An altogether different day on the Forest with the sun warming everyone's backs. My two New Forest mares turned up for a feast and brought along a few mates. I've hardly seen them all winter, and certainly not for dinner, so I thought I'd better make them welcome.
Jasper and Henrietta are still firm friends and will be inviting a new guest to stay at the weekend.
Our afternoon visit needed to be kept a bit secret but the size of this poultice boot might give you a clue as to the size of the horses that we normally work with here.
Katie is only half Percheron (half PRE) and she is big enough. We were looking at the art and science of clicker training and in her case it was very important to start with a barrier between us. She is a confident horse and we need to make sure that we don't set her up to mug anyone.
Our other clicker candidates are much smaller and shier (not Shire!). I worked with their owner to tidy up her timing and to show her the advantages of a three -clicks-for-a-reward system rather than one click, one treat, which can become a bit frantic. Each of the horses showed us some of the pros and cons of clicker.
