A long day at the office but the grey clouds turned into blue ones by the end of the day. Looking up at one of my tallest customers I was struck by just how beautiful the sky was.
Another confidence boosting session for Nettles, this time using clicker training, to encourage him to move freely with the saddle on and make choices about whether to stay or to go. He stayed.
Then over to Kathryn's to take BB out for a walk. As everyone knows, my main aim in life is to turn every breed of horse into a calm New Forest pony. The major learning point for the day was to switch on your leadership (leadership not domination) at the very start of the session and then it all becomes a lot easier.
BB was really very good, only going into giraffe mode when she was trying to make sense of what she could see in the distance. She stood beautifully while we had a chat with Emma and her pony Milligan.
Copper was a good pony too, long reining around the Kewlake Circuit. Like a lot of New Forest ponies he is very food orientated and would have been very happy if we had simply taken his headcollar off and left him to eat. We're thinking about whether to bit him in order to improve his steering and also whether he needs boots on gravelly surfaces.
Irish Draught cross Dutch Warmblood, Ami, has just moved yards and seems to have been slightly discombobulated by it. We had a session getting him accustomed to the new sights and sounds. particularly the pigs and turkeys that live in the garden!
The tractor didn't worry him in the least...
..but he wasn't so sure of the pigs especially when they grunted and squealed. I spent time sounding like an excerpt from Old McDonald had a Farm, making farm yard noises at him to help him get used to it.
In the school we also introduced him to the feather duster which he wasn't too sure of to begin with...
...but by the end he was accepting a rub from the noisy carrier bags.
