11th August, 2010 I can I will

One of those photo-less days when great things have happened. Mystery had her feet trimmed all round by the farrier yesterday. She gave him a good hard sniff because, unlike David, he smells like smoke (I quite like it!) and then she gave him the benefit of the doubt. We worked using timed actions so that it was rather like Mastermind: Your name: Guy Reynolds, and your subject? rasping - you have one minute on rasping starting now....... It worked very well because it meant that she always had her foot put down (i.e. a release) before she chose to take it away either through fear or discomfort. So each foot actually took just three minutes although the whole job took an hour overall. Sensibly, Iona was paying Guy for his time rather than his work.

Next I loaded Jack in to the trailer and taught him that he could turn around in there. We had got stuck in the lorry (not literally) because he couldn't see where he was meant to go and I felt that he would panic if we tried to close the back doors. We will be using full width bars in the trailer and wedging straw bales into the section at the front to stop him even thinking about going over the front bar. I have plenty of time to practice before Saturday and if I don't think he's ready, he won't go. Last time we borrowed a stock trailer.