20. October 2009 by admin.

The clinic is over and was a huge success.  I am in the office finishing this blog and catching up with more emails whilst Tina and Little Sarah work horses in the rain.  The indoor arena will get finished at some point ladies, I promise.  I think I may have to go and fire Shelley.  She has worked with me for 16 years and brings her little son into work as she did with her daughter Maisie when Maisie was little.  Shelley is such a trooper and will never take time off so I fire her on a regular basis when the weather is foul and re-employ her when it’s brighter.  That way I figure she can stay at home with her young son without feeling that she is letting me down and this is the only way I can persuade her to stay in the warm.  Her children are just a joy and the active lifestyle that they lead has certainly ensured that they always slept well when they were little!  Both adore Rusty, as does his other little owner Rachel, and all the children look after him so well and enjoy riding him and taking care of him.

Talking (or writing) about Rusty, we are all pathetically over excited by the arrival of the new pony rugs that Shelley and Mags have ordered for him, spurred on by his success in the fancy dress classes.  They are made from a cow print pattern and are just hilarious.  Now I think of it this might be a good way to get my old boy Toto over his fear of cattle!  He is generally pretty laid back about everything and is getting on a bit but the sight of Friesians legging it straight towards him gets his heart rate up even now.

It’s CHUCKING it down now so will shoot back home to retrieve my other donkeys from the mud. They do have a large field shelter but they don’t like the rain and the clay can become a quagmire in seconds.  Our clay is also red which stains everything a delicate shade of pink in the winter months.  No fake tans needed for me or Tony to give us a healthy glow.  Just good old Radford mud.

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20. October 2009 by admin.

I think I have achieved the near impossible. Cookie Dough Dynamo is actually tired!!!! Tony and I took her on a sponsored dog walk around Royal Victoria Park in Bath today in aid of the Dogs Trust and she behaved impeccably. She was game for the six mile walk and is now snoozing in her bed.  I am tempted to join her as Jon had cooked a lovely roast lunch for our house guests and now Tony and I have eaten far too much. The combination of an early start, a bracing walk and a delicious hot lunch is all too much. We have more dogs to walk later though and there are stables to do so instead I shall plough on and look forward to a quiet family evening and an early night.

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20. October 2009 by admin.

The barn is alive with the sound of……… Actually not sure quite what.  A Kookaburra is sitting on someone’s arm, a HUGE iguana is wandering around the floor, a meerkat is sitting up on his hind legs in a little pen in the corner and a jennet is sitting on someone’s head.  Yes. A normal working day at Tilley Farm.  The jennet is just beautiful.  She is a member of the mongoose family but has paws like a little cat.  She is alarmingly interested in the skunks which are blissed out with TTouch on the other side of the room.  We also have snakes, spiders and a giant African snail who is slowly creeping up one of the participants arm.

Mags and I have been on a clearing mission and our feed room is super organised and clean.  We are moving on to the hay store later and Jon is getting a little twitchy as we may just take our cleaning appliances into the house.  Frankly it needs the yard blower and the power washer but as we are unable to get a skip in through the door we may refrain from going that far. 

Our front paddock is looking gorgeous with its new fencing and everyone is enjoying the course. Although I have extra hours in the day now there still doesn’t seem to be enough time to get everything done. Perhaps I take on too much.  Oh well. At least the word ‘bored’ is never a part of my vocabulary.

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20. October 2009 by admin.

Have been filming all day for a new canine online magazine and I struggled.  My brain is not in gear.  I did have a day off yesterday and we all lolled around at home alongside my dear friend Carrie Humble who is the founder of the Thoroughbred Rehabilitation Centre in Cumbria and Mags. Carrie is giving a lecture on equine welfare today and came to stay as the college she is speaking at is not far from us but my right ear has not recovered from the flight home and this is very annoying.  I don’t usually suffer from ear problems when flying but a combination of recycled air for three days and travelling have rendered me partially deaf and I am sure that half my brain is blocked and not just my ear.

The next round of clinics start on Wednesday and we have more people turning up at the farm tomorrow.  Dogs this time and we have two training clinics running virtually back to back so I will be skipping about (and skipping out) working horses in between the outside leading sessions with the dogs.  All the horses are doing well and I think we are pretty organised thanks to the hard work of everyone here at Tilley Farm.

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20. October 2009 by admin.

