Wednesday, 24 September 2008

24th September 2008

Strike action at school so we had Robert (Jo's lad) to help today.

I caught Charlot, with no problem. Good start, I thought. He walked calmly into the indoor school and I then remembered that we had no "inspiration", ie food! Never mind, Jo said, he couldn't dine out on his fears forever.

So, front feet were done easily enough though Charlot does have a tendency to fall over if he has to stand on three legs. He just topples over!

Then "hello back feet" and off we went again. Round and round in circles with some fairly vicious kicks aimed at Jo. He really is vile about this issue (though, I am fairly sure there will be others but we only know about this one for the time being!)

Jo decided to use a Parelli method which involves touching the horse all over with a rustly bag on a stick. Being not up on Parelli and his methods, I am not very sure of the theory and benefits here but Charlot didn't seem to mind any of this, including when Jo touched his back legs with her weird "training aid".

So, we left it at that. Jo didn't go near Charlot's feet again with her hands and we put him out into his field again to rejoin his friends. Funnily enough, Robert announced that we should try going near Charlot's back legs when he was outside - apparently he doesn't mind that in the slightest!! Always open to suggestions, we will give it a go another day!