He's just so smart :)

Today was an awful day it rained and rained and rained but provided me with a good excuse to see how well Harrys umbrella lessons sank in.

Now I'm not the sort of person that does something with a horse over and over again until he "gets it". I do the normal everyday sort of stuff, um, everyday so I pick up all his feet and run my hands all over him even his privates!

And he gets fairly regular walks although not everyday and not much recently as he seems to be growing A LOT and I don't want to ruin young joints. He's fine on walks and fine even when he's been left for a month or two so there's not much to improve on there you know?

So anyway the same with new stuff, I prefer to introduce him to it and see how he reacts, if he's scared do a bit more with him and hopefully finish on a good note - the good note being that he's realised it's not scared. And then just leave it so the next time he sees it he'll think ah, that wasn't scary last time! That's my theory anyway.

So last time we did any umbrellas he was getting nuts every time he touched the brolly, so hopefully he learnt that brollys = nice voice from mummy and nuts and head rub.

Today I went out with my less scary blue brolly. The wind decided to turn up at this point and kept trying to blow it inside out! Ah wind! Grr.

Nick being away when I did the whole brolly stuff previously ran off when he saw me which set the other two off, but then I started talking to them so they all realised it was me and then Harry after having some grass for a few minutes came straight over and stood there while I stroked him then went round his side and started scratching his neck - still with my brolly all high and scary above my head! The last time I was with him and my brolly he was happy letting me stroke his face but didn't want me going round the side. Today he wasn't bothered! I guess my theory works. On Harry anyway :D

Other smart stuff he does, I realised I had taught him to stay and come completely by accident just I'd been doing it the same way so he'd worked it out all himself, smart boy.

He also hasn't forgotten the bow and is always putting his head down when I pick up his feet to see if we're going to do it.

And then I was watching a frenchman doing some tricks with his pony, one of them was the horse would nudge his bottom when he turned around, so I thought as Harry already knows "come" which is I open and close my hand in front of me, I wonder if he would do it with my back to him?

So the other day I was telling him to "stay" then walking away, put my hands behind my back and bend forward a bit and open and close my hand, and Harry walked straight up and put his nose in my hand, at which point I turned round said Good Boy! and gave him a stroke. Did this several times and he kept doing it, ah so smart didn't even need any treats :) Love my pony :)

So Harry has a returned fieldmate Nick. Harry and Rocky were getting quite chummy but now Nick has returned and ofcourse being tiny he is the boss of the field, Nick is his and Harry is alone again. Nick didn't even want Harry to see me I had to tell him to stay so I could give Harry a cuddle.

Anywho last week I introduced Harry to the rainbow umbrella properly. I started off with it rolled up and I had some yummy nuts, at first Harry was thinking he had to come to me for the nuts, so I gave them to him in the hand I was holding the (large!) umbrella, the idea was he associated the umbrella with nice things so every time he touched it with his nose I said "Good boy!" and stroked him and gave him nuts by the umbrella/with the umbrella you get the picture.

Then started opening it up in stages and everytime harry touched it he got nuts, he got the idea really quickly cos he is a wonderful amazing smart handsome best pony in the world. So it seemed within no time I had the umbrella open completely and Harry standing under it with it quite low and having lovely nuts and strokes, he even followed me when I walked away. He didnt really want me moving to the side though, but that's next on the to-do list. He's the sort that learns by doing a bit, leaving a bit then doing a bit more and he is 10 times better just from having a few days to think it over.

Umbrellas!

As the weather has decided it's autumn time, I thought it was about time Harry met an umbrella.

Actually I'm going to pause the story here to say I have accidentally managed to spoil Harry, not through treats or excess rugging and stabling, but from attention. It all started as I've been doing some work with his fieldmate Rocky, who's 3 so I've started backing him and just handling him a bit. Now Harry hasn't really cared about me taking Rocky out and leaving him alone, but the other day I brought a girl over that I know (she is a tiny pixie and Rocky is a tiny pony so thought she'd be better off actually riding Rocky, I've sat on him but I have very long legs so feel ridiculous on him!) so we got Harry and Rocky in from field, tied them up in the "yard" and I helped the girl groom Rocky and tack him up, which meant Harry was tied up and left alone and wow he didn't like it! He started stamping and pawing the ground and spinning around and tossing his head and just staring at me with a look of outrage! I'd never thought about it before but now I do I realise that whenever somethings been happening e.g. moving the ponies I've always been the one handling him, so I think he was jealous!

Anyway back to the story, so I took my umbrella out which isn't very big and is blue so fairly dull, went across the field calling Harry and Rocky who both came towards me happily, then both suddenly realised I had something over my head! So they ran away a bit and stopped to look all wild eyed, I carried on talking and they came a bit closer, then I put the brolly down and they realised it was me so came up and had a scratch, then I put the brolly over my head and they were a bit unsure but didn't run away, Rocky was more worried then Harry. I kept putting the brolly over me then down again and just wondering about like everything was normal and they quite quickly decided it wasn't going to eat them.

But now I have a big rainbow coloured umbrella borrowed off a friend! So going to see what they think of that! I will take some treats with me this time. My aim is in the not so distant future to be able to take Harry for a walk with an umbrella aswell :)