30th September, 2011 Pretty Pollyanna

Today it was off towards Longleat to meet a horse that was bred by the gypsies before being sold to her present owner. She's not a traditional gypsy cob, her ears are more like those of a Mawari horse. Unfortunately she can't be ridden, at least for now, because of medical problems but we were able to have a lovely groundwork session with her. She was very pleasant to work with.

28th September, 2011 I adore Amador

Practising the L-shaped poles

Ready to load

A quick exit

Slowly slowly

Time to visit Amador again this evening. He had forgotten nothing of his last session and backed out of the trailer step by step very carefully. It was then time to try to have some influence on the way he unloads when taken out through the front door.At present his owners have had to let him go first as he always rushes and leaps off the ramp. By using the panels in a right hand curve and having a handler on the inside as well as the outside, it was possible to ask him to take a step to the left before he exits and then a gentle turn to the right as he negotiates the doorway so that doesn't bang his right hip as he goes out. This means he is less likely to reinforce his need to leap. By very gradually reducing the space he has available when he has left the trailer it is also possible to slow his exit down; whilst not being that close that they provide a physical barrier, the panels provide a mental barrier.

By the end of the session he was walking off much more slowly AND putting all four feet on the front ramp. We need to repeat this once more and make sure that it all still works when the panels are taken away altogether and that he handler can actually walk out just ahead of him without fear of injury. 

28th September, 2011 Microchips

First headcollar

Peechay has his microchip inserted today. Although he was fine, he bled quite a lot and clearly felt some pain as it went in. This piece of kit, a statutory requirement these days, is of no use nor ornament to the pony. Giving no visible deterrent to theft, it would only lead to his recovery if he were actually checked for a chip by the police, port or slaughter house. Given that the police are not that good at distinguishing one pony from another, horse theft isn't at the top of their agenda and many forces don't have a microchip reader it's unlikely that he would be found if stolen. It is also a useless for indentification out on the Forest itself where the ponies live in large and ever changing groups of mixed ownership. As a microchip cannot be read from more than a metre away they are no use whatsoever to the agisters or the owners of the ponies themselves. Peechay is one of many bay roan foals thrown by the same stallion. The only way I can tell him apart from the others is that he still tends to be with his mother and Blue.

I started his halter training today and, having touched him since he was born and spent time gently desensitising his head over the last few weeks, it took just seconds to put the headcollar on using the No Fear No Force technique of going over the neck first. I put it on and took it off three times and then turned ghim back out on to the Forest. 

28th September, 2011 Reaction no reaction

The current state of Chancer's sarcoid

The third BCG injection

The good news is that Chancer's sarcoid is starting to react to the BCG injections of which he had the third today. These are the injections recommended by sarcoid expert professor Derek Knottenbelt from Liverpool University. Apparently it takes an average of five injections to make an impact on this type of sarcoid and the next one will be due in four weeks time. Darling Chancer is only lightly sedated to cope with these procedure and he dutifully falls asleep and doesn't react at all while Amy repeatedly injects the lesion from a variety of angles.

27th September, 2011 Glorious Guilda

Guilda called in for a session this afternoon and had her first canter out on the Forest. I first worked with Guilda on 12th November, 2010 and have worked with her on 24 occasions in total. That equates to just five weeks of five sessions a week if she had come in for more intensive training. It's been an interesting experiment for Jenny and I, to see just how much difference it makes, both for and against, to work with horses as and when. The advantages have been that we have been able to work steadily without Guilda needing to live in and her owner has been able to spread the cost over a number of months (whether she needed to or not). This has kept Guilda really sweet and willing, enjoying her education and taking everything in her stride. Hopefully it means that she will stay that way and that she should be less likely to become injured or sour. The downside has been that we have sometimes had to repeat work or at least overlap sessions to make sure that nothing has changed since the last time we saw her -  it should be that way anyway. The disadvantage in other cases has been that owners have not always been able to do their 'homework' because of time or skill constraints. In Guilda's case she has been led out and about and long reined occasionally and she has also been out to a few shows keeping her mind and body ticking over. The other downside is that it can seem as if the starting process is taking forever but when a like for like comparison is made, it can be seen that the pony is making just as much progress as if he were being worked with more regularly. We have been lucky that Guilda's owner has not put us under any pressure and has no financial or competitive urge to make us hurry up; some of the delays have been hers!  She has also been keeping her own skills up by having regular riding lessons with June Simmonds to make sure that she is ready to take over from us. 


