Showing class at the Kerry Bog Pony Co-Operative show
Marte and Mary were joined by Aoife and her pony prince at the Red Fox Inn Glenbeigh on Saturday 24th September for a clicker training demonstration. We arrived early and admired loads of these wonderful ponies in a variety of showing classes.
Ventry King - Show Champion
The Kerry Bog Pony Co-operative Society has been set up to aid the survival of this breed of native Irish pony and they have gone from strength to strength. Since 2005, they have an annual Show day with educational events and sales. Yesterday they also launched their new website www.kerrybogpony.ie which contains lots of information and the database for this breed.
Prince perches on a wooden block
The weather was glorious (I was assured that they’ve never had a bad day yet for their show!) and when the showing was over, we were brought up to the Red Fox Inn for a delicous lunch and then returned to the field for our demonstration. Prince, Aoife’s 14.2hh pony, looked like a giant among all the bog ponies. He showed how he can move elegantly alongside Aoife back and forward as well as demonstrating a variety of tricks: playing football, fetching, standing on his pedestal, and showing off how he can discriminate between colours.
A new clicker trainee!
Mary then worked with a 9-yo brood mare who had no previous training. The little mare demonstrated how quickly horses can pick up on clicker training by touching and tracking a target. We then did a little basic leading and backing up, followe by asking her to stand on a wooden mat. She didn’t want to put her feet on this strange object at first but quickly overcame her anxieties to stand bravely with her front feet firmly on it. We were working on grass and so head lowering was happening without any training as she enjoyed a pick of grass – this is a behaviour we normally teach in a demonstration to show the calming effect it has. So on this occasion we worked a bit on desensitising using a very large plastic ball. She was clearly anxious at first when the ball (almost as large as herself) was brought into the pen but a few clicks and treats later, she was happy to stand calm and relaxed while the ball was rolling all over her back.
We enjoyed the day enormously and are really looking forward to doing some more work with these very clever little ponies.
