Signals and language

Sis and I just returned from our daily walk--I am trying to make an extra effort for us to do that each day.  She loves it and it's good for me as well, though I need to do a power one without her stopping to sniff--or do worse things.  My observation today was that I'm having to learn to read Sis, the same way I learned Wig.  After such a long time with him, alone, before we got her, I could almost tell what every muscle twitch meant--the whining towards the end of his life I never fully got--but the rest was almost like a conversation between us.  I could tell when he was pissed, feeling stubborn, hurting, happy, depressed--you name it. Now I need to learn Sis's language.

When I asked Sis outside if she wanted to "go", she ran to my car.  When I told her "no, we're not going in the car", she looked sooo disappointed.  I finally realized she thinks "go" means in the car, to the Farm or someplace fun--even just for a ride.  When I said no, she ran back up on the porch thinking she'd goofed.  Once I got that, I asked her if she want to go on a "walk", and clipped on her leash.  Suddenly, we were back in 'bidness and off we went.  We have a ways to go in learning each others language and signals, but we're making definite progress.  We used to have to say a "W" in front of Wigman because he knew the difference between "go" and "walk", and if we didn't take him after we mentioned a walk, he'd make you pay.  And, you'd feel like d-i-r-t, too.  Too soon to know about Sis, other than we know she retaliates by getting into trash cans.  These German dogs....good Lord.

For some reason, that got me thinking about when I was in grade school, and took English riding lessons and jumping with a friend, a couple of days a week after school.  I think I was in about third grade and my instructor assigned me a horse named Herman and he was every bit as bad as he sounds.  He wasn't real big, but what he didn't have in height, he made up for in stubbornness--he was straight up ornery and laaaaaaaazyyyyyyyy.  I used to have to wear English spurs on my black knee boots to every single lesson to wail on Herman.  By the time my lesson was over, my legs were like jelly from squeezing and pounding on his sides and, given that he was already pretty round and roly-poly, I bet he didn't feel half of it.  That's when my instructor told me to get a crop out of the tack room--so I could apply both together.  Herman woke up a tad bit more but not a lot, simply because he didn't have to.  I was simply a gnat on his back, for one hour, so he just did the minimum, no matter what I did.  I also had to ride with double reins--a snaffle and a curb--in order to make him behave. Sometimes my instructor would get on his sorry old self and force him to work, but the minute I got back on, we were right back where we started from.  God, I hated him during a lesson. 

Looking back, graduating from Herman was one of the happiest days of my life.  I think my instructor figured if I could learn to make Herman behave, I could ride anything after that.