidence:  where horses foresee victimhood, donkeys may envision victory.  Donkeys are used as guardians of other animals, and indeed they’ve been known to beat, crush, and bite to death such predators as coyotes and bobcats.

So why is Gus terrified by mist sprayers?  Horses tend to be anxious about them too at first, but they soon learn to tolerate them.  Not Gus.  Let him hear the faint hiss of a spray bottle, and instantly his eyes pop wide, his ears shoot up, and his feets don’t fail him.  Sandy has tried to apply, say, wound-healing spray or fly-repellent spray, only to send Gus crashing into a wall or busting through a gate.  I’m not a big believer in fly spray — its toxicity seems to outweigh the short-lived, partial relief it can provide — but every summer Gus is such a martyr to biting flies that I’d like to at least consider spritzing him during the buggiest days.  Of course, there are wipe-on repellents too, which just take more time to apply.  And even more time with Gus, who’s gravely offended by any scents other than horse food and horse poop.  For him smelly ointments and liquids are only slightly less alarming and objectionable than those infernal spritzes.

Accordingly, I’ve embarked on a program of de-mistification.  Gus will gladly touch the proffered spray bottle in return for a click and treat, but if I bring it near his neck or flank — as if I might actually squeeze the trigger — he scoots away in panic.  Since he’s fine with it in front of him, I keep it there but I do spray it, just once and aiming away from him.  I don’t think he can even see the mist, but he hears it go “fffffft” ever so softly.  He backs away and stares in horror.  I stand still and silent, eyes averted.  After a good 30 seconds, he stre-e-e-etches his neck toward the bottle, but then pulls back.  I never budge.  After another 15 seconds, he takes one gingerly step forward and reaches out to barely touch the bottle.  Click!  We repeat this spray-then-wait practice until he touches the bottle pretty promptly and calmly after each squirt.  Next I offer him the bottle and, as he touches it, I hold it steady but squeeze the trigger for half a second.  Again, this takes several repeats until he can bear to touch the base of the bottle while the business end is misting Right Near his Face.  Oh, the slings and arrows he must endure just for a morsel of carrot and a scrap of approval . . .

I’m guardedly optimistic that we can cure Gus’s spritzaphobia, but I know it’ll take a lot more practice.  It’s hardly the fun fair of pushing the baby pram, but he’s just as persistent and willing, in his way.  And that unsinkable gameness keeps me from giving up either.

82. VIDEO: Rubber baby-buggy bumpers

Along with chanting “She sells seashells on the seashore,” my mother, who had studied speech therapy in college, used to sing “Rubber baby-buggy bumpers,” and finally it makes some sense to me.  Without them, Gus would already have beaten his baby carriage into twisted rubble.  He’s toppled and dumped it more than once, but so far it looks no worse for wear.

Always looking to shove objects with the top of his nose until they fall over, Gus naturally relishes scratching that itch with the baby buggy.  One good bop, and it tips up onto its front with a gratifying thud.  My job is to click and treat him for touching the handle and sending the carriage forward, but not for getting his nose under the handle and lifting.  Problem is, he’s so eager to play and so quick with his snout that I’m often a half-second too late.  One useful approach is for me to roll the carriage ahead of him so he’s always following it, which helps to keep his nose more behind it than under it.  If he overtakes the carriage and bops it broadside, I stop, reorient him by having him back up a few paces, and then guide the pram ahead of him again.  I hope he’ll catch on eventually that this trick is about forward movement and not about knocking things over.

If I mistakenly click him for lifting the carriage, he does seem to lift it more and more in each subsequent try; conversely, if I withhold the click for lifting, he seems to push it more properly in subsequent tries.  He’s a damn quick study.  His only learning disability is his teacher.

81. Stupid pet tricks

Gus is such a quick study, and his idle hooves are so often the devil’s workshop, that I feel a certain pressure to keep him physically and mentally active.  We’ll always practice and fine-tune his current repertoire of games and dressage maneuvers, but he really enjoys novelty and surprise as well.  What can I dream up next to engage and entertain him afresh? 

Today, I have an answer.  I’d like to plead temporary insanity or sudden dementia, but who’m I kidding?  I’ve been plotting and shopping for months.  Online I find a listing for a classic old baby carriage and I arrange a meet with the seller.  I mean, how freakin’ hilarious would it be to see Gus pushing a baby buggy ahead of him?  And riding in the buggy could be a stuffed-animal donkey.  Or a small, live dog.  Or any number of other ludicrous, vaudevillian figures . . .

Gus's newest plaything

Barbara agrees to ride along and help me check it out.  Turns out the pram has been in an attic for decades; it’s in quite good condition.  And it’s a famous Italian brand that seems both fancy and sturdy.  The seller is a beefy, crew-cut soldierly type living in a rather gritty neighborhood of a rather gritty upstate New York town.  He’s totally congenial, but I figure he’s got enough of a challenge dealing with two garrulous, grey-haired women in barn coats, so I spare him an explanation of how we plan to use his baby pram.  It’s exactly what I had in mind, so I slap $40 in his hand and he helps us load it into my car.  (As long as I’m not inside a big, windowless retail outlet full of overpriced, crappily made, off-gassing merchandise, I can be a shopping whiz.)