Jenny and I are having a break from starters at least for a while. I am very happy to help prepare horses for starting including everything from groundwork, desensitisation, long reining and everything else that needs doing. I am also happy to point people in the direction of those very few trainers who with starters without resorting to violence and gadgets - i.e. those that work without fear or force. Having brought a horse up without smacking him, it's really hard for people to find someone they can trust not to do so. I am also happy to work with people who want to start their own horses where it is safe to do so and they have the skills to do the work themselves if supported carefully.

26th September, 2011 Wight link

No need to tie the wallabies down, sport

Crane

Penguins - it's moulting season and they seem vaguely embarassed.

A weekend of total relaxation on the Isle of Wight. David and I went to the Seaview Wildlife Encounter where people are allowed to stroke the wallabies providing they don't go off the path. in this way, the wallabies can decide whether they want human company or not. Bit like the New Forest ponies then. Lots of lovely birds too including some very noisy ducks that you are allowed to feed. Visitors buy bags of grain as they go through the entrance and I wondered whether I could introduce this for my horses!

Wouter

 Over the weekend we met up with good friends and clients, Carol, Kate and Andrea and I went out for a lovely ride on the wonderful Wouter today. He was a pleasure to ride and I was able to take in the scenery from what seemed like a great height. In fact he is only 15.2, Carol tells me, but he feels a lot bigger because of his fabulous head carriage.

Wouter appeared in the last Listening Post of which Heather Moffat (Enlightened Equitation) said:

"IH has surpassed itself this time with such interesting articles! It is probably the only magazine I read cover to cover!!"
To make sure you get your copy of the last edition and all future editions, join IH through the website: www.intelligenthorsemanship.co.uk

Natural head-carriage

22nd September, 2011 Animal Magic

Donkey!!!!

Ponies -  they're alright...

Small Indian pony...?

Head lowering for a clickered treat

What's your name and where you from?

Today I was delighted to be asked by Amanda Barton to act as a second pair of eyes as to why her beuatiful Warmblood should be so worried about other animals. This is a horse that stands absolutely calmly next to a cattle grid as traffic streams across it. She is fine while the other animals are still and close by but if she sees them move quickly in the distance and then disappear out of sight she becomes excited and upset. We have now combined our thoughts and she's going to make a few little changes to see if they help. After that, we have a Plan B to look forward to.

"Mag was fab this morning.  I marched out until I got a stitch and she walked past loads of horses. They were not running around like yesterday but we saw loads and the herd with the miniatures was on the move again.  She was about 75% better than yesterday. The most interesting thing was that when she saw the pony that she sniffed yesterday in the distance she licked and chewed right away and put her head right down.  She was pretty much totally fine for the whole of the rest of the walk after that. We went twice as far as yesterday as she was doing so well."AB (23rd September, 2011)

Off this afternoon to do a mass foothandling on Puck and his sisters as it won't be long before the farrier visits. Puck was also long reined for the first time and did very well.

22nd September, 2011 Cleft Stick

And so the fun with the insurance company has started over Chancer's various treatments. There has been no point in claiming for the injury to his leg as the cost of treatment fell below the £250 excess although of course, I have had to declare it. This injury has resolved itself completely and it will be interesting to see whether his legs get excluded on the next occasion.

For the other two, I have been asked when I first noticed the problem. So, when is a lump not a lump and when is a loss of condition a real loss? These are both gradual processes and I think we probably notice them subconsciously first. If I reported every lump and bump that Chancer has, I'd be on the phone to the insurance company every day and my definition of a loss of condition is a lot fatter than many Throughbreds - it was more a stary coat, a lack of interest in life and just being far too docile; nothing I could really put my finger on as, there, that is a loss of condition. However, when Lindy came to work with me, she agreed that he wasn't quite right and so when the vet was out, I took the opportunity to say what do you think. She agreed too.She also felt that the lump was something more sinister. So here I am, several hundreds of pounds down the road waiting to see is my insurance company will pay up or not. And whether they do or not, I anticipate that they are likely to exclude gastric ulcers (which he didn't have) and sarcoids (which he could acquire more of) next year. We'll see...

21st September, 2011 No going back

Happy to back up when only his front feet have stepped up on to the ramp

Absolutely stuck and mentally unable to back up once his back feet have gone in.

