16th October, 2013 Bingo Wings!

Off to the Little Chef, Podimore today (I know how to live) to meet up with another trio of IHRAs, Rosie, Bronwen and Jenny as well as Sarah and Kim from HorseWorld in order to plan our two demonstrations and the stand for the West Country Equine Fair which is due to take place on 7th and 8th December, 2013. Our demos take place at 9.30 a.m. and 1.30 p.m. on the Sunday. As commentator I quipped that I don't feel so comfortable without a pony under my arm and so HorseWorld are smuggling in Bingo the Shetland Pony to keep me company. He'll also be a good lead horse for HorseWorld celebrity horses Cuthbert and Dart with whom we will be demonstrating desensitisation, long reining and ridden techniques. Our stand, which will be in the Shopping Annexe, will feature the work of HorseWorld and Intelligent Horsemanship and our joint enterprise with hands on Horsemanship Courses. Come and see us. We'll give you a sweetie!

http://www.southwestchristmasequinefair.co.uk/timetable.html

Having not had our hands on a horse for at least two hours, we all then went across the road to look round the World HorseWelfare yard at Somerton. I went here years ago when it was a racehorse yard and I was envious of it's pristine fields and immaculate fencing. They have 70 odd rescued horses at the centre now. WHW and HW (so many initials) often work together on mass rescues which sadly are needed all to often at the moment.

15th October, 2013 Lab Report and Cat Scan

Bearing in mind Sampson's age and his need to be kept interested, we began working on the long lines in the field today but made sure there were obstacles to keep him occupied. Going over, through and round them only three times it was then out on to the tracks to give him his regular quota of migration which he seems to absolutely love.

We met up with a son of Wayland Cranberry and had a nice sociable chat before moving on again. Sampson shows little ambivalence about going on alone. Later Theresa started to built in changes of pace into trot and back again. This certainly put a spring in both of their steps. Up went Sampson's tail like a banner in the wind.

And here is a close-up of Theresa's feet so that you can see that she is actually floating!

13th October, 2013 Show Some Emotion

Show some emotion

Put expression in your eyes

Light up when you're feeling happy

But when you're sad let the tears roll down

(Joan Armatrading)

It's amazing to think that people used to think that animals had no feelings. Indeed in some cultures and religions, that is still a wildly held view. As someone who spends far to much time with horses I know that they are in fact just a complete bundle of emotions and that those emotions wrap around each other to give the horse his strength and power; they keep him safe and ensure his survival most of the time. They work together to give him ultimate flexibility when it comes to fright, flight and fight.

When a horse is motivated by his emotions, his capacity for acting and reacting is unhindered by the need to think; he is a completely prey animal. This isn't always convenient for the humans working with him. We have three main options for dealing with those emotions - calm them down, shut them down or contain them. I'm finding a combination of clickered and non-clickered positive rewards, gentle negative reinforcement along with real logic (from the horse's point of view) works very well. I don't want to be adding more and more gadgets and simply coping with a horse's behaviour, even if in time he learns that he is okay, and I certainly don't want to run a horse around in a mindless way that doesn't make sense to him or me in order to take the energy out of him and teach him to go onto automatic pilot. 

The pictures below are of Coco (see last week's session) accepting the long reins and starting to work calmly. By good fortune he put his head down to eat as I put the second rein over his bottom and rather than prompting him to go forwards I took this marvellous opportunity to show him that the reins, without more, mean nothing. This week there were no explosive moments, although he did kick out at the reins from time to time. I'm really pleased that I have now connected with the thinking of his brain and, instead of anticipating what I want him to do, he is now walking off steadily and listening in for further instructions.

We had a field guest and a house guest last night. George and his owner, Dominic, were due to take part in the Rufus Ride (Endurance) today and needed somewhere nearby to stay. George's arrival coincided with that of the the room service team and although he is not a townie, George was agog. Fortunately he settled down with Nettles while we took Dominic home for supper.

And here's a picture of Dominic and George in full flow during the EGB Rufus Ride, riding as if William the Conqueror were after them.....

11th October, 2013 Two Little Piggies

Indiana (2 years old) and Nettles (3 years old) are going to be my and Charly's winter project in the hope that Nettles can be re-started early next year and Indiana later altogether. We thought they might benefit from going out riding with the older horses and experiencing a bit of the world. This has the added advantage of the rider being above them and them getting used to that.

