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At least one third of my heart is always in Kenya and I miss seeing my lovely camels and the kind team that looks after the milking herd. Today I needed a camel fix, and they kindly obliged with this gorgeous picture. Tulip in the middle, Kukuman behind the camera, and from the left Ekomwa, Dayow, Mohammed and Nurr.
Until now, Ruth and Prince have been bound together by the elasticity of clicker training but, as is often the case, that elastic was stretched to its limit and broken by the green carpet of temptation, known as grass. On their way up the track, Prince had started to get ahead of Ruth in order to thrust his head down to eat the long grass and tasty foliage along the way. By the time he was head of her, no amount of pulling him back with the lead rein worked, and circling him just made things worse.
It was time to instal some rules and so I went to see them to see if I could help. The first thing to do was to make sure that he never got more than a few inches ahead of Ruth, and that each time every time he did she needed to turn towards him and back him up until he was in the right place. Being such a sensitive and responsive pony it was easy to establish this with the lightest of touch and some clear body language.
Once we got up to the - massive field - we let him eat for five minutes in what will become one of three designated places along a walking route, and then continued with some basic groundwork: forwards, backwards, turning left and right, asking him not to get ahead of her in any situation. All of this he accepted very easily and he seemed to enjoy the activity.
In the last picture he stopped on a sixpence when Ruth came to a seering halt.
From Ruth:
"I just wanted to let you know that I took Prince up the track to the field yesterday. There was no barging, walking ahead of me or trying to get grass on the way up! 😊 He was extremely well mannered, if anything a little on the laid back side!"
My own horses are coming out of the winter well. We've been providing plenty of nesting materials to the local birds and their summer coats are emerging. Last weekend we were visited by sme Kenyan friends and Dave temporarily came out of retirement so that George could experience his first sit on a horse.
