A fairly lazy morning for the horses this morning. I really enjoy these special moments with Theoden.
Then off to Compton to work first of all with Benji. He is looking really really well but swears that he has never been rained on and therefore cannot accept water on his body. We worked on that using a tiny watering can for house plants. Normally this works really well if the 'pressure' of the water is then matched with a lovely rub as a release (since you cannot take the water off again). However Benji was so busy busy busy thinking about the water he didn't even notice when we switched to a rub. So we abandoned that element of it and just worked on directing his backing up. We then combined that with just imagining him planting himself and growing roots into the ground, and there he was, standing still with water being poured (very gently) onto his back. Thank you Mark Rashid for that valuable nugget!
We then had a bit of loading practice to enable Hilary to work on being able to load him on her own. Rather than tying him up while she goes back to put the back bar up, she uses a long lead rein, threaded through the tie up at the front and then brings the rest of it with her. Tying a horse up without a back bar behind him can be really dangerous if they start to pull back.
"Thanks very much for yesterday, it was really good to see you again in much better weather!
I definitely think if I keep up the practice that the loading will soon become much easier and having to get the trailer out means I will have to get better at reversing too! I think that washing will be a longer process but at least getting the equipment out is quicker. I don't have a small watering can but this morning tried it with a sports water bottle which works well as it's easy to control the flow and there's no splashing. I think it will be best practised in some quiet time so that I can really focus on him being still. I shall look forward to the day when a very clean Benji walks confidently into the trailer!" HP
To finish I worked with Whisper, a two year old Section E Welsh Cob. He's a gorgeous boy and in fantastic condition for his age, the time of year and his breeding. His owners wanted me to work on long reining but it seemed to me that he needed to do some of the foundation groundwork exercises so that he could learn to be still and to just be. In no time at all he was much more relaxed and a real pleasure to work with. Next time we should be able to move on to long reining with no trouble at all.
"Thank you so much for coming to see us yesterday, it was great to meet you too and Tracey. Both D and I loved the way you worked with Whisper and the way you explained things to us, you made it so much easier to understand. We were both very excited after you left because we have now found you and love the way you train, you made us feel more confident in our approach to helping Whisper understand what we would like from him. D and I are really looking forward to continuing our education with you and here's to many happy times ahead. Thank you so much for all your hard work and thank you for helping us." TK
