Useful Cues

Wendy wanted to know whether I always lead Emma or switch off when we go walking....

If we are on the road, I keep both donkeys on the lead.  Ramsey stays at my right side and Emma stays at his.  In the woods, I usually lead Emma and let Ramsey loose.  I can always count on Ramsey, Momma's boy that he is, to never stray far.  He always wants to be with Emma or me so he certainly won't leave the pair of us.  If Tessa is with us, then I always keep Emma on the lead and sometimes, Tessa as well if she is a bit too wound up.  

I do like to let let Emma run loose when I can because she has such fun, but she is much more independent minded and will wander much farther afield.  I really don't think she would run away, but I do worry that she might get in trouble wandering too far.  Because of that, I only let her be loose when we are deep in the woods and nowhere near the road, houses or old barbed wire.

I know there are several folks out there who are interested in walking with their donkeys and I thought I'd share a couple of cues that I have found to be very helpful if you ever find yourself in a position to go donkey trekking.

The first is a kind of "OK" cue.  It is inevitable that you will encounter things along the way that the donkeys will be frightened or wary of.  While working at home to desensitize them to scary stuff is invaluable, it is impossible to desensitize an animal to everything the world has to offer.  I have also found that too much desensitizing work without a positive outlet, is a good way to cause burnout in a horse.  If they are constantly bombarded with stuff they have to "get used to", they will get very sick of work very fast.  I find it much more useful to teach a cue that lets them know that whatever monster they are facing isn't really all that scary.  You can then use that cue as needed while getting on with more fun stuff, like hiking in the woods.

I like to teach this to my horses as well, although it is not as easy as it has been with my donkeys.  A horse's gut-instinct reaction to scary things is to run away.  Before you can give them an OK cue, you have to get them to stop moving.  Donkeys, on the other hand, excel at this.  Their gut-instinct reaction to scary things is to freeze and asses.  While they are assessing is the perfect moment to step in with an "it's OK" cue.  If you have done your homework correctly, they will relax and think, "hey, this is a never-seen-before-monster, but Ma has just given the all-clear cue so it must be OK."  It is a way to teach them how to manage their fear rather that trying to teach them not to fear at all, which is bound to fail at some point no matter how much effort you put into it.

The way I do this is, I believe, a variation of clicker training.  I confess, I am not great at clicker training.  I get tangled up with the clicker and my habits of verbally praising are too ingrained.  Instead of a clicker, I use a voice cue and a treat. 

I start with basic target training combined with a verbal "it's OK".  Once they have that down, I start introducing scary objects and using them as targets.  If I have gotten it right, as soon as they hear, "it's OK", they stop seeing the scary thing as a monster and see it as a target instead.  They go from wary to looking for their goody almost immediately.  After a while, they start to accept that if I say, "it's OK",  then it is OK.  If I use that when they are in their freeze-and-asses mode, I can usually talk them out of being afraid of things.  Very useful.

The other cue that I find invaluable is: "be careful".  This is something Tanner taught me a long time ago.  I tend to talk to my animals quite a lot and, from the time he was a puppy, I would tell Tanner to "be careful" anytime we encountered something that was potentially hazardous.  At some point, I realized that Tanner immediately responded to my unconscious, reflexive warnings.  He had learned to heed my command even though I had been totally unaware of giving one.  Once I realized what was happening, I tried to be a little more purposeful about it, but it is still largely something I do subconsciously.  If I see a threat (such as a porcupine on the trail) before tanner does, I say Be Careful and he will stop, look, examine then ask me for direction.  In the case of porcupines, it's "let's go the other way shall we."

When I started taking the donkeys out in the woods, I made a point of doing the same with them.  If we come to a spot with iffy footing, I infuse my voice with the genuine concern that Tanner ALWAYS responds to and give them the same kind of "be careful" command.  It did not take the donkeys long at all to respond just the way Tanner does, by slowing down, looking hard, smelling hard and looking to me for instruction.  Very, very useful.

Free at Last!

Donkeys are so good.

I took them out yesterday, they have not been out for a walk since the day Tessa punctured her foot on the Golden Rod stem.  The Hemlock woods where we usually go still look like this....

...so I figured we would just go up the driveway and maybe down the road a bit.  They were so good and walking along so nicely with me that we were at the crossroad before I knew it.  I decided to hang a left and just keep going.  The road goes just a little ways and then turns into an unmaintained seasonal road which connects to several of the trails that wind through the hardwoods across from my house.  The snow and ice are gone from those woods and Emma and Ramsey were being so good and having such fun we ended up making the whole loop.

You'd have thought that they had been out working every day rather than walking happily down a road they had never been on before after months of confinement.  No foolishness, no balking, no dragging me around.  Donkeys are so good.

"Really Ma, what did you expect?  Of course we're good....

we may be half the size of the silly horse, but our brains are twice as big."

"SAY mA, YOU AREN'T GOING TO TRY TO MAKE US GO SWIMMING ARE YOU?  tHAT LOOKS PRETTY COLD."

"i'LL STICK WITH CHEWING ON ROCKS."

I am hoping to get the donkeys out for walks at least a few times a week.  Of course, I also want to ride my horse a few times a week and plant a garden and build stairs and and and....

Maybe one of these days I'll just chuck it all and start walking west with a pair of donkeys.  Who knows, I might run into someone else walking with a couple of donkeys along the way. We can stop and share a stump together.

Donkey In The Woods

My dog went over to my friend's place early today so that he could deal with a pigeon infestation (you've heard of using Border Collies for goose patrol?  Well, Tanner also excels at pigeon control and it gladdens his Border Collie soul to deal with such riff-raff).  This left me without my hiking companion and since the idea of hiking in the woods without my dog left me completely adrift, I had to enlist some help.

It surprises me that more people don't recognize the pleasure of hiking with a donkey.  Those old-time prospectors knew what they were doing when they headed off into the hills with just a donkey and a few provisions.  I knew that Emma is very intelligent, but this afternoon she gave me a real demonstration.  Not only did she walk off into the woods with me with no histrionics or balking (in spite of the painted ponies using it as a good excuse to set their brains aside for a bit) she also demonstrated just how much she thinks about her surroundings.

At one point, Emma and I accidentally wound up on opposite sides of a tree and were both brought up short.  After that, every time we approached a tree, she ducked in behind me.  I know people who don't figure things out that quickly.  When the trail widened out, she moved up to my side.  When trees got thick, she followed close.

She carefully watched her footing with every step and if she didn't like what she saw, she would pause until I made a path and then very carefully follow in my footsteps.  At one point we stumbled into a patch of deep snow (which Emma hates, sensible creature that she is).  She took a couple of steps through the stuff on her own, found she didn't like it, and ever so delicately, hopped into my footprints and carefully followed them out.  That kind of thing takes reasoning and thought.   

We were out for about an hour, and Emma never showed any signs of nervousness or anxiety to return to the barn.  When confronted with potentially scary objects, she stopped, observed, assessed, processed and moved on.  I can see why donkeys would make very good riding partners, she would be much safer to ride then a horse.  I could never take an 18 month old horse hiking in the woods without spending a lot of time and energy in prior  training.  And, being out alone like this makes even older, well trained horses nervous.  If you are looking for a good companion to go on long walks with you, who will look out for herself and be good company at the same time, then what you need is a good donkey.