5. October 2010 by admin.

I cannot believe it is October already and am horrified that we are already hurtling towards Christmas. Where has the year gone?  I went to see a new horse client on Friday and spent the weekend at the farm looking after the horses and feeding a stunning feral kitten that has taken up residence under the pallets in the hay shed.   I have a week of teaching ahead and am then leaving again for another weekend dog event.

I have had some wonderful emails from very happy clients reporting on the great changes they and their horses/dogs are making but the best has to be a message sent to the Tilley Farm Facebook account from Heine’s mother.  Heine was the young lad who attended my horse clinic in South Africa with his horse Koedoe. Both made significant changes during the week and Heine has just won Junior Rider of the Year and Koedoe has won Horse of the Year. This news has made me smile, smile, smile. Yup. I love my job. Well done Heine, well done Koedoe.  You both deserve your successes. 

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5. October 2010 by admin.

The flow of interesting animals coming to the farm continues with a visit from a Dingo.  On the horse course we teach a leading technique known as the Dingo but on the dog course we work with the real thing!  He is owned by Steve who brings all the other exotic animals but is currently being fostered by another friend who seems to be rather lacking in sleep.  The Dingo will not urinate in short grass so an early morning call of nature (usually around 2am) involves a mile walk to a patch of long grass!   The Dingo played in the indoor arena with a Belgian Shepherd who is on the course with his owner Louise.  The Dingo is a real sweetie and really enjoyed the opportunity to have a jolly good romp as he cannot be let off the lead for obvious reasons.

It has been a long, long day as I gave a talk to a vet group this evening and only got back to the farm at 11.30pm.  I am submitting a talk for a conference in the USA next year and have to upload a clip of me giving a lecture.  Computers are not my strong point but good old Jon is helping to edit and upload the clip from a talk I gave on the link between posture and behaviour a few years ago.  We have to wait half an hour for it to upload and as it is now nearly 1.00am I am getting rather sleepy.

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5. October 2010 by admin.

Hurrah. It is exotic animal day and I actually had time to participate. We had a coati mundi, four fruit bats, two skunks, a jennet, two baby meerkats, pygmy hedgehogs, snakes, spiders, a maccaw, a snapping turtle, other reptiles, and two baby lovebirds all enjoying TTouch in the training barn.  We took the coati mundi outside on a harness and he had a wonderful time scratching and rooting through the hay barn.  I also did some clicker training with the jennet which was very cool. 

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5. October 2010 by admin.

The first companion animal clinic has been and gone and we have two days of quiet before the second clinic starts on Sunday. I have been back on road attending a trade show in Birmingham on Tuesday and have had a totally brilliant day today doing a photoshoot for Your Horse magazine here at Tilley Farm.  We had so much to get through as I had so many ideas and we couldn’t fit everything in so I will be doing another photo session in a few weeks time.  I used one of my Icelandic horses, Skupla,  my new Cob and Toto who LOVED the whole concept of clicker as of course it involves food!  It is a myth that clicker work encourages horses to mug for food as it in fact teaches horses appropriate behaviour around food.  The clicker is used to mark the behaviour that you want and I always start by teaching horses to turn their head away.  It can be used for helping horses to load, stand still when being mounted or tied, pick up a leg, overcome concerns with being rugged (providing problems with saddle and rug fit have been addressed) and so on.  It is a really nice way of working with horses and it has been used by horse men and women of all levels to improve both behaviour and performance. Skupla is supremely intelligent and really took to the work.  She picked up each new skill really quickly and I am looking forward to teaching her more over the coming weeks.

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5. October 2010 by admin.

It was another long day today as I was presenting a lecture/demonstration for a vet physio course at Harper Adams University College in Shropshire.  Tina came with me and I started with a power point before moving outside to work with horses, dogs, rabbits and cows!  I have only worked on pet cows before but it was great fun showing the students how to approach cattle using wands and progressing to rolling the end of the wand covered in a body wrap over the cow’s body before getting hands on.  I always include body language in my lectures and the cows were fantastic for demonstrating the difference between concern and quiet contentment as the changes were very clear.  We went from having cows that were skittering about with wide eyes and fast respiration to cattle that were able to stand still, lower their head, and slowly blink, lick and chew in around 10 minutes.

