A New Unicorn, Facebook Friends and Clicker Training

First up a warm welcome to Dora (The Explorer), the newest member of Jo's Unicorn team.  What a sweetie....Dora is about 11.2hh Welsh Sec A with a nice Welsh pedigree and an unpronounceable name! We picked her up Sunday, and she has settled into the small herd nicely. Polly was a bit grumpy, but SweetPea soon made friends.  The big herd were transfixed and managed to look like 3 old witches peering through net curtains!!

I now must give a shout out to a (mostly American) Facebook page.  Not one for joining Facebook groups, however I love this one. Its called "Aging Horsewomen" which suits me nicely.  Some of the riders are truly inspiring. There is heaps of advice and its such a friendly group. With 2000 plus members and an average age of 50 plus, there's not much this group as a whole doesn't know.  It's been a fun learning curve on the language front... I wasn't quite so aware of the language difference before.....and we have been having a laugh about "Fanny Packs" and "Riding on the Buckle"......not to mention "thongs"!!

Speaking of language.....Charlie and I have started a new one. Clicker training. As regular readers of this blog know, as much as I love the little fella, he has been a huge challenge to break.  A lot of the problem is my dodgy lungs and dicky ticker.  Back in the day, I would have hung on for grim death and not cared about flying lessons!!  But this is now, so its a careful slow process is needed.  I am having his eyes checked on Monday....just to make sure.  But in the meantime we are trying Clicker Training.  So far so good.  Immediately he figured that a click means a treat.  Today we moved onto a target......a bit of pillow stuffed on the end of a whip!!!  No problem at all. With his curious nature he couldn't wait to examine it.  In no time, the word "Nose" resulted in him touching the target.  So far so good ! :-)

Dora

Nosy neighbours!!

Click!