Starting over!

After taking some advice at the weekend, we decided to set some clear boundaries for Merlin. One of these involved play, he can do as much of this as he wants, so long as it doesn't include us! We have ordered a ball from mail order, that is specially designed for horses, but until it arrives, we let Merlin have the old space hopper. I doubt that it will last more than 24hours, as it was getting a good old chew as well as a good kicking. What these pictures don't show, is that Merlin was actually dribbling the ball around the field, pretty fast at times too!








A good while later (when he had calmed down) I decided to play a little confidence building game with a bag tied around a leather cane. At first Merlin was quite wary and gave it a suspicious look.



Then he gave it a little sniff, and I rewarded him by taking it away, to remove the pressure and also let him know that being still was the correct response. We did this several times and it worked very well, until I approached his shoulder.



The tension in the rope says it all. I kept the cane at the same distance from him until he stopped moving, and only then moved it away. This is a really tricky thing to do, in case I accidentally reward him for running away from the 'threat' by taking the cane away too quickly.



After a couple of times Merlin stopped retreating and let the cane get to about 6inches from his shoulder, each time he received the reward in the form of the cane moving away from him. I was keen to end on a good note, with him looking happy and interested as I moved away from him. I'll repeat this in a day or two, but I need to practice more with Toffee as he has less of a hair trigger!



Merlin was very well behaved today, but I didn't take my eyes off him for a second. I think it will take a while for both of us to get our confidence back again, but this time, I don't want to give up on him :)