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.

Shetland pony tales from Mossley

This blog is for all the people out there, big and small, who have wanted a pony of their own.
When I was very small I fell in love with horses. My dream was to have my own. This love has persisted to the present day but it was only in the last ten years that the dream became a reality when I bought Spice,a cob mare, for myself and my daughters. It was two years ago that the subject of the blog-to-be came into my life and I began to want to record the bits and bobs of life with him. He is Sheltie, the shetland pony. This blog intends to be a record of life with him; to give those of you out there still dreaming the chance to see and share the ups and downs of making the dream a reality. As a teacher of young children I also hope to impart some horsey knowledge along the way.

The adventure began when my husband passed a message on to me,asking if I knew anyone who wanted a free Shetland pony foal. I had already left teaching in school to work for myself and this gave me lots of free time to enjoy looking after Spice. As she lives out, and is a very laid back character there isn't very much to do once she is fed, groomed and ridden. I still had time to spare. The moment I heard Peter's question I thought that it would be a really enjoyable experience to bring on a young pony, particularly as it would be a very small one. I am not a fool and did not wish to be wrestling with a big breed, I am not that much of a horse woman despite having kept Spice for years. Peter did not realise I had really meant it when I said "yes, me " in response to his question though, and it was a couple of months before he realised that I was the proud owner of another furry friend...oops!

I went to visit this cute Shetland foal, I could picture it so clearly, small and fluffy, so tender and vulnerable as well as unwanted...(how wrong could I be?) Harry, as he was called was a very well grown colt of 18months with little handling and no manners. He was built like a rhinocerous, had no intention of letting me near him and scared the pants off me if I was truthful. Little pony mad girls be warned ...pretty ponies kick and bite as well as squash you. However the seed was sown in my mind, this was my challenge now and delivery was arranged after a month, so that I did have a little familiarity with him before he was moved to my yard.

He arrived at the start of the Christmas holiday so that I had a good two weeks to spend as

much time with him as possible every day. His journey in a horse box was uneventful, he ate out of a bucket for the whole fifteen minutes trip, bracing his fat little body without coming up for air. He leapt down the ramp on arrival and looked around rather like the hard man of the neighbourhood. Considering he had never seen anything apart from an enclosed paddock and his two parents he was amazingly cocky. He was towed to a stable as his head collar training was not yet in place and proceeded to trash it during his first night away from mum and dad. Buckets and bales of hay were rearranged quite violently through the darkness and when I arrived early in the morning he was standing four square in the stable ready to take me on too.

From then on days merged one into another as I encouraged him to lead into a quarantine field, let him exercise, and then take back to his box. He was renamed Sheltie as there was a Harry on the yard already, and Sheltie sounds as cute as he looks. He was a quick learner when things were in his interest and he soon picked up that the head collar was ok as he was brought back to a bucket of food each day. Catching became a case of not being knocked down in his rush to be caught and "BACK" was the essential command.

Leading him was another matter, his strength was and is phenomenal, there was no danger of me developing "bingo wings", my arms were permanently locked and braced to stop me being towed along. Every day I did a little and every day things changed. If we were heading towards the field or the stable he gave the impression of being an amiable wee soul, even dawdling behind on a loose lead rope. If I wanted to venture in a different direction though, he was a monster, excellent at reversing and better still at suddenly whizzing round in front of you to reverse his route. He would make a good sheep dog with the technique he developed and I had to make up my own technique to outwit him.

My first major assault on Sheltie was to have him gelded as soon as possible. He was a stallion and needed sorting. Whilst under the sedation I had the chance of my first quiet cuddle with him, a taste of things in the future perhaps when he was no longer wild and fierce. He was adorable at that moment, sleepy and soft, leaning on me and gently snoring while his personal parts were sorted for ever. I did suggest that I kept him tranquilised but that was not to the vet's liking! On the same day I started Sheltie's vaccinations, a worming programme,his passport ordered and a micro chip inserted for good measure. There is no such thing as a free pony, he cost three hundred pounds in that one week!