It is the final day of ICAWC and I am becoming hoarse.  This always happens here.  I gave my presentation before lunch and then spent the entire lunch break, the coffee break, and the end of the conference asking questions and giving advice as best I could to the delegates.  My presentation was on changing habitual behaviour with TTouch and the video clips and series of photographs went down very well.  As Tony and I were sitting in the conference room waiting for the second day to commence a lady from Russia came over to talk to me with an interpreter.  Her name is Oksana and she told me that after seeing my presentation in Berlin (2007) she went back to her shelter and tried the techniques on her animals.  My talk changed the way she worked with the animals in her care and she was able to turn a nervous, scared cat who couldn’t look at anyone at all, into the friendliest cat in the rescue centre.  This is why I love ICAWC and this is why I love the work that I do.  I finished my presentation talking about Oksana’s successes and said that whilst TTouch alone couldn’t change the world, it could change the world for an animal in distress. 

Every speaker gives their time for free at ICAWC and 38 countries were represented by delegates who are working in often extremely difficult situations with very limited funds.  Here, they can meet with like minded people, have access to advice and help from the top people in their fields and be inspired by a variety of tips on fundraising, PR, shelter building, training and behaviour etc to help the animals that they care for live a happier and healthier life.   We are going out to supper tonight with the Dogs Trust team and some of the other speakers and will be flying home tomorrow morning.  Another brilliant ICAWC is nearly over.

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20. October 2009 by admin.

Tony and I are at the International Companion Animal Welfare Conference.  We flew in to Hungary last night and spent today watching the first group of presentations. This is Tony’s first ICAWC and I am soooo happy that he is here.  I always come back on a high from these conferences and they are highly educational and always extremely inspiring.  They are also great fun and I am thrilled that Tony can finally meet all my ICAWC friends.  Day One was fantastic as usual and I think the final speaker gets my vote for Best Presentation.  His name is Pen Farthing and he has set up a charity to help the dogs of Afghanistan after serving in Helmand Province as a marine.  He was adopted by a dog he named Nowzad after saving him from a dog fight. Nowzad (so named as he was battered and scarred like the town of Nowzad where the marines were based) obviously told the other stray dogs that Pen had been unknowingly appointed as a Dog Guardian as more dogs arrived in the military compound. Pen’s story of how he helped the Helmand Dogs is incredible and very moving.  You can see a similar presentation to the one he gave at ICAWC at http://www.icawc.org . Click on 2009 and scroll down the presentations on Day One to find Pen’s.  We are going to meet up with everyone in the bar before walking along the bank of the Danube to board a cruiser as the speakers, organisers, and delegates are spending the evening cruising down the river and enjoying a buffet. This will be very welcome as it is boiling here and it will also be the only chance we have to see the city.

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20. October 2009 by admin.

Have spent the last two days at the farm working with the horses, trying to catch up and walking the dogs.  Léo is coming on well and he is such a happy dog but he is extremely powerful and SUCH a teenager at the moment. I am teaching him that it is far nicer for all concerned if we walk calmly out of the gate and up the track as I do not relish the thought of frost and ice and an adolescent Maremma who is focused on the call of the fields and not me!  As Daisy has now left school and is enjoying a gap year I have so much more time as the school run would take at least 2 and a half hours each day. I am also taking a year off from writing and for the first time in four years can enjoy the autumn without being chained to my computer.  This is my favourite season and the weather on the whole has been glorious and I am continuing with my clearing and cleaning mission and shall tackle the feed room when I am back from Budapest.

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20. October 2009 by admin.

I am one happy bunny.  Tony and I had a fantastic time in Ireland.  We flew out on Friday afternoon and spent a lovely (and lively) evening in the excellent company of Sharon Newsome and her family. Sharon set up the Irish Horse Welfare Trust  over ten years ago and is a true ambassador for the horse working hard along with her dedicated team to rescue horses in distress and retrain ex-racehorses before rehoming them through the IHWT adoption scheme. 

I gave a Power Point Presentation for the workshop participants on the Saturday morning (I finished it on Thursday night) showing the postural problems caused by poor training, injuries, poor saddle fit, dental imbalances, bracing and tension etc and how the horse is likely to respond to stimulus as a result.  The afternoon was spent in the indoor arena showing what body work and ground work exercises are helpful to improve the movement of the horse and therefore his behaviour. 

Our first horse was a ex-hurdler called Early Assault who was so jammed in his neck and head that he found contact around his head impossible to tolerate.  His neck was solid and he could not stand still so I did some bodywork on him on the move as this was more acceptable for him. At first he gave the appearance of a horse that was calm but in truth the poor chap was shut down. He is dangerous under saddle as he suddenly shoots backwards without any warning and nearly ended up in a drain on his last ride.  This doesn’t surprise me one bit as his eye was dull and from what I could feel with my hands (and also see) I would imagine that he is in some degree of discomfort which then reaches overload when he is out hacking. When a horse is so jammed in the upper part of their body, running backwards is an understandable response. Early was a great demo horse as people could see that he was really struggling and not ‘just being difficult’ which is an easy label to put on horses that have problems.  As I always say, if you think it is in the horses head, it is probably in his body too. Sharon is so open to any information that will help the horses in the care of the IHWT that I really enjoy working with this charity. 

