A family occasion yesterday when I went to work with Maia the pure bred Arabian foal. Now 9 months old, she is still with her Mum and her brother who watched the proceedings over the door. Maia has had a couple of unfortunate incidents with a headcollar including veterinary visits where she has had injections. Yesterday I worked on gently desensitising her head with my fingers and the scarf and asking her to accept the headcollar voluntarily. Part way through I introduced clicker training and this encouraged her to engage with me. By the end of the session she was accepting her headcollar and even coming up to ask for it to touch her.
Telephone call received 19.1.11 to the effect that Marie had first touched Maia with a feather duster and then put her headcollar on all in under ten minutes in the field.
