Over the weekend, Mick took his usual walks for exercise and for the dogs' exercise. And for one of his walks, he took Sean.
Sean is pretty good now at walking. There was a time when he was small, that he didn't like to walk. Instead of walking where we had to go, he would just sit down. It didn't matter where we were, he'd just plunk himself down and not budge. He was small enough then, that Mick or I could pick him up and carry him on our shoulders when that happened.
But over the years, with practice which started at his Danish deaf-blind school, he got better and better at covering distances. An older residential student at the school loved to jog. He and his aide would go to a track and jog for an hour or so almost every day. Sean has never liked to jog. But he has learned to walk because at the school, he and his housemates had to walk together across a big field to get from their residence to the actual school.
These days, Sean's care taker takes Sean for a couple of walks every day: to and around a couple of playgrounds where they not only walk, but practice sign language and play on the playground equipment.
Mick had left the dogs in the house, and taken Sean. The two of them had disappeared over the hill when I decided to take my horse, Rosa, out for a little spin, and catch up with the walkers. It was a nice sunny day, as are most days here in Colorado, even in winter. I put a halter and lead rope on my horse and just got on her bareback. I enjoy riding bareback a lot. It provides a freedom in movement that riding with a saddle just doesn't come close to! We took off down the driveway and I headed out on the dirt road. This dirt road runs in a big circle so I knew we'd find them somewhere along the way.
When I caught up to them, Sean put his hand on the horse's shoulder as she walked next to him. His face lit up with his big grin as we walked alongside him. Now my horse is very short. So her strides are quick. Walking slowly is something I have had to train her to do because it does not come naturally to her. She was trained to gait at her very quick speed from the moment someone was on her. I have had to slowly bring her thinking around to the fact that slow walking is actually very OK to do. So here she was, walking pretty darn slowly. Sean walks slowly anyway, even when he takes someone's arm, simply because he can't see the ground below him very well. He doesn't know the surface until he's walked it a few times.
But when I rode next to him, and he had his hand on the horse, Sean really picked up the pace. Rosa was doing her best to walk slowly while Sean did his best to keep up with her.
At one point Sean started tugging on my hand and it was a bit unbalancing for me, so I rode on up ahead. Then I let Sean and Mick catch up again and we continued side by side for a while. When Sean started tugging at my hand again, I just rode ahead until we got home.
Mick told me afterwards that Sean really kept going at a faster pace as long as Rosa was next to him. Sean knew I was riding of course, so I'm not sure whether he was trying to keep up with me, or with Rosa, but whichever, it was an interesting experience. He definately wanted to keep up and he moved faster to do so. When I rode on up ahead, Sean slowed right down again. We are not sure about why he would tug at me. We'll have to think about that for a while.
Next weekend we'll try all this again, weather permitting. Not only is it fun for the three of us to be out together, but it's good for Sean to pick up his pace too.
Nancy
