Getting to know the girls

Spent a bit of time with the pones today. They weren't too sure about my dog at first, but then she was running round like a loony growling for no readily apparent reason......once they realised she was actually more scared of them than they were of her they stopped worrying!

Ebony is starting to trust us already, Ali spent ages grooming and scratching her and generally being nice to her. We picked up her feet, no problems, hope it'll be the same for the farrier on Friday...

Got some more ticks off her too, and bot eggs......and tried Kinna's old rug on for size, although she doesn't need it yet, very mild here again.

So mild in fact as I was amazed to discover there were about 20 mouches plates under poor old Ruby!! Rubes reminds me of Chester when he arrived, she makes the ears back "I'm cross back off or I'll bite you" face, but within half an hour she'd stopped doing it as nothing bad had happened to her. She stood with her top lip wobbling whilst I removed all the mouches and a fair few ticks.....

When we picked her feet up she wasn't so keen but she did it without too much protest. She was giving everything a good looking at, even people walking along on the far side of the river, I guess they didn't have a lot going on in the last place, their field was down a private lane so there wan't a lot passing by! They haven't met the SNO yet, that should be interesting ;-)

Spring seems to be here.....

Groomed the girls today, it's like a blizzard of hair at the moment, had a dicey moment getting them out of the field, Maverick didn't want them to go without him
Took them into the little paddock to do some "standing still and not stuffing your face" practise, needs a bit more work, I feel!!

Got there in the end.....

Toying with the idea of doing an Interdressage showing class this month, there's one for youngsters, if this weather continues should be able to bath them!
Flies were a nightmare today, have got the spray out, they were both a bit unsure about it at first. And of course last year's masks are too small, need to order some more.......

Lots of firsts today for my baby girl. Went out into the field with a headcollar & leadrope in my hands to see how she'd react. Lots of snorting, not really surprising since the last time someone did this she was grabbed, had her nose shoved in and was hauled across the field in England by several burly blokes. She panicked and reared but got absolutely nowhere........I stayed well out of the way at the time because I didn't want her to associate me with that kind of treatment. It wasn't easy to watch.......



Anyway, I wandered around dragging the leadrope behind me (with a cat attacking it from time to time) and she quickly got curious and started sniffing. I picked it up in one hand and scratched her with the other, then rubbed her with the rope for a bit. This was evidently OK. I went away, got a handful of food (another first today, never had hard feed before but she's looking a bit skinny so have bought her some foalie food), she tried a bit, decided it was good, then I very slowly put the headcollar on and did it up as she was munching away.



Then I took a few steps away, she followed, I kept the rope slack all the time like Adam Shereston does, she stopped for a bit, went the other way, I went too very calmly and stopped when she did. Hmmm, she thought, noone's forcing me to do stuff, this is good......I wanted to get her to follow me to the box so I put a tiny bit of pressure on with the rope, you could see her thinking about this, eventually she took one step forward so I immediately released the pressure. She learns quick this girl, I did that a couple more times and she got it!



That was enough for one day, she's only got a little baby brain, don't want to overload it. I took the headcollar off, she didn't immediately run away, I gave her a rub then she wandered off to graze. So I fetched a soft body brush, and another first, she was groomed all over - she even let me brush all down her legs without moving her feet.



Very good start.......then after that I had to go and spend ages redoing all the fences she broke the other night......still, gotta take the rough with the smooth!