The ponies got lovely little fleece rugs for their Christmas.  They only really ever wear turnouts, but handy to have to dry them off.  They are very cute.

  

Christmas seems to agree with them and they have both been in very good spirits recently.  Someone mentioned to me yesterday that it's hard to believe that Honey is the same pony that arrived 11 months ago.  Not just in that she looks better, but also her behaviour and confidence.  Obviously I see changes, but as I see her every day, it's nice that other people also notice.  One of my biggest concerns with her was as her feet were so horrific, she still leaned back and rocked on her feet.  It's not a problem really as she is not a ridden animal and will never be asked to do much work, but I worried about how this affected her joints.  I have noticed recently that she is much straighter in her stance and she is actually picking her feet up to turn instead of just swivelling around.  The changes we have made to her feet have been very gradual.  She had developed a way of standing and even moving if she could to compensate for her big curly elf feet.  It's now her bones and muscles are slowly adapting to a new way of moving.  She still doesn't land straight and there is still a long way to go with them and she may never have perfect feet but we will continue to do our best and as long as she is comfortable.  It's always interesting to see her feet being trimmed due to the growth pattern and weight bearing differences.  She has been very settled recently and is very much part of our family now and over the last few months, I have felt a shift in her attitude towards me in that she wants to be part of our family.

Wee Pals

Happiness is a warm dry stable, a wee drop hay and a friend to share with, it doesn't take much.

I was watching a you tube video of an American miniature who had been taught to match up objects.  For example the trainer would hold up a blue ball, the pony would then walk over to a table where there were various objects laid out and he would select the blue ball by nudging it.  The ponies get snack balls at night time, Honey has a pink one and Buttons' is blue.  I give them each a ball before I leave, but they do end up playing with either.  However, if I put the two balls down in front of Honey, she always selects the pink one. It got me to thinking to how they see colour.  It also really interests me as to how they learn.  Buttons gets through life by being very cute, friendly and just utterly adorable.  He is the class clown, and hey why not, it works, he has absolutely everyone he meets wrapped around his little hoof in minutes.  Honey and him are like night and day though.  Honey is a thinker but she is also very clever.  She works things out.  Buttons does things without thinking of the repurcussions.  He seems to have no spacial awareness and will try and squeeze through spaces he can't possibly fit.  Like Ying and Yang.  I am going to try and teach them to match up objects just to see exactly how they both learn as individuals.

Don't put the cart before the horse

Little Honey comes in from the field herself now.  I bring the ponies and G in together.  As it's a really stoney track they have to come down, I tie Honey's rope up and just let her come down at her own pace, letting her pick her own route. 

Nose to tail

If she gets distracted, you just shout her name and she comes.

Look who else is wearing the roller! honey wears her first piece of tack.  A few months ago, I wouldn't have been able to even take the roller into the stable without her trying to bolt off.  She has seen buttons wearing it and yesterday she wore it for the first time, tightened up, without batting an eye lid. 

The ponies have a set of harness and a tiny little pony trap.  I got a real bargain on Gumtree.  Buttons has been long reining and pulling a tyre, he really loves just being busy.  Honey usually just ponies along beside us.  Yesterday, I tried the harness on Buttons as it needs a few holes punched and a few adjustments.  I need to get a little roller pad, but hopefully soon, he'll be harnessed up.  

Shetland Ponies are good for the soul

It is amazing that something so simple as running around a field with a couple of Shetland Ponies can bring so much joy.  Two dinky little ponies who were abandoned, not even worthy to some people of even being dumped on the scrap heap, just forgotten, can bring such happiness by doing nothing more than being themselves.   

All ponies deserve at least once in their lives, to be loved by a little girl



A Pair of Pampered Ponies

I have been trialling a couple of 100% natural and mostly organic horse skincare products over the last couple of months - with great results.

Check out my review on http://thatwayequined.blogspot.co.uk/

Home Sweet Home

The ponies have a fabulous new sign for their little pony house.  This pair don't need any introductions but now they both have a lovely, cosy home to call their own....and a sign above the door to prove it!  They love having visitors so everybody is welcome at any time. Remember to wipe your feet first! The sign was handmade by stardeSIGNS and has received a big whinny of approval from both B and H.

Must have been a fire sale in rugs.  Can you guess who is who?

A weight off my mind

The ponies were weighed on Wednesday.  Buttons is 163Kg and Honey is 161Kg.  Both perfect and condition scored at a 3.  They both walked straight onto the weigh bridge and seemed to enjoy the whole thing, although that pair enjoy anything really.  It was a feed rep from Dengie who came up.  We got £5.00 vouchers off bags of Hi Fi lite, which was good as I already use it.  It's really good to know their exact weights as we weighed them with the feed reps weigh tape and my own weigh tape and both gave different weights.  The endless soaking haynets, weighing hay etc has all been worth it.  I have another surprise in store for Buttons, but I will write about that another time.

Buttons is back to untieing things, his choice at the moment is haynets.  Tonight I went into their stable to find the pair of them in the small part of the stable with both haynets on the ground and they were busy emptying the hay out the top of them.  Honeys net had been tied up at the far side of the big part of the stable, so I can only guess that he's untied her net and dragged it into his part of the stable.  The door inside the stable is always tied open so they can choose where they want to go.  Buttons seems to like being in the smaller part of the stable but he comes out to go to the toilet in Honey's part of the stable and then goes back to his nice clean room!  He never fails to make me laugh.

  

And the gold medal goes to...............Buttons Brownlie!

The Vet was up during the week to vaccinate Wolfie, Buttons and Honey.  The Vet was super impressed with Buttons' weight, said he was absolutely spot on and looked fantastic.  He kept calling him a little smasher. 

He is very athletic considering how short his legs are and how low his centre of gravity is


Although I think Buttons' sees himself looking more like this....



Buttons is looking better than he ever has.  His feet are fantastic at the moment.  He was trimmed last Wednesday and there was quite a lot of growth taken off.  For the first time ever he is actively walking over stones and hard ground comfortably.  

Honey was good for the vet.  She was also trimmed on Wednesday.  Her feet are continuing to improve, however she is going through a difficult stage at the moment with laminitic lines growing out and some separation of the white line.  She has quite a substantial hole at the outside wall of the near fore.  I can only keep it clean and hope that no dirt or grit gets in there that could cause an abcess.  We'll get through this too, it will just take a little time and growth.  Her frogs are much healthier and actually now look like frogs and are starting to be able to do their job.  When she first arrived they were completely atrophied and totally functionless due to the shape of her feet.

Here's a video of  little Honey pear the other night asking me to stop standing videoing and go and get her tea.  If you watch with the sound on, you will hear her polite noises.  And pawing the ground, I wonder who she picked that up from.....hmmm Buttons.  She copies a lot of things he does, you can see her trying them out to see if it gets the desired reaction.  She is really very cute.

stealing G's dinner

No flies on me!

Buttons in his new fly mask.  His eye is looking 100 times better and it has helped being able to keep the flies out of it.  He actually seems to really appreciate the mask stopping the flies getting and his eyes.  It's made by a company called Dinky Rugs who make things for miniatures.  It's a really good fit.  I only ordered one as I didn't know what it would be like, but I think I'll order another one for Honey.  I'll get some Honey feet pictures this weekend.  I have taken photographs every 6 weeks since she came, but I've had her 6 months now, so I'd like to do a comparison now with the photographs I took when she came.