Snippets

I am meant to be taking it easy before we go to Kenya. Just feeding the horses, visiting the Hook ponies, and maybe holding a donkey while he has his hooves trimmed.

Oh whoops! Did I go wrong somewhere? We were just asked for the loan of our trailer so that an owner could take their 22-year-old mare and her unweaned colt to the nearest pound so that she could get his headcollar off and then let the two of them go.

Neither pony was willing to go into the trailer even for a feed without being put in there by force. Nothing else for it but to try taming him enough to be able to remove the headcollar at home but first of all we needed to convince his Mum.

The mare, Snippet, took amazingly well to the feel of the feather duster and stopped kicking after she had been touched with it twice. By seducing her at the same time as him, I succeeded in touching him on both sides of his body and part way down his back legs although he was still extremely sensitive about his head, and more worried about his lefthand side than his right. Whether this is nature or nurture I don't know. All semi-feral foals seem to have a side they prefer to have outwards for danger and he very obviously chose to nurse from his mother with his right eye on the outer side. On the other hand, the headcollar would have been jammed on from the left in the first place,

After a very promising start, he now has another appointment for tomorrow.