Carefully backing out, step by step.

After an early morning visit to Anna for her regular foot trim, it was off to see a Lusitano stallion called Amador. Amador was imported from Portugal by road and by sea and has proved to be a lovely riding horse. He's certainly a bright boy. Although he has always loaded very willingly and travels well, he cannot leave the trailer without leaping the front ramp banging his hip or shoulder every time. He absolutely refuses to back out of the trailer and appears to be very afraid of doing so. This can happen when a horse has never been taught that he can back out in the first place (people have this bizarre idea that backing a horse out of a trailer 'teaches' them to back out when they don't want to load), has been backed out of a step-down trailer; others may have been hit to make them load and then are not keen to back out towards a perceived threat. Amador's owner is keen to rectify this situation so that he she has both options available to her - after all, she has two ramps!

The first thing that was noticeable with Amador was that he isn't all that keen to back up on the ground even though he backs up easily when ridden; his owner says she just has to think back. When a horse is afraid, his natural, instinctive, automatic response to being pushed is to push back and if pulled, to pull back. This tends to be even more ingrained in stallions that use this into-pressure response to engage with their foe. Having backed him up a little and got him a lot lighter by not engaging with his body at all,i.e. using body language as a cue, we used the L-shaped poles to move him around forwards, backwards and sideways and ask us to trust us to manoeuvre him in this way, step by step.


When it came to loading, Amador was happy to back off again when only his front legs had gone on to the ramp, however, once he had committed his back legs, he felt there was no going back! Funnily enough he is not the first Iberian horse I have met with this issue - Raf was the same. Rather than engage with him physically by pushing him hard on the chest or pulling hard on the Dually, I kept up a consistently light ask and rewarded every step back with a click and treat - even if it was actually a repeated step because he had gone forward again. Bit by bit he worked out what he needed to do and gradually he was willing to place one back foot over the lip of the trailer onto the ramp, move it forward again and then try with the other foot. I took my time and 'thought' about him lifting up his withers and engaging his hindquarters and eventually he found the courage to take first one foot and then the other onto the ramp itself. I rewarded him every step of the way and made sure that I kept his head over to the right so that his legs would truly be in the centre of the ramp as he backed up. Once out he was given a bonus handful of pony nuts and then asked to load again.

The second time he backed out a little more fluidly and looked less worried and on the third occasion he backed out relatively confidently. We will practice this again next week and then start to work on asking him to unload through the front door.

 "Thank you so very much for today. I feel a lot happier that we are making progress and will soon have Amador unloading without risking life and limb on either of us." LB

19th September, 2011 Honorary Auntie

Walking in Memphis....

I am ever hopeful of being asked to be an honorary Auntie or Horse Godparent to Memphis particulary as it was me that came up with his name. Trouble is, every time I see him, that Cher song goes round and round my head and becomes an Ear Worm for the rest of the day. Here we are teaching him to lead using a quarter rope which is most appropriate given that he is a Quarter Horse. An amenable little soul, he takes to things very easily and is happy walking towarda photographer. I'm leading his Mum, Philadelphia.

"I loved the session with both of them and it was so lovely to see Memphis getting the right start.  It's something we haven't been able to give our other horses  and the difference between him and his parents at halter breaking is shocking really, he was just so calm and cool about the whole thing!" Alessa 25.9.11

Off to my own horses. Jack still loves jumping and, after picking his feet out, he volunteered to go and jump the jump all on his own.

Just gorgeous

Finally off to Bransgore to go and meet a daughter of Carnaval Drum. This huge Warmblood is allegedly only 16.2 hh but towered over me. She can sometimes be a handful on the ground but today worked beautifully through the groundwork exercises - like a very tall New Forest pony.

17th September, 2011 Slow down or go round.

An accident waiting to happen

"A yellow-and-black triangular sign appears by the roadside. It says: ‘Animal casualty here within the last week’.  Another pony hit by a car in the New Forest.It is an all-too-familiar story. And it is especially poignant at this time of year: as the foals are born the risk of accidents increases.New Forest ponies have no road-sense and they will wander out in front of traffic without warning. Foals can be skittish and, if they suddenly realise they are separated from their mothers, they will make a dash for it regardless of the road conditions. Sadly they do not know the Green Cross Code.

