Off to Dorchester and Faun Bank Stables this morning to meet Flo, a New Forest x Welsh Cob originally bought through Beaulieu Road Sales a couple of years ago. This pony has been so lucky to fall on her feet here because she is was incredibly nervous when she arrived and things could have gone terribly wrong for her. Since then she has learned to trust people to a much greater extent and can be caught, led, rugged and long reined. However, she is still petrified of having her feet handled and has to be sedated intravenously whenever they are trimmed or need medical treatment. Her owner has been working steadily with advance and retreat (touch-and-move-away technique) and has made some progress but this is undermined whenever she has to have the farrier or vet, no matter how patient they are.
Today we introduced clicker training starting with building up the association between the click and the treat before moving incrementally to touching her with the feather duster and later my hand. We made good progress in the allotted time and I have every confidence that her owner will be able to continue with this work.
"Thanks so much for your help we feel really brilliant that we feel we can finally really move forward with her and help her." AA
