11th August, 2009 Clickety-click

This evening's demo went well in glorious sunshine. The audience donated a total of £120 which will go to Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service. Jack, Petra and Chancer were all please to become re-acquainted with click and treat.

Letter from Nancy at Wessex Classical Riding Group:

Thank you so much for doing your demo for the club. It was very impressive to have raised so much money for the Hants Fire and Rescue. I thought the horses were fascinating and I'm sure there has been a run on feather dusters in the local hardware stores! The weather was perfect for your demo and I think everyone was given something to think about.

10th August, 2009 Upright again

Off to work this morning - feels a little odd. I got this e-mail this morning about Rincewind who you may remember from last Winter. I really didn't think we had done much good - just asked him to connect a halt to a click and a treat. His owner has avoided the temptation of rushing things and this is what she's now got:

Hi, thought I would update you. Rincewind is now hacking in walk trot and canter (just little canters) alone and in company. He loads without any fuss and has been to Hurn Bridge Equestrian Centre for a play day and I rode him for 10 minutes in the school after lots of fun with ground work. I have ridden SO MUCH I had to shoe him. Thank you for bringing my pony back to me. Tara

7th August, 2009 No news is not good news

Unfortunately I have been too ill all this week to work and therefore this is the blogsite equivalent of a test card. The middle picture shows typical horse transport in Africa - I wouldn't like to load a horse onto one of those for the first time! No wonder we heard of so many accidents and permanent injuries to horses travelling, loading and unloading. The bottom picture shows the typical spotty botty of the Ethiopian and Somalian wild ponies.

Hopefully I will be better by the end of the weekend as I have a full diary for next week.

I am giving a clicker demo on Tuesday evening - it will be interesting to see whether my horses remember how to respond given that I haven't even caught any of them for six weeks never mind done any specific clicker work with them. It's my belief that they will be with me in less than a second as clicker training seems to really stick in their minds. I have been reading Karen Pryor's Book "Reaching the Animal Mind" which suggests that the noise of the click registers directly with the amygdla, the most ancient (and instinctive) part of the brain.

3rd August, 2009 Dorian the Donkey

Donkey (foreground) and Dorian. You can clearly see Dorian's half cut and notched ears here.

I have received this e-mail from Debbie since my return. It's so good to hear such positive news on what was a really terrified donkey.

"Dorian's doing brilliantly, he stands by the door now in the mornings and when I go in he doesn't move and he just loves being brushed every morning and is also letting me clean out his feet! I have also managed to get near him and stroke him out in the garden a few times, he is really coming along. I went to the KSPCA this morning as they have a female donkey that doesn't want to be near people - not surprisingly as she has been 'hobbled' by her back leg - I did the glove on a stick bit until she was calm and relaxed, I even managed to put a hand on her three times, but thats all. I have shown the guy there how to do it, but I don't know how he'll be. I'll have to keep trying with her and try find her a nice home somewhere with someone who will try with her. She is so pretty too, really dark with almost black legs.

It was so great having you here, I have learned so much from you, you've been brilliant. And David is the best 2 legged horse I've ever seen, 10 out of 10 for him too! Keep in touch, lots love Debbie"

2nd August, 2009 Out of Africa

Finally it was off to Manyara again but unfortunately by this time, both David and I were pretty sick. We managed to go on one more safari, this time at Tarangire, but I had to lie down and rest inbetween each animal. A Tanzanian doctor had insisted that I drink a litre of re-hydration solution which tastes like orange flavour sea water and made me feel far worse. Our journey home via Arusha and then up to Nairobi took a day in itself and this time it was David's turn to lie prostrate across the back seat of the coach. I had a very unfortunate fit of the giggles when his boot, minus his foot, toddled and trembled it's way all the way down the aisle, obviously deciding that if David was going to be boring, it would go and visit everyone else. My turn again on the flight home and I had to lie across a whole row of Virgin's seats. Back home I feel like I have been run over by a steam roller.

Our horses are all well although Jack and Petra are desperately fat and have to be confined again. I'm worried sick that they will get laminitis and adamant that they will get no extra food this winter unless it snows.

2nd August, 2009 The non-stripey horses

Andre very kindly let me ride his Warmblood, Domingo one morning. This horse, like Amarosso in the bottom pictures, was imported from Namibia. Both are very very tall! I worked with two horses in the afternoon. The first was Bahati (Lucky) who is half Appaloosa. He was the very first bargey horse that I met in East Africa - a product of a large amount of testosterone and a lack of leadership and consistency. Apparently he is leading the syces a merry dance and he came out rearing. I worked with him and his owner setting up some basic but clear ground rules. Bless Bahati's cotton pink and black willy (!) he got it pretty quickly and seemed a lot more settled straight away. He worked very nicely through all of the groundwork exercises and then led back to the paddock in a much calmer manner.

My last horse towered over me. This horse is very difficult to shoe and doesn't like having his legs handled, indeed he is not very happy about being touched at all. He went completely boggle eyed when I produced my feather duster (ostrich please note) but relaxed a lot as we carried on. By the end he was accepting it all over his body and all four legs and seemed to enjoy being rubbed at the fetlock with it.

2nd August, 2009 Bring on the non-stripey horses....

I must say I was a little taken aback to find a dead zebra on my bedroom floor at Caroline's complete with mane and tail - I felt like I had to apologise to him whenever I accidentally trod on him. There were two more at Andre's. We were also greeted there by a little black snake and, having been told that baby mambas are fully poisonous the moment they hatch, I wasn't going to hang around with my Observer's Book of Snakes - it turned out to be an Palm Olive Housesnake, complete with freshly swallowed mouse. Andre popped him into the laundry basket where he had his photo taken before being turned out in the garden. I'm normally fine with snakes but I became very jumpy after that and nearly had a heart attack when a ghecko popped out from behind the clock.