Cole's New Trick

Cole's New Trick

The other evening, Cole had the day off, so I turned him out to play.  He rolled and bucked and then he just stood and watched me.  I walked along the outside of the fence.  He walked alongside me on the inside doing his silly walk.  I clicked and treated him for it--giving him his treat through the fence.  That wasn't his new trick.  He does that all the time.

I decided that he must want me to come in and do tricks with him.  I was right.  He did silly walk, bow and follow the balls that I kicked.  He does a great at-liberty side pass, too.  Cole just loves doing tricks.

After a while, I left the ring.  Starry and Dante were in the neighboring ring, and I wanted to check on them.  I saw Cole was just watching me.  I walked over to Cole and tried to see if he would run along the fence with me.  Sometimes, if I could get him going, I can stop and he will just keep running on his own.

I was on the outside and he was on the inside.  I trotted.  He decided to trot along.  Good--I got him going.  I stopped--and he stopped.  I didn't ask him to, he just stopped and looked at me.  I couldn't resist.  I clicked and treated him.  He just invented a new trick.  Once is all it takes with Cole.  After that, all we did was practice.

Now, this being Cole, he isn't content to just trot.  No, he had to do his cute Morgan buggy horse trot--arched neck, high steps, flowing tail.  I am talking really cute.  As soon as I stopped, he stopped too.  No verbal cues necessary.  He got his cues from watching my legs.  He did it perfectly every single time.  Of course, I clicked and treated him.  We kept doing it and doing it.  I thought that once we got to the other side and he was facing the gate that he would take off running--nope.  He wanted to do his new trick.

I just had to show Kevin.  He was coming outside just as I was going to get him.  I showed him Cole's new trick, but he didn't seem all that impressed.  He said Starry would do it, too.  So, we tried.  Starry would walk a step or two, stop and look at us.  There was no trotting, no looking cute and no synchronized halts.  I thought I'd give it a try with Dante.  He just walked away.

Cole is such an amazing horse who just loves to perform.  I wonder what he will come up with next?