Around 100 animals are injured or killed on the roads of the New Forest each year. These are not just statistics: each lost animal means distress for its owner, for the Agister who attends the scene, and for the driver who may suffer damage to a vehicle or worse.What can be done? Organisations including the New Forest National Park Authority, the Verderers, the Forestry Commission and the Police work together on campaigns to raise awareness and reduce the death toll.

The temporary triangular road-signs highlight animal accident sites, warning drivers of blackspots. A credit card-size animal emergency hotlines card tells drivers whom to contact if they see an animal accident or if they are involved in one themselves. A free car sticker encourages careful driving to safeguard ponies. Animal safety messages are promoted widely in Forest leaflets, on websites, in talks and even in community radio adverts." Quoted from the National Park Authority

BUT still it does no good. Three foals have been killed within 8 days and just 0.4 miles of each other on the B3078 Fordingbridge to Cadnam Road close to Deadman's Hill. 

Perhaps the driver of vehicle registration number E1 DER would care to explain to me why they still think it is okay to speed across the Forest, repeatedly overtaking other vehicles that are keeping to the speed limit.

17th September, 2011 How long is a piece of string?

"Knots weaken the rope in which they are made. When knotted rope is strained to its breaking point, it almost always fails at the knot or close to it, unless it is defective or damaged elsewhere."

When someone asks me how long it might take to get a horse over a particular problem or trained to do a certain task, its tempting to respond, "well, how long is a piece of string?" So much depends on the nature of the string, not just its actual length but whether there are knots and twists in it, how tight they are and how robust and pliable the string is and what it is made from. What was it's intended use?  Is it old and frayed or young and malleable; has it been left out to cope with the elements? Not only that, it will then depend on your dexterity and quiet determination to undo the knots without damaging the material; your ability to undo new knots and twists which it is in it's very nature to acquire if left untended or to its own devices.

The key is to find the very end of the string and to start to unravel it, methodically working your way along it's length and tackling each twist and turn leaving it neatly coiled and not under immense tension. Fortunately most string is readily straightened out and once the first knots and twists are loosened it all gets much easier but sometimes it is like looking at a plate of sphaghetti and you're not even sure there is only one piece of string. The knots may be fiddly and intricate and the string falls easily back into the same kinks through years of habit. Then it can be frustrating and long winded, like working in freezing temperatures with no mittens and blunt fingernails. Nevertheless the same painstaking, methodical approach works rather than attacking it with a pair of scissors and affecting a temporary and weaker repair.

17th September, 2011, The Man with the Golden Helmet

Early canter transition

Out and about in Ashford Forest

Returning to the trailer

Would you like a leg up Jim?

Happily on board

Things are going slowly but surely with Theoden. Jim is encountering his 'no' much less often and he is starting to offer his transitions much more readily. People keep asking me why I am not working with him myself - the answer is simple, when he bucks I come off and I really don't want him to learn that it works. Jim can get on and stay on and yet rides with tact and diplomacy. Finding someone who works with the same values as me and isn't going to hit Theoden is really important to me. It's all too easy to turn your back on a horse that has gone to school and to pretend that horrible things don't happen to them. I have had the opportunity to watch Jim working with a variety of horses during the week and it has been great to be around someone who speaks the same language that I do even though he is working with bigger and trickier starting horses than I would ever attempt. Aswell as running courses and training horses in East Sussex, Jim is tour manager for Monty Roberts and Kelly Marks.

17th September, 2011 Practical Skills Development

How many IH students does it take to change a lightbulb?

I have just returned from a week in East Sussex where I was able to visit and work with Theoden every day. I arrived just in time to observe and appreciate the Practical Skills Development Course which is run by Jim (Goddard, IHRA) and fellow IHRA's Rosie Jones and Sandra Williams. This is a really excellent course for people hoping to become RA's themselves as it gives them a valuable opportunity to practice, maintain and hone their skills with all kinds of horses with all kinds of backgrounds. The next course is due to take place in April and it is the sort of course that people could go back to time and time again and learn something new each time. For details keep an eye on the IH magazine and the IH website.

9th September, 2011 By George Part II

I received this lovely email from George's owner today. 

"So far it is going really well, he was getting on really well with the head collar so I decided to see what happened when I tried to put it on outside! Again using the clicker technique I started in the small paddock and then in his field! Since Sunday I have been leaving the head collar off completely and have successfully been able to put it on everyday so far so good! Also the clicker technique has enable me to get George to trot with me too!!" CG

Brave George

I am going to be away for a week now as I am visiting Theoden in Sussex and reading a lot of books. Also hoping to work with Graylie and Pep. I'll keep notes...

