Lovely Moments!

A couple of very lovely things happened yesterday. Normally I try to do two clicker sessions with Faith every day, one after brekkie and one just before tea. However, yesterday we were spending the day with friends, and I didn’t have time for our post-brekkie session.

So, having brought the horses in for the evening, given them some hay and poo picked the field, I strapped on my bum bag of treats and headed towards Faith’s stable to do some CT. Well blow me down if that little mare didn’t stick her head over the bottom stable door and give me a full on neigh! I nearly dropped!

So I gave her a brush, and we did some more work with the rug, and she was totally brilliant. Then as the wind had dropped a bit, I let her out on to the yard and we did some stuff with a cone. The previous day she had learned to target it, then touch it with her nose when I put it on the floor and pointed to it, and she had just started to grab it with her teeth. So we reviewed all that, and I started working on encouraging her to pick it up with her teeth. As usual she caught on really fast. At one point she held it up long enough to let me take it from her. Unfortunately it just bounced off my finger tips and rolled under her tummy, coming to rest against her back hoof.

Now there was a time when this would have sparked off a little Faith whirlwind, and she would have done something very fast and dramatic to get herself away from the cone. Not anymore. She simply stood there looking a little perplexed, then shifted forward slightly, stumbled over the cone a bit, which shot out behind her, and then stood quite still and relaxed looking pleased with herself. Brilliant! She is turning into a thinking horse instead of a reacting one, and I am just loving being able to watch and take part in the process!