Summer 2017

Going to sort photos soon!
Sheltie has now started to be ridden in the school off the lead and is responding to the riders efforts to steer... it has taken a long time for him to understand that he does not have to be my shadow -which is nice really, he still knows there is a carrot at the end of being good.
I have new students and youth club children so have a ready supply of smaller riders in the making.

WELL, the cart was cute and Sheltie was a good boy in it, but the traffic on the lane had increased so much in the last year with huge tractors pulling trailers up and down it that I decided to sell the cart. There are no verges or escape places on the lane, I couldn't risk a trauma with a combine harvester blocking the lane and a cart attached to Sheltie, it is not worth risking Sheltie's life for. The wheels on these tractors tower above me and their implements fill the lane.  

We are back  on lead and small riders or walking with the dog. There has been another huge gap since I  revisited this blog for the first time in ages I have changed my work and no longer have the franchise. I have visited Ethiopia, Canada and Australia  in the summer hols over the  last three years.I do a little supply and some private tuition and that leaves me with time to enjoy my daylight hours with the furry friends. Sheltie is part of my life and my daily routine. He sees the car and comes running. He knows he is my boy and has been lunging in the manege at our farm without a rope... he follows me around without a line, and if I twirl my hand and point my arm he does his circle! He stands on command and comes up, he goes back and shakes hands.. all the same old routines :) This is good when for the summer he and his mini friends went to graze at Delph and did nothing or a couple of months. He is also the best behaved for the farrier out of all 6 shetland ponies. He lives with four and then there is the tiny stallion who does not get to mix with the rest . 

There is also a rescued cat and rabbit in the house now, Mollie has accepted them without a fuss, I wish I could get Sheltie in there too that would be so neat! But there are too many stairs.  Never mind. I am looking forward to some decent weather and to getting him out a bit more. I will find some photos to put up to to compare his shape  with years gone by. He is in fluffy monster mode at moment but just starting to shed his coat. 

I have owned Sheltie for 9 years now, as long as I had the pleasure of Spice, and her loss is still there,  her memory is still strong and raw at times, heaven help me when I have had this wee man for another ten or twenty... I am planning on a bequest in my will to a charity to safeguard him if he outlives me..unless one of the girlies takes him on -but as two are in Australia I can't see that happening.. 

watch this space...