We got two weeks off the last patch of grass. Moved again today…. I’m really hoping this new section lasts at least four weeks but there’s more rain due. This weather is super irritating!!!

They have twice as much space as they did before so fingers crossed!

This week Dino has had his vaccinations and his teeth done and all good. Happy to let him go another full year between dentals which is AMAZING. Everything looks really good. So that’s another thing off the list. I’m really hoping to get some time to do some clicker stuff this week. I had a list of things to work on from Judith that I’ve not even touched due to constant field moves and Weather. This week doesn’t look too awful at the moment so hopefully it will be ok in the mornings!

Well, that new piece of grass from Christmas Eve lasted a week and half! We’ve already moved into a new section, this time at the top of the hill. We had a bit of adventure setting it up where Dino managed to get some of the tape caught in his tail and spent 20 misn galloping around the field and freaking out but we managed to get everyone back where they were supposed to be eventually.

He and Toscha are in love <3

I’ve done some work this week taking him out of the field on his own to do his feet, and then walking him into the stable (he has the vet coming next week to do his teeth and that might be easier in a stable) and he’s been really good. Twice we’ve tried to ride and been scuppered though: Friday there was lots of building work and today it’s super icy. I’m trying not to complain about the cold because at least it’s dry! Next week could be wetter which will be annoying. I’m hoping this January won’t be as awful as last! My aim to ride once a week is not going well :-/ Hopefully next week will be better!

Once again I have been failing to keep this blog up to date! I have to admit the last couple of months in 2020 really had me down and I’ve been struggling to keep motivated to do most things. Here’s hoping for a brighter 2021!

Dino has been well. We started today at least partly how we want to go on: we went out for a hack on our own. Not completely uneventful as he got very over-threshold suddenly at the top of the hill and then tried to jog all the way home. I think we need to build back up to this work again. Our friend Jake left the field in December and was immediately replaced by Etoscha. Tosh is a very sweet little mare but Dino has decided he’s in love with her and I think we need to practice being away from her and Pops a bit.

It’s good they have formed a little herd though!

This year I’m hoping to ride more. We really didn’t in 2020, but I’d like to get out at least once per week now. I’m also having some Connection Training lessons with Judith again to try and keep moving forward with that. We’ve already seriously cut down all the leg waving! We’ve got some stuff to work on over the next few weeks where the mud is awful and probably going to get worse. Just need to keep on keeping on until April at this point really. Hopefully January will be a bit drier than last year!

Time continues to fly by! We have been working on the things that Judith suggested, they’ve moved fields, David has been up to see us and we’ve done some hacking so it’s been a busy few weeks!

On the clicker training:
I’ve been better about feeding him in front of him, and being on new grass has naturally reduced some of the leg waving. We have been working on a cue for him to lift his legs though which has been successful and I feel like we’re beginning to tip the balance.

The protected contact has been more challenging. He views fence posts as part of the whole ‘forcefield fence’ thing so he won’t go anywhere near them! I have had some success using the target to keep him more straight and not wrapped around me though so maybe that’s the best way for us to proceed.

David came out and says he’s in pretty good shape! Bit stiff through the left hip and lower spine this time round, but generally he’s looking pretty good and our next session will be March 🙂 Emma is due out this week so we can make sure the saddle is ok.

We moved them over to a new patch of grass last week. That’s seven weeks on the previous section which is pretty good. I’d love to get a similar amount of time out of this new section but that is very weather dependent.

Hacking is still good! Not been out as much as hoped but we have been out a bit.

So moving into the second period of lockdown or whatever we’re calling this I’m determined to keep up some enthusiasm for training with Dino. To that end I have booked myself some video lessons with the ever lovely Judith! We took some video last week of what we’ve been up to talk about in our first lesson:

Judith noticed that he’s bending round me quite a lot which unhelpful in the walk and a tiny bit unsafe in the trot as he tends to fall on top of me. To improve this I need to:
– Make sure I feed him in front on him and not in front of me
– Do some work in protected contact along a straight line: this could using spare fence stakes and some string, or over the poles, so he walks straight and is discouraged from curling round on top of me.

