A great start to the day and a gorgeous seaview as we approached Chideock in West Dorset. A long trek but worth it to see supercob, Millie, recently purchased by her owner Debbie.
A gentle character, she has proved to be a lovely riding horse, happy to go out on her own or in company.
However, as is typical of horses that have come through dealers, they have concentrated on the ridden work without paying much attention to the groundwork. Hence, she doesn't seem to know how to balance when you pick up her feet. Lots of practice today and some significant improvement.
Our session was interspersed with little walks, and working on other issues such as teaching her to park where she will be mounted.
Later we worked on asking her to stand while tied up. Whilst you might ask her to pick up a foot when tied up, just to see how the in hand work was going, it's better to teach the task in hand before trying it tied up. This gives you the opportunity to find out if it is the task that is the problem or being tied up or both.
Off back to the field accompanied by lots of woolly friends.
"Thanks so much for this. I can't tell you how much today has helped. Today helped clarify so much and having the write up really helps because I like to read stuff to help me process. I can't wait to start practicing tomorrow with her ! I feel so positive about things that I have felt overwhelmed by." DBBack on the Forest and this pony and his owner were not having such a good end to the day. Only 13.3 h.h. he had just jumped over the breast partition and into the 'living' area in a rear facing 3.5 tonne horsebox. The fire service turned up with the Animal Rescue Team Specialists and a vet to sedate him to cut him out.
It takes a lot of specialist equipment as well as specialist officers to do this and in the meantime the traffic has to be managed around the site which was at a junction on one of the main roads across the Forest.
The ladder is used to allow the vet to get remote access with a jab stick through the window of the horsebox allowing the pony to be sedated without danger to anyone.
Specialist cutting equipment is used to cut the partition since the back door is only wide enough to get a person through.
