A Great Gift From My Horse

By Neversummer January 25, 2017 Clicker training, Coyote, Rusty 1 Comment

We got a nice snow yesterday. Not a blizzard, we lacked the usual wind, this was a few good inches of moderately wet snow that fell straight down. Today I got back to working Rusty.

When I brought him out we had to skirt around all the various children sledding. I stopped and he stared, but didn’t spook too bad as they shot down the hill behind him. We worked in the general vicinity for awhile, keeping an eye on the children. They didn’t kill themselves in that amount of time so I figured they were probably fine and we wondered farther away.

Unfortunately in our wanders we came across my sister in law shoveling the in laws sidewalk. I started to go on past but felt too guilty and went to help. I gave Rusty the all done cue then left him to hang out while I helped with the last little bit of shoveling. He walked around the in laws yard for a bit. I warned him he better not poop, we’d both be dead meat. The dogs and chickens upset them when they go in the yard, I can only imagine their upset about a horse.

He got bored with that and left. I looked up occasionally to watch where he was going. He came to a stop way down at the cows feed bunks where a few lagers were cleaning up the mornings feed. The sidewalk cleared I started to walk down towards him. My sister in law asked if he would come if I whistled. I assured her he would not but called him anyway in hopes he might start my way.

He looked up from the feed in the bunk, ears pricked, and stood looking for a moment. Then he took a couple of steps my way. The steps became a trot, then he took off running. At a gallop he came up the driveway, a good ways away maybe a couple hundred yards. All the way to me where he stopped and wallowed in my lavish praise, and lots of food.

Usually if my horses are going to do something in front of an audience it’s going to be bucking me off or ignoring my requests. I don’t think there’s anything better a horse can do for their person than exceed expectations. What a good boy.