Zelador, Zeloso and Kye have played the first three notes of “Three Blind Mice” on the three-note piano. Yippee!!! We’re going to add something to the keys: a round plastic disc that extends beyond each key, towards the horse, just in case a tooth tries to come in contact with the piano. It will hit the plastic instead of making a mark on the front edge of the newly painted piano key!

Ciara and Brenda had not seen Zelador do his “card” trick. I placed him on the pedestal. The two ladies were ten feet away and stood about ten feet apart. I picked up the “Brenda” card, showed it to Zelador and took it to Brenda. She held it in front of her so Zelador could see it. I did the same thing with Ciara. I collected the cards. Bill was with us, too, so I gave him the “Bill” card, etc.

With the people behind the pedestal, I placed the three cards upright on the arena floor in front of the pedestal. I called to Zelador, “Please pick up the ‘Ciara’ card and take it to Ciara.” Whoosh! Off the pedestal, to the cards, got the right one, carried it to Ciara.

She told him he was WONDERFUL. He agreed!

Back to the pedestal. I repeated the exercise, once for Brenda and once for Bill. Ciara had a sort of “hypnotized” look and voiced a one-word evaluation of the game, “Strange.”

A few days later I was talking with Brenda. She said that as she stood in the arena while Zelador was fetching her card she tried to have no thoughts. She didn’t want to give off body language signs. She was stunned when he came to her with the card. Turned out that Ciara was trying the same thing with the same result. Interesting!

In the book “The Beautiful Jim Key” it was mentioned several times that when people left the performance they looked like they had been hypnotized. Apparently they had this dazed look on their faces. I told Ciara about it and she said that’s the look people get when they’ve seen a remarkable movie. You notice “the look” as you’re walking along the theatre hallway going to see your movie and the mesmerized ones are coming towards you, exiting. She suggested that they were trying to process what they’d seen.

I thought about that and remembered some people who came to see the boys and the people sort of sat there like dumb bells. No flicker of a laugh, no applause, no nothing. Hmmm….I now realize that they were stunned. Zelador has over 80 tricks/games/liberty movements in his repertoire and dozens of them were shown to this audience. In contrast, earlier this week my vet (who has seen the boys over the years and had plenty of time to absorb their accomplishments) saw Zelador “Catch the Towel” and bring me a tissue when I started to sneeze. She was laughing out loud!

Other Updates:

Blue and the carpet:
Two days ago Blue rolled out the carpet, inch by inch, pushing just a little bit with his nose. Yesterday he rolled out the carpet, moving it about ten inches with each push!

Marcus and the carpet:
Marcus is able to keep his head down, gobbling up treats and sort of presses his nose against it to unroll it.

Canada’s Got Talent:
I received an email a few days ago and it mentioned our audition time (Friday September 30 at 16:00) and that acts with large animals should bring a DVD of the audition. We’re filming the Equine Orchestra Sunday at 5:00!!!!!!