E-mail received 19.9.11:
"No headcollar is going great there is absolutely no hassle whatsoever anymore, the headcollar doesn't seem to be too scary.  I am still trying to introduce George to  more and more things every time I go up there now.  I used the umbrella again but this time with it up over Dad's head and he was fine with it and I have been trying to desensitise him to having things on his back. I started off with a little blanket scrunched up and rubbing it all over his body and at the end of the week I put it on his back and took it off again. He seemed pretty happy, so I opened it out a little bit more so it was slightly over both sides of his back and we did a tiny circle around the field, and he was great.  I am going to continue doing this, making the walk bigger, and also opening the blanket up even more.

So far so good, he is doing great I can't get over how much he has improved with in the last 2 weeks - it is incredible." CG

9th September, 2011 The fish that got away

Another wonderfully restorative day. Guilda is now a fully fledged riding pony and was ridden by her owner at walk and trot out on the Forest. That pony loves migrating and her grin was almost as wide as her owners. Guilda is going to go and have further schooling now with June Simmonds at Fir Tree Equestrian Centre but will pop back for occasional bits of training on things like traffic.

"Oh WOW !. Apart from my son being born this was the best day of my life."KG

Then off to Lucy where there has been a dramatic change. Not only is she much mellower, but her owner is too and she's no longer afraid of Lucy's big behaviour; she just calmly deals with it and moves on. Lucy coped with two long reins at the end of the session and tried her hardest to be good all the way through.

Guess what...forgot the battery in the camera again so no pictures to show of all this happiness...

9th September, 2011 The Essence

A much better day yesterday, despite my cartoon thumb that felt about ten times its normal size. Working with semi-feral ponies is always my favourite job. In the morning I worked with Milly, Molly and Puck. Milly had her headcollar on easily three times having got over her real fear of having things enclosing her nose. The £1 fluffy purple scarf worked once again. Molly had graduated to having her headcollar on out in the big field in exchange for clickered treats. Puck had a jangly surcingle on and we did some one rein work before finishing.

In the afternoon I went to see Charlie the sheepdog pony. In fact his sheep have been taken away because he is tormenting them so I have suggested they take up the offer of a tame pony companion. Charlie was much more relaxed from the outset today and the really great news is that his owner has a wonderfully calm demeanour and will be able to carry on from while I am away next week; he get's it. I have to say that I love working with men on these sorts of tasks and watching them let go of any ego and macho and start to really think about what the pony needs from them.

By the end I got to the stage where Charlie was leaning in to me and curling his neck around me so that I could rub his neck all the more. By tracing the bones of his face, I was able to touch him all over it and later Mike did the same and gently removed Charlie's headcollar which has been getting a little tight. 

Sorry no pictures....

(A huge thank you to everyone who sent me a hug yesterday).

7th September, 2011 What time is it Mr Wolf?

What time is it Mr Wolf? Two o'clock

What time is it Mr Wolf? Dinner time!

After a lousy day at 'the office' I thought these pictures were much more fun. This filly obviously couldn't work out quite what was in front of her and the little hinny didn't care to explain.

Why lousy? First of all Chancer had to have the first injection into the sarcoid on his eyelid. He withstood it very well and fortunately there were none of the instant side effects that there can be with BCG such as anaphylactic shock. Amy, as usual did a great job, and we will be seeing her again next week. Just a worry that's all.

Then Brandy's owners came over to see her and decided that the best way keep weight on her for the winter was to take the foal away. I know that this is the way things are on the Forest but I couldn't help feeling very sorry for her and her foal to be parted so abruptly. It is happening all over the Forest at the moment with the drifts on; she's not the only one. Luckily Nelly, Blue and Peechay turned up and took her off with them but I could hear her neighing all the way across the green. Luckily too she gave me something to really cry about. Having avoided injury all year she managed to jam my thumb against the gate latch and now I have a black nail and a skinless bit. Sat with my finger in the water butt for a while and cried my eyes out.

Then, to cap it all, my neighbour came to have a go about me having a 'habit' of taking trailers through to the front gate. Since I haven't taken anything that way for months or on more than the very odd occasion for years this feels unbelievably unfair. Letting one Commoner (who has the right to go anywhere) collect a foal from another Commoner (who also has a right to go anywhere) on one occasion does not constitute a habit. I think I am now going to be blamed for every stock trailer that goes in that direction simply because I have a stock trailer too. Galling because I have gone out of my way not to create any tension here.