Our second demo horse was the fabulous and very famous Moscow Flyer.  He is on loan to the IHWT to help raise much needed funds for the charity and to raise awareness of their work and I wanted to work with him and take him and his rider/carer Bev through the steps to bridle less riding as he can become a little stiff in the lumbar area when ridden.  I have to say though he feels pretty amazing through the body and if you weren’t aware of Moscow’s history you wouldn’t have a clue that he had such an illustrious career as there is little evidence of it in his body.  He did struggle a little on the right rein when he first came in to the arena but this was quite subtle as he generally has good balance and good movement.  I moved the saddle back a little and gave Bev a Balance Rein to start encouraging Moscow to stretch and lengthen his neck before I introduced them both to the neck ring.  I was more than ably assisted by two of our Practitioners Gina Sivyer and Theodora Sonnenberg who are both based in Ireland and the results were fantastic.  Bev and Moscow changed beyond belief and the afternoon ended with Moscow feeling and looking even freer in walk and trot and working effortlessly on both reins. Brilliant.

Sunday was spent at the IHWT yard.  We worked with Early in his stable and he spent most of the time with his head on the floor and his neck popping and cracking as he yawned and sighed. Moscow was initially quite indignant that he hadn’t been turned out but willingly succumbed to the tranquillity of TTouch.  If you have a horse that has to be on box rest for whatever reason, I would thoroughly recommend that you learn some simple body work exercises that will help to keep them settled and relaxed.  We worked until mid-afternoon with a few more ex-racehorses and a little Welsh Mountain Mare who was pretty nervous around strangers.  Her ears were like little ice cubes which is common in animals that are afraid so I started by working on her body where she was less threatened by contact and stroked her ears back against her neck which is often the best way to start working with horses that are ear shy.  Gina then went back in with her and continued working with her and was able to stroke her ears.  I always feel very at home in Ireland and love working with the IHWT.  I had planned to teach more workshops in Ireland this year but it was all cancelled due to my family situation but I am looking ahead to a brighter 2010 and will definitely be going back.

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20. October 2009 by admin.

Still haven’t finished the Power Point presentation that I will be giving in Ireland on Saturday (will do that in a minute) as I spent a very pleasant day at the Dogs Trust in Salisbury. I am obviously a big fan of the Dogs Trust as I am involved with them in a professional capacity but today was more of a social event as I met up with Chris Laurence (Veterinary Director of DT) and David Newall (International Director) to look around the centre as it is one of the few Dogs Trust centres that I haven’t visited even though it is my nearest one. Isn’t that usually the case? Great shelter (of course) and as the morning was rounded off with Thai Fish Cakes in a gorgeous old pub in the village the day was both relaxing and enjoyable.  Arrived home mid afternoon and started all the packing and planning for the week ahead as I am off to County Wicklow tomorrow and then fly to Budapest next week for the International Companion Animal Welfare Conference where I will be giving a presentation on changing habits with TTouch. Fortunately that presentation has already been done and is already in the hands of Chris Laurence whose skills also extend to IT, unlike me.  Chris has so many letters after his name including MBE and MRCVS so am tempted to add a few to mine.  I think QBE sounds quite impressive which would stand for Qualified by Experience!

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8. October 2009 by admin.

A whirlwind of activity as usual and I am away at the Dogs Trust near Salisbury tomorrow, then off to teach in Ireland at the weekend. Dan’s little Appaloosa mare Kandy K arrived from Guernsey yesterday and all the horses have been great today. We have a very calm atmosphere here at Tilley Farm and new horses generally settle really well. Everything is going to plan. Sue had a riding lesson on Barney yesterday and he was as good as gold so she has taken him home to continue with the work. He is definitely freer in the trot but for now we are suggesting that Sue concentrates on walk work as it is, after all, the mother of all gaits. Many people underestimate how much balance and movement can be improved through walking exercises and we certainly don’t want to rush Barney and set him back.

Sam is learning to chest line drive which will help him overcome his concerns on the lunge. We have also started the in hand exercises for lunging so that he can stay calm and not rush forward when on the long lines. Tina rode him today for the first time and he really started to loosen and use his back. I spent three hours yesterday washing down my stables at home (I don’t live at Tilley Farm) and they are ready for the winter although I am now tempted to paint the stable doors if I find the time. Now I’m off to walk the dogs before clearing the rest of the hedge trimmings that have been cut along the foot paths, then I will try to persuade Jon that he would love to sand my stable doors at home. As a girl I would far rather do all the pretty bits than the boring preparation work and if I wait for Tony to do it I may not have any donkeys left as they only live for 30 years or so.

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