Although a little tense still about things happening on his left hand side, he will accept them but the right hand side was a no go area. This is very common in semi-feral ponies that often have a 'guard' side and a 'soft side'. The guard side is the side that they offer towards 'predators' when feeding from their mother and the soft side the side that they kept next to their mother. Although they will drink from both sides of their mother, they often have the same side out and the same side in. It is easy for this nuance to be missed, particularly this way round, because most equipment does up from the left hand side and most of us work on the left hand side of a pony; unless you knew about it you might assume that they would be the same on both sides.
Here, Piglet is allowing the feather duster to go over his back and into his right eye but he wouldn't allow me to go on his right hand side. I did some work with my hands, in particular around his poll and ears where he is particularly shy....
....before inveigling myself on to his right hand side. At first just asking him to take his head to the left and look at me with his right eye and then later, touching him on the right hand side with the feather duster with me looking at his right hand side.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
Later it was off to work with Milly and her lovely new pony, River, a New Forest by Obershade Skylark. This pony is ten years old and clearly loves being around children. He only arrived in Saturday and, to help him settle in, I was asked to do some groundwork so that he could go out for a walk around the local lanes.
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| I'm not quite sure what we were working on here! |
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| Showing that a straight pull rarely works for a pony that has planted... |
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| Out on the road we went through the ford... |
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| ...said hello to the cows |
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| and made sure we went through all of the puddles. If you go round then so will he. |