This, just two days after I helped a customer to deliver her horse to another trainer for breaking in. That trainer sternly told me that she would rather have a horse when it had done nothing - so where was she when the horse didn't know how to lead, load, have his feet picked up or tie up? The two big lunging whips outside the stable block didn't fill me with great hope either.

In the grand scheme of things it isn't so bad. The anniversary of 9/11 certainly puts things more in perspective. I just wish I was a little more robust.

5th September, 2011 Wild boys

Charlie, the Collie coloured pony, lives with four sheep

Available on www.logicalhorsemanship.co.uk,  NFED or Amazon

It's getting to the time of year when people are thinking about halter training their foals and making sure they are ready to be microchipped. The requirement to microchip ponies could cause another welfare issue for ponies if it means that headcollars are forced on and foals forcibly restrained. Much better to get the halter work done quietly and nicely and to teach a foal how to stand, or to gently hold them with a figure of eight arrangement. I'll let you know how I get on with Peechay when his turn comes.

Charlie is a two year old Shetland colt that has lived out with his mother until very recently. His headcollar was put on in the trailer as he arrived and at some stage he has had his feet trimmed. He also managed to get out of the field and was manhandled back in again. My friends Katie and Andy called me in having done some initial work with a hand on a stick and I carried on with this today. By the end of the session he was accepting touch from the back to the front, under his neck and chin. He had also accepted the scarf around his neck and was starting to come towards a very gentle pressure. Back again on Thursday for another session.

3rd September, 2011 Traffic Chaos

Guilda asks David whether he is The Stig

Me and my shadow

"...and what time did you say the MotoGP is on tomorrow?"

Not worried about the car sploshing through the puddle

"Do we need to thumb a lift?"

 More traffic training with Guilda today. She has been a bit worried about traffic approaching from behind so lots of practice required with Kym keeping her own adrenalin way down too.

3rd September, 2011 On our way...!

On the way home we met Jenny riding Splash out on the Forest. You will remember that this is 'Mystery Pony' who had the horse equivalent of a nervous breakdown following an incident just after Jenny bought her. It seemed at that time that her education was built on very wobbly foundations. A year on and Jenny has a stronger pony mentally and physically. She's done a great job with her. A shining example of IH enhanced with clicker training.

2nd September, 2011 Cow pony

Back home via the horses to see Peechay out on the green with a herd of cows. One of these days I am going to photograph a day in the life of the Fritham water trough.

2nd September, 2011 Olympic Venue

Off to Weymouth this morning to meet up with Sonny and Millie. Sonny, a pretty solid New Forest pony, is great under saddle but inclined to barge and to pull on the ground. We did some groundwork and worked on planning ahead so that his owner, G, chooses the route into the stable yard rather than him! G picked up the techniques from watching them just once and was soon looking a lot more confident. Millie a Welsh pony, came via the RSPCA and is another pony that has landed on her feet. Tracy, her owner, has only ever had two sessions with me and has got a firm grasp of the key concepts enabling her to befriend her pony changing her from a timid, wary pony into a confident and affectionate one.

" Thankyou once again for a very enjoyable and inspirational afternoon." TW

"Thank you for this (the notes) and for yesterday we have learnt so much.  It was also lovely to see G watching, listening and working with you (and taking it all in).  It was also the main topic of conversation last night!"KA

 

1st September, 2011 By George

It's always wonderful when a pony falls on its feet with kind owners. George is a forest-bred New Forest pony that had already had three different owners by the time he was a yearling and had had his headcollar forced on him. He is still finding it difficult to overcome that experience even though he is quite brave about all kinds of other things. I have introduced clicker in the hope that his least favourite thing will become his most favourite.

"I would just like to say thank you again, for taking your time to come out and see me and George. I really enjoyed the whole experience and felt like me and George were already making some progress."CG

E-mail received 3rd September: 
"Thought I'd keep you updated on George even though it's only been a few days! I did the touch and release technique with my partner Mike as George has always been very wary of him and after he had done this he was able to walk up to George and catch him in the paddock and lead him back in to his own field! We were both really chuffed as normally if George isn't on his lead rein Mike can't even go near him!" CG