Later another pig session with Otterly and Hiccup. Otterly is the one with the long name and the longer coat. This time Lorraine's Zak and Zebedee came along as they have been upset by the pannage pigs out in their area.

Zak's neck and adrenalin graph was really high to begin with and we had to had to wait before bringing the pigs much nearer.

In the event though Zebedee's graph was very low as he succumbed to the temptation of Emma's lawn.

Zak's neck soon came down and in time the pigs came right up to him. By this time he was much more curious than fearful but at no time had he tried to run away or done anything more than stare with every hair of his coat.

It eventually led to a neat kiss....

 ...and by the time they were led back to their own paddock, Zak was keen to follow. I think he was more interested in the purple bucket by now.

One ecstatic pig after plenty of food and a good scratch.

10th October, 2013 Cider with Rosie

This week's conflab about Theoden was with fellow IHRA, Rosie Jones. Rosie is a great rider and a great motivator of horses and I really valued her opinion. She was quick to ask if she could jump on him to see how he actually feels. The most obvious difference, save for the much longer legs, is that Rosie praises Theoden in a much more enthusiastic, enervating way whereas I have always used a calm and low voice. The net result of the latter approach seems to be that he interprets anything I say to him as a signal to slow down or stop. If you hear me going round the Forest whooping and hollering over the next few weeks it will be me trying out my new approach.

I had the very pleasant company of Kay this afternoon so we took Jack and Indiana out for a bit of fun in the woods.

 They weren't sure that trees should 'grow' sideways.

THAT wasn't there last time!!

That's another human taught to jump then...

9th October, 2013 Smile for the Camera

David's new toy is a camera trap which we have been experimenting with up at the farm. Triggered by passing traffic, it's already revealing a few secrets.

On high alert, I suspect the pigs were coming to visit...

Taking Theoden off to Patrick's. Petra didn't appear at the top of the field for another hour but then seemed to come up on the hour, every hour, to check whether he had come home.

It was only when he actually turned up that she started to tear around the field - isn't that nice to know?

The pigs come to hoover up about three times a day - how's that for room service?

Who says pigs can't fly?

A rabbit and two deer....

9th October, 2013 Three Steps Forward

Dillon continues to make massive progress now that he is comfortable in a saddle he can trust and has an owner he can trust too. Back in the summer he showed us very clearly, but very calmly, that he would not tolerate an English saddle any more. It was difficult to know whether it was current or remembered pain but he went entirely differently as soon as the weight was distributed widely across his back. He has had a lot of rehabilitative work on his back to address any physical problems.

"Different Route = Different Horse  Ta Da! A brought the bike out today and we went off down the cycle track over the wooden bridge and towards Merstone. He was such a good boy no major sticking points and even dealt with roadworks on one of the bridges which narrowed the passageway to about 4ft.  A clipped on for the way over as there was a very steep bank down to one side but on the way back we managed on our own - he even stopped in the middle of the bridge to inspect it all. Was not even fussed when we turned around and went back home the same way. I feel fit to burst tonight." DW

Hilary is gently persevering with Benji's bridle. Because of plaques in his ears he has a lot of remembered pain and is understandably reluctant to have anyone touch them. On the days when riding is her priority, Hilary assembles the bridle around his face so that she doesn't undermine the separate work she does on desensitising his ears.

"Admittedly, it wasn't put on it the traditional way but assembled round like I do with the show bridle but it was achieved without stress and with a reason. Since your visit I've continued working with his ears and making slow but steady progress. I realised, however, that for some reason it was getting in the way of me riding him so I worked out how to put the bridle on without going over his ears. Now I can get on with riding him and continue to work with ears so that eventually the bridle can go on over them." HP

Like all young ponies Rose goes through 'phases' and became nervous about leaving the field, and more particularly her field mates following S going away for a holiday. The first time she took her out there was a lot of leg wafting, rearing, neighing and planting and it all looked a bit ragged. S and I left small pots of food in strategic places on the very short route around the farm so that she could be rewarded as she went. However, we then decided to introduce clicker all the way round. Rose was very quick to understand how it worked (that's Welsh ponies for you) and the pattern was interrupted. Here she is just alert because she has spotted the gardener down the track.