Ransom meets the horses and a report on February

February was busier than I thought is was going to be! Sorry for the lack of posts the past two weeks, I was busy with a conference, traveling to a clinic, and then catching up on school work. The good part, though, is I have lots of interesting things to think about and write about for March!

I have a post I’m working on for tomorrow about an awesome non-profit that helps shelter dogs. Then, for this week I have several posts about the Alexandra Kurland clinic I audited last weekend. It was a very interesting clinic. We had a diverse group of horses and everyone in attendance was experienced with horses and clicker training. We had some really good discussions about teaching strategies, effective clicker training, and creative solutions to complex problems.

Then, next week, I have about half a dozen posts I’m working on about ORCA’s 2011 animal training conference at UNT. This year’s conference was absolutely fantastic. The speakers were great and many of their presentations seemed to connect and expand on the other lectures. Quite a bit of the discussion centered around finding ways to train that help our animals be successful and minimize frustration and errors. Also, Bob Bailey spoke at the conference! This was a bit of a surprise and everyone was very excited to get to hear him speak.

The pictures are from yesterday. My friend Liz came out to the rescue with me, along with her dog Ransom. We had fun, although it was very windy and cold, so we didn’t do a whole lot with the horses. Liz got to meet Ella, our baby donkey, who is getting sweeter by the day! Ransom had a blast meeting the horses, finding interesting things to roll in, and attempting to swim in the water troughs. He even tried to play some with Ella. I got some cute video of this, which I’ll stick on youtube. He would run up to her, then she would chase him off, then he would run around her and back up to her, and she would chase him off again. They both seemed very playful about it and seemed to enjoy their game of “you can’t catch me.” Ella seemed more playful than serious, although if she wanted to, I think she would make a very good guard donkey!