Something really interesting happened with Spring Song today.
She had a lesson with Alex Reinfels (he rode her) yesterday so today I wanted to change things up by only playing with her in the arena. I turned her loose and started bringing out toys for us. I put the feed tub with the hole in the bottom in the arena, then stepped both of my feet into it. She was walking around checking things out. I didn’t call to her, but I did say out loud, “I have both feet in the middle.” She and I have played the “in the middle” game many times. She’s rewarded for placing one foot into the middle of the feedtub.
I went to the poles and brought one for her to step sideways over.
I fetched the big ball.
We played with the pole and the ball. I carried the ball to its place in the corner under the stairs and returned to put the pole away. I noticed that Spring Song was standing still. She looked at me and I looked at her. She stayed still. I looked at her front legs. She had both of her front hooves in the middle of the feed tub. I went to her and told her how amazing she is. I gave her a treat. She stood there with both feet in the middle. I’ve never asked her to do this and I’ve never seen her do it before. I told her again how brilliant she is. She was content to stand there, calm, relaxed and pleased that I noticed her accomplishment. Finally I asked her to follow me and she stepped lightly out of the feed tub.
I was telling Alex Reinfels about Spring Song yesterday afternoon before I wrote the story. Every once in a while I get a hint from the horses of the amazing amount of detail they take in and understand. I don’t tap into that very often. I told Alex that I’d just bet that Zelador can spell many words, but the question is, “Will he spell them when I ask him to?”
I did feel that Zelador was getting bored with ‘A’ on the day he played with the blue box and touched every ‘A’ in the stall except the one he knew I wanted him to touch.
Guess it’s time to call my animal communicator, Lauren Bode, and see when she can come to the farm! Several years ago when she was here we were standing in front of Zelador’s stall. I asked her if I was being really silly in considering teaching the alphabet to him. She quickly responded, “He says he already knows the alphabet.”
