Delightful Duncan!

Thursday 19th Nov 09

What a lovely time I had with Duncs today. He was an absolute delight to be with and, if ever a pony could have proved his worth to be invested in, he did just that!

I had the day off as B & M were coming so housework to be done etc. I also wanted to fit a session in with D before going to the PARELLI CELEBRATION this weekend! Of course, because I did D in the afternoon, my time got squeezed so that I only had 1.5 hours before having to pick Ed up.

It was very windy when I arrived so I thought perhaps extreme FG might not be wise. I certainly couldn't have tossed the bags out in front for D to pick up in case they blew about & scared us or the ponies next door. I suddenly thought "Lets go out!" so that's what we did.

At first when I got all my tools out, D started yawning. Mm....I approached him with the halter soon after and he pit his ears back and looked unhappy so I walked off and moseyed around for a bit. D went and inspected my BB pad on the floor and started trying to pick it up with his teeth. Oh no! I moved it away towards the gate and he went eagerly after it and again investigated it at which point I could see he wanted to play and, sure enough, his ears were pricked and he had a soft eye when I haltered him. I think he just needs to be reassured we are going to play. Perhaps I need to go back to doing PTP at liberty again as we did a lot in the Summer. I could just put out a couple of different things for him to investigate each time.

We went down the road (Flick too, on longer lead on treat pouch belt - much easier) and into the woods. D was so happy to be out. His ears were forward the whole time, no nipping. he was responsive and easy to be with. I really felt comfortable with him - like we were just two friends going for a walk! It was how I used to feel with Ollie really.

I have once before shown D how to do shoulder-in from the ground and I repeated it today and wow, he got it straight away and, like sideways when he first got that, he wanted to keep doing it at the slightest suggestion! I can't emphasize how much he loves "tricks"! I am going to have to get much more imaginative and also learn how to teach him them properly! I tried the Spanish Walk again and although he lifts his near fore to copy me, he doesn't really lift the off fore. I think this is properly taught by tapping the horses legs. I'm sure I can find some more info on-line although I wasn't very successful with finding out how to get the horse to give you a retrieved object!

In the woods, D amused me by setting off down a path he wanted to go on (like Zebedee who loved to choose where to go!). Of course I indulged him and we had a very nice detour before time determined we had to go back. M was great today, only called twice before we left the property but carried on grazing so I didn't have to worry about going a bit further.

When we got back, D stopped outside the entrance and didn't want to go back in! Atta boy. He was FAB.