Handling The Wild And Traumatised Horse Course

Nicole and Ebony

 We really enjoyed our weekend course that we hosted at the p4p yard - "Handling The Wild And Traumatised Horse".  Vanessa Bee of Positive Horsemanship and The Horse Agility Club is always so supportive of p4p and our work and is always so generous - donating all the course proceeds directly to us.  We met some lovely people on our course this weekend - Carol; Nicole and Martin who came from the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust; and it was great that our friends Angela and Lisa could come too.

There's always so much to fit in on the 2 day course.  Whereas we usually have wild ponies in to handle, there is such a shortage of homes for them to go to, we just couldn't take in any extra ponies.  Instead, we decided to incorporate the round-up of our sponsor ponies Ebony and Apache - both of whom are very nervous, traumatised ponies.  Thank you very much to Jane for allowing us to do this and for all the lovely scones and chocolate cake and tea that she provided for us.  Ebony and Apache have an untraumatised sheep friend (called Larry) who lives with them and is convinced that he is a pony too so he joined in with everything.

After the introductions and videos on Saturday, we worked with the p4p ponies at the yard - they are all at differing levels of trauma (except Frodo who was a different sort of challenge for them!) and it's pretty fair to say that the ponies were really alarmed at just the sight of a group of unusual people appearing on site.  Even Topsy was able to do a bit of work - allowing Carol to do some handling with her.  We rounded up Ebony and Apache late afternoon so that they could stay in overnight and settle before handling the next day.  Actually, deciding to round-up Ebony and Apache was great for Martin and Nicole in particular as they have conservation ponies that they work with at the Wildlife Trust sites.  It's wonderful that they are so keen to learn about and understand the ponies - both are so thoughtful and are so dedicated to handling them in the right way.  I think they are now both addicted to wild pony handling too!  Whether we are teaching, or just students on courses we always learn so much.  Faye was really happy with how well Apache did - he was so fearful in the morning but with just advance and retreat (and no need for a "glove on a stick" etc) he allowed her to headcollar him.  After handling, Ebony and Apache have gone straight back out to their nature reserve...it's great for them to have these positive experiences of people and they are straight back out living in their natural paradise again.

We'd like to say a big thank you to Margaret who has been so dedicated to helping us get ready for this weekend.  She also helped throughout the weekend keeping everyone happy with tea, coffee and biscuits; and helped with poo-picking and keeping the ponies provisioned with hay - helping everything to run as smoothly as possible.

Inviting Ebony to see Larry

Martin, Ebony and Larry

Vanessa applying horsemanship to sheep...is that "sheepmanship"??

Frodo did have a bath on Friday night before the course (not that he was impressed) so I took this photo as proof that he was clean when I left him.  Just as well because he was covered in mud again by the morning...and it was raining so there wasn't really anything that could be done to clean him up!!

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