Thursday, June 20, 2013

20th June, 2013 What's All the Fuss About? Day Four IOW

Last night I received a phone call from David asking me if I wanted the bad news or the bad news. It seems that the next door neighbour to where I keep my horses decided that he would start his search for a water leak in my fields even though we had assured him that our meter reading was within it's normal parameters. He took it upon himself to ask a contractor to go in with a mini digger and dig a five foot by five foot square hole to a depth of five foot in one paddock and a deep two foot trench all the way down from the water trough in the other one and then leave it, with the horses still in there! No warning, no communication, no common sense. Luckily David was alerted by Charly and they were able to make sure the horses were in fact safe. The contractor said that he knew all about livestock! Really? Has he seen the pictures from the local Animal Rescue Team and all the horses and other animals they have to pull out of ditches more dead than alive. You can imagine I was livid and perhaps it's a good job that it was David that went up to meet them today and that I was still here on the IOW. (David has stuck the gate in the hole to give some perspective!)



All week Jo has been pushing me to do more and more road work with my horses – even though my natural inclination would be to never bother with roads at all. Today was the ideal quieter day to go around the roads and both horses were brilliant with the steady stream of small vehicles that came in both directions. Perfect incremental training.

Later it was off to see Bea, a horse I haven't seen for two years. Her owner wanted me to get her used to fly spray. Bea was brilliant and a perfect example of how the use of a lovely rub to change the sensation of the spray really works. Spray then rub, spray then rub, spray, spray and then rub. Repeat, repeat, repeat. She was fine, even without any head collar on and didn't run away or attempt to squash me as she has been inclined to do before. Afterwards we did some general desensitisation work. 




Dillon went well in the Western saddle again and was ridden up Jo's long drive a number of times.