Life solidified somehow. Like the flow I’d been going with started to settle. It still moved, and I moved with it, but it didn’t scare me anymore.
I worked where I was needed, but most of my time was used in training. Apparently I had a knack for it. Nothing like Hawk—that man was half horse himself—but I guess I had something innate that helped, too.
Gemma was happy with the easier cases and some of the rehabilitation, while I took on some of the younglings so Hawk could concentrate on the specific training for other people’s horses. Hawk and I worked together, too, with desensitization and the agility course, which we had already started to plan an extension for.
People were interested in having more solid trail riding horses, and we could definitely both make safe alternative obstacles nextto the course we already had, but also figure out a route in the woods behind the events barn. We just needed to have the time for mapping that first, and right now Hawk didn’t have it.
He’d taken off with Russ for a nearly two-week journey across half the country and back. They’d hit a few auctions on the way and then end up at an appaloosa breeder in Kentucky who had what Hawk’s client, who the training barn called Goddamn Cahill at this point, wanted. They just weren’t willing to part with the mare that easily, so Hawk wanted to check some auctions first. Just in case. He was hesitant to take a horse out of a place where it was loved, which I understood. If they didn’t want to sell, would it be fair to insist and keep offering whatever he needed to until they caved? I wasn’t sure about the ethics of that, either.
Either way, Gemma was in charge, but she’d told me this was a joint endeavor for both of us, and I had the same responsibility and rights she had for the time Hawk was gone. It felt good to be trusted like that, but boy was it kind of intimidating, too.
I’d begun to train Ezio who had recovered from his gelding, and he was turning out to be a smart, easygoing horse. Once he was fully grown, he’d make a perfect stock horse, but I’d seen Bodhi visit him a few times, so I was pretty sure he’d end up being Bodhi’s eventually.
It was late in the afternoon, but since Crew had had something to do in town, he was going to pick up Payton from daycare on his way back. Since I didn’t need to go anywhere, I’d decided to stretch my day a bit and work with Rowdy a little more.
Hawk had almost barred me from taking on the gelding. Not because he was too difficult for me, but because he’d realized I’d sort of used Rowdy as penance.
“Rowdy doesn’t deserve being something negative to you,” he’d told me the second time he’d seen me struggle with the gelding in the arena.
That had clicked my brain into a different position, and I’d felt ashamed. Rowdy was just a horse. A tricky one, but still an animal who didn’t know any better. He’d just gone through a gate that I’d forgotten to close properly.
And that’s why I was in the arena with him.
I’d decided to try clicker training him, just to see if we could find a good starting point. Our sessions were short, because his attention span was atrocious, but we didn’t just work in the arena. The previous day, I’d taken him to the agility course just to see what he’d do, and he’d had a great time exploring without much direction.
Today, though, I was trying to teach him how to pick up items for me. Well, I was at the point where he was figuring out that the click-and-treat combination meant good things.
I had a bandana with a tennis ball inside it that I used for a target. It had taken Rowdy one session to realize clicker meant treats, but it was hilarious watching him figure out what the causation was between the bandana and the rest of it.
He nosed the item, and I clicked immediately, giving him a treat. He munched on a piece of carrot, then asked for more.
“Pick it up,” I told him instead. I’d decided to skip the “touch it” command, because I would need that for other things later. He was having enough trouble with one thing.
I let him puzzle it out, and clicked and gave him a treat as soon as he repeated touching the thing. Two more tries, and suddenly it was as if a lightbulb turned on.
He took a treat, then immediately lowered his head and booped the bandana with his nose.
“Good boy!”
I grabbed the target and made sure he was paying attention, then tossed it away maybe ten feet from us.
Rowdy snorted.
“Pick it up.”
He looked for a treat, and I didn’t go for the treat pouch attached to my belt. He puzzled. Then moved, and figured it out again.
“You’re such a good boy!” I patted him on the neck and gave him a few more treats. Then I picked up the target and let him mouth at it like I’d done in the beginning. When he tried with his teeth, I clicked and rewarded. Tomorrow, if I had time, I’d try to combine the things, but today, we were both done.
“Hi, Daddy!” Payton called from the fence. “What are you doing?”
“He’s clicker-training Rowdy,” Crew explained as he helped Payton climb up until he was leaning his little elbows on the top rung.
“Oh, is Rowdy the one who scared the moms and the babies?”
Little ears, I swear….
“Yeah, that’s right. He’s a rowdy boy.” Crew smiled.