My power point included correct and incorrect muscling in both horses and dogs and how it can be influenced with ground work and body work and I am including two pictures of a horse’s neck that I had in the power point in this blog. The first picture was taken within a day of Tina’s horse Wellington arriving on the yard. Note the bracing patterns around the upper part of the neck and in front of the shoulder.  Also note the dip in front of the withers - this is usually indicative of poor saddle fit and/or loss of muscle behind the shoulders. Not surprisingly the horse found it impossible to stand still. The second photograph was taken a few weeks later.  At the last show of this season the judge actually commented on the quality of Wellington’s neck and put it down to his breeding.  As you can see from the pictures it is in fact down to improving his posture and can be achieved through time and understanding.

Toto is on the mend which is huge relief. Lorna came to see him and found sensitivity in the same place as I had. She worked her magic and the shoulder is much freer so Shelley will keep up with the leg circles to ensure that he remains as flexible as possible.

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5. October 2010 by admin.

As the clinic continues it is the usual balance of sorting out dogs, cats, donkeys and the Shetland pony before heading up to the farm to prepare for my other commitments. I have more workshops looming and lectures too so need to get pictures and video clips for the power point presentations together in between mucking out, poo picking, bringing horses in and turning them back out etc as am on stable duties all week so that Vikki can spend as much time on the clinic as she can and Tina can teach.

I had to leave mid morning today and drive up to Uxbridge to give a talk for Dogs Trust International Training Programme and am teaching a full day workshop for Dogs for the Disabled tomorrow so it’s back behind the wheel for a couple of days which at least gives me thinking time to finalise ideas for the forthcoming lectures, photoshoots and presentations.

I am part way writing some articles for the TTEAM newsletter and our websites on exercises that we can do with our horses in the stable to improve circulation and flexibility through the winter and have been teaching my horses some clicker work in preparation for a series of three features for Your Horse Magazine on a similar subject so thought I would start including some simple exercises in my blogs for you to try with your own horses.

Leg Circles

Circling the legs before and after you pick out the hooves will help your horse to remain free through the shoulders and hind quarters and only a few minutes a day will bring about significant changes in a short space of time. This exercise will also highlight any problems your horse may have when schooling as you may discover that your horse is significantly stiffer in one or more of his limbs.

To circle the front leg stand with your outside foot in front of the nearside foot, bend your knees and rest your outside arm on your thigh to protect your back.  Support the horse’s leg with the hand nearest the horse around the fetlock and hold the hoof with your other hand ensuring that the toe is pointing towards the ground. Avoid bending the fetlock as this will put unnecessary strain on the joint and make sure that you do not inadvertently pull the leg towards you.  If your horse fusses and tries to snatch up the leg, go with the movement and gently rock the fetlock slightly up and down keeping the movement small so that it stays in a comfortable range of movement for the horse.  If he is really concerned lower the leg to the ground, then try again.  Move your own body in a circle so that the movement circles the horse’s leg and work in both a clockwise and anti clockwise direction circling the hoof over the place the hoof would be if the foot was on the ground.  Repeat with the other limb and see if the movement is even on both sides.  You may find that one leg feels heavier or stiffer than then other.

To circle the hind limbs, organise your body in the same way but this time support the leg by holding the hind canon bone.  You do not need to support the fetlock in the same way as you did with the front legs as the hind leg flexes in a different way.  Circle each leg in both directions and pay attention to the feeling and quality of movement in each limb.  Make sure that you are standing in a position that is safe.  If you are too close to the horse you may get trodden on if the horse suddenly snatches his foot back and stamps it down on the ground.

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5. October 2010 by admin.

I am back at the farm after a fun weekend at Paws in the Park.  Toto is still lame but more comfortable after the vet prescribed a stronger pain med for him.  The vet couldn’t find anything of significance in the leg or hoof either and it definitely seems to be coming from the shoulder. Lorna Brown who used to work here and is a TTEAM Practitioner and also a McTimoney Chiropractor will be visiting the yard to see one of her canine clients here so I will ask her to look at Toto as well. It’s good to have new eyes look at my boy and she knows the horse well.

The clinic horses have improved over the weekend and the indoor school has had good use already. Having two arenas means that more horses can be worked at the same time and our young dressage client can be worked quietly on his own by Tina without being overwhelmed by the new comers.  He hasn’t reared at all and the crawling up the school has stopped as well which is fortunate to say the least.  Miss Myrtle is behaving like a star and taking it all in her stride and it’s fun having a variety of youngsters on the clinic as all the horses are between the ages of three and five.

We also have a new member of the Tilley Farm team who is brilliant.  Her name is Vikki and she has spent time at Tilley Farm on work experience but is now studying for her NVQ Level 3 in Equine Behaviour and will be with us for approximately a year.

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