Multi-tasking training!

Multi-tasking training!

I have never made any claims of being a domestic goddess, or even an averagely efficient woman, and my beloved husband constantly teases me about having a short concentration span. However, today I hit upon an ingenious plan for multi-tasking training.

The aim of our recent rug desensitising sessions has been to get Faith used to the feeling of the rug on her back when she moves. We have had some limited success with this as it has been either a bit too windy on the yard, therefore limiting us to the stable, or I have been too poorly to do stuff with the rug adequately.

Now today it was a lovely calm evening, and I am slightly less of a snot monster than I have been, so I decided to do some rug stuff on the yard, and...now here’s the ingenious bit...combine it with some ‘picking up the cone’ stuff, to get her moving around a bit more. Tah dah!

Well it worked really well, and she was concentrating so hard on the cone that we really improved on yesterday’s work, with the added bonus that she was also wearing the summer sheet as well. We carried on like this for nearly ten minutes, with Faith backing and coming forward, and stretching down while wearing the rug.

But this is of course the real world, and my chooks happened to come around the corner making a bit of a fuss. This got Faith a little worried and I could see her ears flicking back to the rug, and her mouth became a little tense. So I quickly undid the rug and slid it off before it became an issue. Once the chooks were out the way, I popped the rug back on her for a few minutes and rewarded her for standing quietly, then took it off again, and we returned to ‘naked cone stuff’, and again she did really well.

So I think we shall carry on in this way for a few sessions until the rug becomes completely incidental. I am pleased with today’s progress though. Well done Faith!