OMG! What an amazing day we have had :db:

To start with the amazing Dena Schwartz who is a holistic therapist (http://www.animalaromatherapy.co.uk/index.html) came to see Dino. I didn’t have any specific expectations for this; the lovely Claudia swears by Dena and so I thought it would be nice for him to get a bit of an MOT and see what she made of him and if she found and niggles with him. She works with aromatherapy and herbs on the principle of self-medication; so the horses only want the herbs and oils that they need. It was pretty fascinating, I have to say. Dino is not one for smelling before tasting it seems! He wants to put things in his mouth and then spit them out again if he changed his mind rather than having a good sniff and thinking about it first. :laugh: I have the complete list of things he chose on a piece of paper but not to hand so I’ll post it about it later in the week but he chose a lot of stuff to do with cleansing and detoxing, which we think could be due to the amount of drugs and stuff he’s had due to his extensive vet treatment. Now we have a selection of things he showed an interest in we need to spend four days trying him with each on again, noting this strength of his enthusiasm for it and then report back so Dena can see what he really thinks he needs and interpret that a bit for me. It was really interesting!

But clearly for him it was pretty tiring; we went to sort out the herbs and when we came back he was having a nap!

Then we went out and had some fun! We had a brilliant time at the gallops! :yahoo: For a start he walked straight onto the trailier, no issues. Got a bit stressed when waiting to move but was pretty good once moving. So off we went with my good friend Claire and the lovely Tally pony. He was a bit tense when we first got off (and tried to climb onto the mounting block with me :o) but Claire was sensible enough to suggest we just went straight to the gallops bit before I could get too nervous and stressed about it. And it was great! Although Dino jumped off the track at first which was a bit unhelpful but then Tally went past him and he soon got the idea :db: I put a neck strap on him or my own benefit and was extremely glad I did as it made me feel much more secure. We just let them go and they proper galloped about 1/4 mile (the track is one mile long) and then cantered for another 1/4 mile or so before pulling themselves up. It was awesome! Then we went for a walk round some adjoining woodland bridlepaths for about and hour. And then they both loaded without any incident or bother again to come home. One very very successful day :yahoo:

Here they were having a snack whilst we had a cup of tea before we came home:

Very pleased with both him & me today! :wub: