12th June 2010

Wow, what a good Charlot day!

He was easy to catch and we also caught a little Shetland too. Jo walked off with her Shetland while I turned around to shut the gate. I thought I would see what would happen if.....I looped Charlot's rope over his neck and turned my back to him. Now Jo was walking away with her pony and Charlot had two choices, to follow Jo and her pony or to stay with me. He just turned around to face me and waiteduntil I was ready to go.

We walked happily to the shed together and, as Charlot was obviously in a trusting mood, we decided to trim his back feet. With me on the front end chatting to him, Jo picked up a back and trimmed it and then the other one. He was a good boy and got small bits of carrot for his efforts.

Then, we showed him the foot stand. Charlot was not sure about this and danced about, so Jo put a front hoof on and rasped that before she tried again with a back. He succeeded very quickly and was calm and trusting. Jo said that she felt she could trust him and was happy to put herself in a more vulnerable place to do a better job. Before he has to be trimmed almost at arm's length with a twitch on. I hope that makes sense - badly put really!

As a reward, I took Charlot to the house to get some more carrots from the fridge. He happily stood by the front door waiting!

Anyway, well done Charlot! What a huge change. He still has a thing about waving arms so I fed him a carrot doing a wavy arm dance. If he wanted the carrot pieces, he had to allow me to behave very oddly.

A very calm day. A very good day and one we will remember!