Off to work with Sunny and Jo at Bristol today. Sunny is a foster pony from the Moorland Mousie Trust and was trained using the foal handling techniques I helped to set up there. Just four months later, he can be be caught in a field with lots of other ponies in it, leads pretty well and copes with the hustle and bustle of a busy but sympathetic yard. There are still a few gaps in his training - he is still worried about people being on his off side at the front and is troubled by going through doors and gateways. Jo's body language and understanding of advance and retreat is well honed already. He seems to be quite sore in his poll, likely to be attributable to having been tied up to be branded and inspected, and this makes him wary of being touched around his ears and a bit wary of the headcollar still. We tried clicker training for a short time to see if we could create a good association with the headcollar but he became very avid and indeed aggressive about the food quite quickly. I understand that he has been possessive over food before today and we agreed that clicker would not be appropriate for him now - if ever. There is probably too great a conflict between his really wanting the food and yet really not wanting the headcollar. He copes better when allowed to "fish" for the noseband rather than it being imposed on him. Better, we concluded to recap over some of the work that has already been done and to consolidate it. By the end of the day (with gaps!) he was leading in and out of his stable very calmly and walking into his alarmingly muddy field without taking off. I did have an interesting skiing incident with him earlier - just waiting for my gold medal!!
"It was really a worthwhile and rewarding day - thank you!"JA 24.2.10
"Sunny was a little star whilst I was away and is now letting me, Carly and Kim put head collar on, turn out and be caught in the field and doing the gate and even coming to call in the field.
When I went to get him in yesterday I called him and he did his first whinny - oh he is soooo scrummy! He is so much more relaxed and chilled now. I groomed him on the weekend and he let me go all over his offside for about 10 minutes! "31.3.10
