Go with your gut!

I am coming to believe this more and more. I am sure we have all had times when we have gone against our intuition, and ended up kicking ourselves for it. Well, since getting Faith, who is my first youngster, I have vowed to listen to the advice of others, but listen to my gut instinct first.
So in the past few weeks, since I have been getting Faith used to the idea of wearing a rug, I have been putting aside all the comments of ‘have you got it on her yet?’ and ‘why don’t you just hold her still and make her accept it?’, and I have been working at a pace that Faith and I are happy with.

For various reasons, I have only been able to work with her in the stable for the past couple of weeks. Although she is loose, both Faith and I are less relaxed in this enclosed environment, and progress has been markedly slower than when we work at liberty on the yard.

We did progress from working with the towel to working with an actual cooler rug. The only problem with that was that as it was made of polyester, at the end of each session I would go to give Faith a good scratch, and we would get a massive static shock! So my reward inadvertently turned into an aversive!

So I dug out one of Tilly’s old cotton coolers, and today we were able to work with that out on the yard. I let Faith play with it a bit first, then I rubbed her neck and shoulders with it, then with it folded draped it over her withers. We did this a few times, then I unfolded it so it was only halved, fine. I dragged it back and over her quarters a couple of times, no reaction. So then I put in on her again, and unfolded it completely, fine, dragged it back over her again, fine. Gave her half an apple, and a big scratch and a rest. Then did it all over again on the other side! Faith was not in the least bit bothered, and better still, neither of us got an electric shock!

So now I know what size she is, a whole new world of retail therapy has opened up, with some serious rug buying to be done!

I am so proud of my brave, gentle little filly.