I walked Newt out to the arena. It was not windy but he was full of himself. It has been windy the past several times Newt has been to the arena. The wind excites him. Possibly he has begun to think that he should be excited when he goes to the arena rather than just when it is blowing. Also he is looking good and I expect it is from the regular workouts. It does not seem like we are doing a lot but it is regular. He and I have come a long way since January or whenever it was that I said “You are not paying attention to me. I am going to pay more attention to you and see if that makes you pay more attention to me.” I changed my attitude / demeanor and, bam!, he changed his attitude. That’s all there was to it. Our relationship is much better now. We will make a good team. I don’t know if he will ever make a good trail horse to ride on the Buffalo but I am pretty sure it won’t be this year. He will make a very good horse to ride in the arena. He has plenty of energy and seems to like to show off. Anyway, there was plenty of bucking and kicking on the lunge. I was able to control him and calm him down. He did walk a couple of rounds in each direction before we stopped lunging. One time when he was carrying on, I noticed that I had forgotten my helmet. I used good judgement and did not ride in the arena without my helmet. It may have been a good idea even it I had my helmet. We went back to the barn. I got my helmet. We rode a little in the round pen. He did good.
I learned the importance of paying attention to animals from Joe Hefley. Joe and I bird hunted together. Joe was always having trouble loosing his dog. Joe did have some skills with bird dogs. He could make one hunt dead (look for a dead bird) better than anybody. He would really get into it and all the dogs would be looking hard, pulling sticks out of the brushpile, digging. They all wanted to find the dead bird. Then we would find it and walk on. This was where I learned from Joe. Most of the time he would be looking at the cover, trying to remember where he found the birds last time, anything but look at his dog. And I noticed his dog would stop and look at Joe but Joe was trying to find birds and paid no attention to his dog. Pretty soon, the dog paid very little attention to Joe. The dog, Spot was his name, would get to hunting, wander over the hill or on the other side of the thicket, and then he was lost. Joe had long legs and a voice like thunder. When his dog was lost, he would take three strides and yell “Spot, Here Spot!” and then do it again. It drove everybody crazy and we would wander off. One time in Texas Joe got to yelling for Spot and pretty soon everybody, dogs and people, were a long way from Joe. In new country Joe was always worried about getting lost so he was glad to see us when Spot came in and he stopped yelling. Joe said “John, Spot finally heard me and came back.” I said “Hell Joe everybody in west Texas heard you every time you yelled.” Anyway, I learned from Joe. I would watch my dogs. When they looked my way, I always did something to acknowledge the contact. I’d whistle or move off in a new direction, anything to communicate that we’d made contact. And it works. My dogs would always hunt with me. That is why I told Newt that I would start paying more attention to him. And that’s why he started paying more attention to me.