My Lesson in the Mountains
OK, I’ve had my breakfast, a good roll, and a long nap in the shade. A good day so far. Now I have a bit of time before dinner, so I’l finish my story about yesterday’s lesson in the mountains. (If you missed it, look at the post before this one, in which I tell about getting there, and walking to the arena.)
Before we could play in the arena we needed to open a gate. It had a nice big lever-thing on it, that I could’ve worked with my nose, but my human wanted to do it herself. So we turned this way and that until she could reach the lever, and we went in. Of course then she wanted to close the gate, too. I helped a little by pushing it with my nose.
The arena was a nice place! I don’t like hard, rocky ground, and the arena had soft, course sand that was great for walking on. And there was a good breeze, so even on a hot day it was easy to work a little.
We walked around in a few directions, for no good reason I could see. I kept looking around at things outside the arena, which were more interesting. There was a machine on a trailer, and some tractor things nearby. Further away I could see houses and cars, and really far away were miles and miles of mountains. But my human wanted me to concentrate on where we were walking, and to not look around at all the stuff.
One end of the arena was sort of scary, and I didn’t want to walk too close to the rail there. There were some things just outside the arena, and bushes where lions could hide, so I was extra-careful there.
She kept on with wanting me to pay attention. She’d ask me to turn, and I would turn, but she wanted me to be thinking about turning, too. Looking and thinking about the direction we were going, not checking out the scenery. I got a little better about that as we practiced. It is easier to turn gracefully if your mind is on turning, I’ll admit.
After we’d done some walking we got to trot. With the soft sand and cool breeze it was easy, and I trotted right along. But my human kept doing things like bouncing, or leaning forward, so I’d stop right away, to help her out. She figured out what I was doing pretty quickly, and just sat instead of trying to post, and I was able to keep trotting then.
She kept asking me to stop with the reins, too, then asking me to go again right away while she was still asking me to stop. If you think that sounds confusing, it’s because it is confusing. I was taught that when your rider picks up the reins, you should stop. So I don’t know what she was trying to do, but eventually she figured out that she should stop picking up the reins if she wanted me to keep going. She’s starting to make a lot of progress.
We did some trotting in a smaller round arena, too, with no reins at all. I can trot in a very small circle, you should know! And our instructor is pretty quick about getting out of the way when she needs to. My human turned me with her legs sometimes, and sometimes I just went where I wanted. One time I couldn’t decide where to go, so I just walked into the fence with my head.
Next we went back into the big arena, and this time our instructor rode me! She’s a good rider, and doesn’t wobble around, so it’s very easy to carry her. She noticed that I’m very big, and said all kinds of other nice things about me, too.
We walked and trotted a little, and did a lot of little circles. It seems that she wants me to relax my head and neck in the direction she’s asking me to turn, instead of pulling the other way with all my might. We had to work on that a little, because pulling on things has always worked for me before, so that’s what I think I should do. I mean, if you want to get loose from something, you just pull hard until it breaks or gives up, and you’re fine, right? But she didn’t break or give up, she just kept pulling until I turned my head, and then she stopped pulling right away, and said what a good boy I was and patted me. It worked that way every time she asked, so I went along with after the first few times. I’m still not sure that I shouldn’t pull on things, though… This is some new way of doing things, I guess, but I need more practice to really understand what it is.
When we were done with riding my human took my saddle off, and the sidepull thing, and left me to look around and roll and play for little while. Then I got hosed off and had a drink before getting in the trailer. The ride home was nice, and I was glad to see my donkey buddies.
Must think more about this new not-pulling-on-things deal… Maybe I’ll try pulling again next time, to see if that’s really what I’m supposed to do. We’ll see.
