Wednesday, January 14, 2015

14th January, 2015 Drill Night

Will everything work when the pressure is on?
Once a week in the case of retained fire officers and more frequently for permanent staff, the Fire Service check all of their equipment and practice their set procedures and techniques. Just think, they are doing all of that for people they have never even met, with diligence, discipline and commitment. This attention to detail, sweating the small stuff, may well save someone's life.

Have you checked you have all your equipment ready and in good order?
One of my New Year's Resolutions is to have a regular Drill Day for the horses, practising all those things that may have to be done to a deadline such as loading, clipping, vaccinations, and worming. The things that tend to be done in a hurry and in a worry, in an emergency even. I often recommend that clients continue to practise the work that we have done as frequently as once a day to begin with and certainly once a week or once a month when they are established. In that way the horse is ready for whatever is needed.

Have you practised working as a team?
If you are a client of mine, have you practised loading your horse that was tricky, have you used a carrot to mock worm your horse that used to raise her head to where it couldn't be reached or clickered your horse with a needle-less syringe lately? Have you pretended to clip him at the same time as giving him a lovely rub?

Have you practised your emergency loading?
Sarah B has been practising catching her mare every day using the clickering technique we worked on together.and can now catch her in a huge field - in fact, Dina leaves the others and comes to her.