The second issue we have is that the leg waving is back with a vengeance! She suggested two tactics to try and get on top of this:
– Catching him very very early as he starts to come to a stop, before the leg can come off the floor and reward very heavily. Also reward heavily for standing still
– Teaching him to lift the leg on a queue (possibly me lifting my leg) so he can do it sometimes!

We could also look at an alternative behaviour such as backing up. We need to think about ‘standing still’ as an action, not just as ‘doing nothing’. Given that he can stand still when he’s being tacked up it might be helpful to do some work on this on the hard standing as well as in the field to try and reinforce the idea what standing still is a good thing to do at times when he’s not being tacked up too.

Well Sunday was Dino’s favourite day: new grass day! We moved them onto a completely new section of field as the bit they were on was very over-grazed.

Dino can spot a grass upgrade these days. As soon as you appear with a fence post or some new tape he’s onto you. He stuck to me like glue as I was walking round pulling out every other post and unwinding one string of tape! He thinks we took too long!

So it’s September and whilst the mornings are crisp the day is often still warm. We’ve been getting back into the clicker groundwork and whilst Dino has shown some nice engagement he’s not been very relaxed. It’s hard to find a balance, but here’s a short video of our current work:

We’ve also been out hacking on our own again. Building up the distance very slowly but did go a bit further than before! Hopefully Hannah will be back for a full length hack soon 🙂

Well, this has been quite the year, hasn’t it? What with working from home, a stressful job and THE PANDEMIC situation I haven’t had much mojo for doing much with the pony. He’s happy enough though, sitting eating grass all day! We have kept up hacking a bit, although Hannah’s work has made it a bit of a challenge to keep a regular schedule. So this means yesterday we did a bit of solo hacking! He was super good!! We did go a short distance alone a month or two back and he was very stressed and anxious and tried to high tail it home as soon as he thought he could turn round but yesterday he was super calm and not bothered at all. Poppy wasn’t stressed about him being out of the field either as she was hanging out with our new friend Jake.

Hacking away:

Friends:

Jake was in a field on his own for a bit but seemed a bit lonely so he’s come to join ours during the day – this means I can Dino out on his own and Poppy has a friend which is great! Dino isn’t sooooo great about Poppy going out though so that’s a bit of a work in progress.

We are still doing groundwork. We’ve lost a bit of our chill recently and the leg waving has returned. We have been working on lateral stuff on and off so I don’t know if it’s because of that? Anyway. We’re still here!

Three weeks in a row for hacking success!

This week has been a bit of a struggle for various reasons. Not quite as much pony time as hoped, but we made it out again today!

We have done some more work on the last Groundwork Study Group week. Didn’t get the video in time for Hannah to see it but I’m pleased with our progress over the eight weeks. It’s been good to have something specific to focus on. I need to keep the habit of recording every week or two ideally so I can see the changes.

We’ve made progress with some good things:
– not being scared of the flexible poles
– crunches and the beginning of engagement
– leg yield at liberty
– generally he’s pretty relaxed at the moment and we haven’t had much leg waving!

So this is really good. I’m going to keep working on these this week and want to make sure I keep powering through the groundwork course and don’t get stuck on these.

We went hacking! And we did the WHOLE loop which took nearly 1.75 hours. Poor ponies, they were a bit knackered but it was only walk and it was sooooo good to get out. Hopefully we’ll be able to do the same tomorrow and maybe Monday as well. We shall see….

We’re still working on all our Connection Training stuff and I think we’re beginning to get the crunches now. Also I got a Pivo last week which works really well to follow Dino with my phone camera whilst filming! Amazing!

We’ll keep that up this week and see if we can refine it a bit. We’re also still working on the lateral work which he doesn’t enjoy very much so I need to refine my expectations there I think and up the reward so he remains excited about training.

Anyway just a short update this week I think. Hopefully I’ll have more hacking photos tomorrow….