I deliver the new toy to the barn and park it inside the arena. When I lead Gus in, he immediately notices it.  His ears spring forward symmetrically.  We stand still, several paces from the contraption, and he simply stares.  New objects usually don’t give him such pause; but this one does have many parts and projections, and I suppose he might fear that any one of them could suddenly savage him?

He presses his ears even more forward, so they come down nearly horizontal, to aim directly at the Unknown Object.  I touch it lightly, and when he sees that it does me no harm, he slowly steps forward a pace or two. Then he touches it ever so gingerly with the very tip of his upper lip.  I click and treat that, and now he noses it more readily.  It bounces slightly when nudged hard enough, and that brings his ears to attention again, but he soldiers on.  As I take a step backward to give him more access, I throw a wrench into these promising works:  I stumble a bit on a stack of wooden mats, causing Gus to shy away and bolt into the middle of the arena.  I retrieve him and we walk around a few times, keeping our distance from the pram.  We walk over ground-poles, we halt, we circle.  Now we return to the pram, and Gus sniffs and nudges and bites it, seeming interested but not alarmed.

We take more breaks from exploring the baby buggy, and each time we return to it, he’s more confident.  He’s even fine when I roll it back and forth and jounce it a little.  I click when he noses the handle, but he keeps placing his snout under the handle and bumping it upward.  That’s his SOP for righting the up-ended chair; however, the technique for pram-pushing will require forward contact, not tilting.  I’ll need to click as his nose touches the handle head-on but before it slips under and starts to lift.  I’m gearing up for eagle eyes and a quick tongue.

80. Augean stables

With Sandy the barn manager out sick today, Barbara steps valiantly into the breach.  In the morning, she and Pam (who owns a sweet Appaloosa mare named Jewel) fetch 10 equids, one by one, from five different paddocks and lead them into their individual stalls.  They feed them breakfast — scoops of grain or other feed, plus whatever supplements and medications each owner likes to dose each horse with.  They use mallets and sieves to remove the ice from each stall’s water bucket; then they fill other buckets half-full from the spigot and pour those into each stall’s bucket.  

They let everybody munch and doze while they drag around a big cart to throw piles of hay into each paddock.  Then they return everybody to the paddocks again — checking to make sure the troughs have enough unfrozen water.  Thankfully, the horses possess accurate internal clocks, so they almost always come to the gate rather than making their humans hike over hill and dale to fetch them.  And they more or less wait their turns to enter and exit according to their dominance rankings.  Plus, Sandy gets big points for another blessing:  she’s trained them all to lower their heads so that short humans can slip their halters on and off easily.

Still, those 10 trips in and 10 trips out are no cakewalk.  In one direction, with all the horses in a paddock milling around the gate, the handler needs to shoo some away while haltering the departing horse and leading it out with one hand while using the other hand to hold the gate semi-shut to prevent escapes.  Then she and the horse need to turn back toward the gate so she can latch it (a two-handed operation), before heading for the barn.  In the other direction, the handler has to fend off the previously turned-out horses while leading the new horse into the paddock with one hand while using the other hand to hold the gate semi-shut.  Then she needs to unhalter the arriving horse and latch the gate.  Rinse and repeat..

In the evening, for dinner feeding and nighttime turnout, Barbara and I do all these chores again in reverse.  In the growing dark.  Over icy, rutted, snow-caked paths.

With everybody turned out, the real work begins.  It’s time to clean stalls.  This is less arduous than at stables where horses are kept inside all night, but it’s still a Herculean labor.  Some horses are tidy and some are slobs.  But they all move their bowels prodigiously and frequently, they all gush small inland seas of urine, and they nearly all trample and soil some of their hay.  Clods of soaked wood-shavings have to be dug out and tossed in the wheelbarrow.  Wet or nasty hay has to be teased away from still-edible strands that can be raked clear of shavings and repiled.  And the poops  — oh, Lord have mercy, the poops . . . They need to be scooped up and then the pitchfork shimmied like a pan of popcorn so that dry, clean shavings can sift back to the floor for reuse.  But the individual turds in each deposit are only loosely bonded, and they’re maddeningly spherical: they roll off the fork (the more so when frozen).  Some get impaled on the end of a tine; others get wedged between tines.  Gus the donkey is small enough that many turds slip between the tines and can’t be picked up no matter how many times you rescoop them. Sandy is super-skilled and efficient, but for a weekend warrior like me, mucking out stalls is time-consuming and awkward.  And spine-twisting.  And arm-tiring.

Nevertheless I’m happy —  literally joyful — to be able to help Sandy out a bit.  Moreover, I truly love doing each and every barn chore, and I wish my musculoskeletal decrepitude didn’t prevent me from doing more.  I adore the aroma of shavings and manure and hay and grain.  I groove on the Zen of focusing solely on one action at a time:  haltering, leading, mucking, bucket filling . . .  They each nourish my soul with deep, serene satisfaction.  I suspect Sandy feels that too.  What’s utterly beyond my ken, though, is how she physically manages it, by herself, twice a day, seven days a week.  She can do it solo in half the time it takes Barbara and me working together.  She's a force of nature.

To some people, women of a certain age — which is everybody at this barn — may look and sound like lightweights.  But step aside, Hercules.  We can mop the barn floor with you.