Learning new skills..me and him

This winter saw me move Spice and Sheltie to a new barn closer to home and much more private. The benefit was immediate as the snow at the end of 2009 made it impossible to drive my car at times, but I was able to walk up to the barn twice a day. It took half an hour going, uphill, and 15 minutes on the return journey down hill which tells you something of the gradient!
Another bonus is the fact that there is room in the barn to swing a shetland pony..never mind a cat. Sheltie had not been able or willing to work on a lunge line up to December, and by work I simply mean go around in a circle calmly. Brief efforts to teach him with Laura (daughter) assisting simply led to him looking cute and confused or stroppy and unwilling. The techniques for starting this new skill are much written about and I promise I did my home work, but the tricks to get him walking away from me were not working.
When Mum came to visit and help at Christmas I worked out a way to help her keep Sheltie back if she felt he was getting a bit too close for comfort. This involved swishing a picnic blanket much in the way that Spice would swish her tail to warn Sheltie off. My attempts to bombproof him during our earlier time had worked a bit too well you see, a long whip waved at him was totally ignored and a carrier bag tied to the end of a shorter stick, to "keep the pony out" on the circle, was promptly attacked in case it held food. I had to go bigger and so the nearest thing to hand was a blanket with a waterproofed backing. It worked immediately.We looked a bit stupid I guess carrying a green rug around but Sheltie respects that rug! He will stomp on it if I leave it on the ground but as soon as I quietly pick it up he watches me carefully.
So now we can walk on, trot and then come back to walk or stand on a line, just by the magic rug being held up down or wriggled a bit.The enclosed space in the barn gave me a perfect working area all through the bad weather. Now things are improving we are doing the same stuff outside when possible. I will try to reduce the amount of fabric required as time goes by so that I do not look like a bullfighter gone wrong. I do not worry about time scale here, it took Sheltie eighteen months before he would pick his feet up. Eighteen months of daily lifting, praising, dodging the kicks and persevering was what it took and then one fantastic morning as I ran my hand down his foreleg he snapped that little foot up as smart as you like and gave me his foot WOW! no one knows how good that felt, and from then on he picks all four up as good as gold but has to have a treat afterward. He will then give a foot for shaking if I tap his knee, and then swap legs! That skill is for when he is saddled and needs to have a leg stretched to sort the girth, but for now it is Sheltie learning to shake hands xx

Here is Sheltie, at three years old, standing like a really sensible pony. This was taken at the farm on Hartshead Pike. Do you like his wonky love heart patch?!

My first post was really long because I wanted to give the background, I will just do bits as I have time now. Sheltie was unwanted because he was unplanned, the previous owners had a paddock and decided a couple of goats would be useful to keep the grass down. They asked a local horse dealer to fetch a pair back from the horse sales for them. When the dealer returned he had a pair of Shetland ponies in tow.. As the size was pretty similar to a goat(?) the ponies were taken on a trial basis and then kept and called John and Jewel. A year later a foal was born ,though initially the owner thought one of the ponies had had a leg drop off when she saw a white thing lying in the grass. One of the ponies was a stallion but I guess with his fluffy coat and his underparts being below the line of vision it had not been noticed. John was castrated pretty quickly, but not quick enough as a year later our Sheltie arrived. The first foal was found dead one morning, presumably a tragic case of colic, about eighteen months later. The owners decided to part with the remaining colt, it is one thing to have two quiet mature ponies grazing but the youngster would need work etc. and the decision was made to ask around for a new home, which is how I got my hands on him.