Driving Lessons

[Sanhestar]

Btw - I did some basic loading training (into a van) with Cisco yesterday and was thinking of you when he started to snatch two bites from the hedge around my property.

To get him in position for loading into the van we had to move very close to the edge of the property which borders on the main street running through our village. Depending in the time of day there is signifikant traffic. He is used to cars going by but yesterday we had snow in the early morning and when I started training in the late morning, the snow was starting to melt on the street, causing the car tires to make a sissling/hissing sound which disturbed him to no small amount.

He did his best to keep his cool but I saw his thigh muscle tremble and him getting tense. So I asked him to come back towards the barn with me. He could not respond immediately, took a short sniff to the hedge (nothing fancy on it because of frost, wind and all leaves blown off), took two bites of really pitifull twigs and then followed me back into the property.

This made it again much more clearer that what we might often perceive as nastiness could in fact be an attempt to calm down by doing some "comfort eating" - we humans do this, too, I think :-)

This also corresponds with something I whitnessed on New Year when all around us the fireworks were going off like crazy: some of the goats started chewing cud while their eyes and pupils were as wide as possible (stress, anxiety). They also didn't chew in that relaxed, chilled manner they do when they lay down but much more frenzied.