12th June, 2016 THank You For The Day

A couple of weeks ago I had a telephone call from Shelley wanting advice on how to put sun cream on her pony Hank. She thanked me for writing my book and told me how it had helped her to tame Hank, a pony that had come from the Welsh mountains via a charity.

Later she sent me pictures of Hank and their journey together. Without her he could have had a very different story to tell.

This is a pretty copybook approach, taking incremental steps over time, showing his physical and mental recovery from a poor start.

Shelley said:

"I loved your book 'no fear, no force' because I felt you'd nailed the art of describing the processes that you used so well that I could follow them without you being with me in person. The results we achieved with our 'wild boy' using those techniques have inspired me so much that on Monday I'm off to do my 5 day foundation course with Intelligent Horsemanship.  Thank you!  

He came off the mountain on the 11th March.  The WPRHP had been monitoring and feeding them all winter and were finally legally in a position to be able to help them as they'd been signed over to them.  Hank was weaned and kept with other yearlings from the same herd and then castrated before he arrived with us after a 6hr + journey on the 15th April.  The difference in the boy that came off that box to the Hank we see today is truly amazing, what a wonderful and deeply inspiring 8 weeks we've had.

Thanks again for your help Sarah, I really do appreciate the time you spent both writing a book that adds so much value and also during our phone call helping me expand my options for 'getting that cream on that nose'. Hank's nose is healing really well and the clicker approach worked to facilitate getting the cream on although he did get close to getting annoyed a couple of times. In the end we came up with a compromise where I stayed outside the stable and he had free choice if to move away into his safe space or play the clicker game. He chose to play and we did it! :)"