17th September, 2013 Rain Reigns

Heading back across the Forest having been rained off for the day I spotted Nelly and Blue standing behind a bush. They must have been doing that a lot recently since they have both managed to avoid the drifts. It's been almost a month since I saw Nelly and subconsciously I had been worrying about her but as you can see, she is as bonny as ever. And Blue is doing her Pilates.

I don't know whether a pony out on the Forest has ever got laminitis (and no, that doesn't account for Blue's momentary stance) but I do wonder how much of that is due to the fact that their weight is allowed to fluctuate with the seasons. My Forest ponies get supplemental hay for a couple or three months after Christmas but other than that I do allow them, and the horses I have in, to slim down during the winter. Perhaps it is the fact that we tend to want out horses to look the same throughout the year and therefore overfeed and over heat, that means that they get metabolic problems. On a recent programme about obesity and Type 2 Diabetes in humans, I heard one commentator declare that the problem was that it was always summer all year round in so-called developed countries.  Research project anyone?

16th September, 2013 Plus ça change

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

First job this morning off to a loader or rather a non-loader to see if we could get him flowing on and off again. Apparently he's always been a bit intermittent but more recently has gone on strike completely. Unlike many of the horses I have worked with he was fine once in the trailer and didn't try to run out backwards or surge forwards when the front bar and ramp were down. However, the same core principals apply with all loaders. Keep calm, keep quiet, work kindly with your horse and the people around you, ask - don't tell, and reward for every offer or positive move the horse makes. Use minimal but effective kit - get rid of the huge wraparound boots, use a poll guard, and use only gentle pressure and release. I invariably couple this with clickered treats these days.

The biggest learning point of the session was just how easy it can be for someone to teach a horse to only move his front feet whilst his back legs are firmly planted about three miles away, anchored to terra firma, and how easy it is to teach a horse to find his own release by throwing his head up. By interrupting his patterns, being kind to him (and always on his side) and ignoring the stuff we didn't want, we got there bit by bit. By the end of the session he was going on and off very happily.

I've left his owners with advice to practice whenever they can and to turn him straight out after he has loaded beautifully and freely even just once. With practice ALL of the parties involved can lose the tension and fear, and in the case of the humans, ego, that all become tied up with loading a horse.

Email received 19.9.13:
"Thanks for your help on Monday. Hopefully your advice will pay dividends in all sorts of ways with B, helping us to understand his thoughts and feelings/instincts.  I will let you know how things progress but we are already feeling much more positive, so hopefully we will keep this positive thinking going.......we tried boxing B again for the first time since your visit.  He hesitated once and walked backwards, then walked straight in. He did it once more and we put him back out to graze......We are planning to box him on Saturday and take him up he woods for a ride, then box home (which is a normal activity for him)." SW

15th September, 2013 J'ai Plonger Mes Long Jeans

Seven days away and the nearest I got to a horse was to put my hand on one. We also met some other interesting creatures including a pine marten and a family of wild boar. It's back to work in the morning but here's a taste of the Morvan in four legged terms.

6th September, 2013 En Route

Having travelled all the way from Arizona to Texas today, or at least to see horses called Phoenix and Dallas, I am off to France this evening with David.

In the meantime, a testcard...

And a quiz. Who is this pony that is coming back into our lives later this month? Clue: we might have been rash!

5th September, 2013 Isaac's Principles

It's been a month since Isaac went home and yet he has forgotten nothing. It was on with the long reins and a little practice around the school for owner, Liz, before taking him out onto the Forest on his home ground. The Forest resembles a dry desert at the moment and yet the wild ponies are all looking fine.

"Thanks for the photos and for working with us both yesterday, I appreciated the nice clear instructions.  

What a good pony he is! He was quite tired by the time we got home and laid down in his stable for a snooze." LB

4th September, 2013 Hurry, Worry or Emergency?

A lovely loading session this afternoon with an Appaloosa cross called Dallas. On Monday she was due to travel to another yard on loan with a view to buy. Unfortunately she hadn't had any practise at loading and just wouldn't load. Sensibly her current owner decided that she should have some training before any further attempt was made to travel her. Although she was wary at first, bit by bit she began to load -first the front feet and then the backs and then all the way in - and by the end of the session she was calm and confident. Hopefully we will be able to introduce the partitions at the next session on Friday.

2nd September, 2013 Strip Down and Shape Up

Any training whether of people or animals needs to be incremental and broken down into stages if it is to be absorbed, consolidated and then improved upon. It bears repeating that anything that you would like to be able to do fairly quickly needs to be done very slowly in the first place. This is particularly so if speed has been used in the past to simply get a job done or the horse has experienced pain or discomfort. Benji has had aural plaques and may have had his ear twisted (ear twitched) when he was semi-feral. 

The training world could learn an awful lot from the detailed shaping plans that are used by clicker trainers to devise the most step by step approach that can be taken to a set task. The discipline of committing something to writing and thinking about all the what ifs helps to highlight just how many stages are involved in one task. Try doing the same to describe how to make a cup of tea! Imagine assumptions we make when we give the instruction "Put the kettle on" - it might not suit them!

Hilary has worked quietly and calmly on handling Benji's ears and as a result he is now happy to have them handled providing it is done with sympathy and thought. No tickly, grippy fingers which would only serve to reinforce all of his fears. Instead a deep flat and still touch. However, the instant he saw the crown piece of the bridle, all of Benji's old concerns resurfaced. We dropped back down the shaping plan and taught him to take the bit into his own mouth - he literally picked this up very quickly because he is not afraid of the bit itself. Then it was a case of repeating the work, simply touching his ears in the same way as before but with the crown-piece clearly visible and in fairly close proximity to his ears. We used one click to mean "Keep on doing what you are doing", in other words, please keep still with my hand on your ear. Then we used three clicks and a treat to mean "Well done, you're brilliant." After quite a bit of repetition we were able to put the crown piece over his left ear without any fuss. 

This still leaves Hilary with a lot more homework as she will need to repeat the whole thing with his right ear. However, while she is doing that she needs to avoid reinforcing the wrong thing and undermining her own shaping plan. Accordingly we attached clips to his cheek pieces so that the bit could simply be dropped out of his mouth after each repetition rather than trying to take it off over his ears. Hilary has also got a show bridle which comes apart in sections so that she can carry on with her plans t show him without having to rush his training. She'll get there - she always does. 

So important too to keep clicker training sessions short and sweet so for a complete change of subject we took Benji out on his first accompanied hack on the road. I rode Ginger. Ginger is an ex-riding school pony and not really happy to take the lead. Benji on the other hand had no such reservations and happily strode out taking in all the sights and sounds of a quiet village lane.