Touching Titch for the first time

So Quantock Titch had arrived. He had eaten and slept during his first night. What now?

On entering the stable he got up from lying down and came over to me, but definitely did not want to be touched...yet. He sniffed my daughter and I and half flinched and looked away as I gently stretched out a hand to his shoulder.

Despite frequenting the carparks with his herd, I suspected the only time Titch had been touched by a human was by the hill farmers, who brought them all down from the hills to be weaned, very much considered livestock.  I learned that he had been brought down from the hills with his mum and the herd 3 weeks earlier, when he had been weaned with all the other weanlings in his barn.  That would have made him just 3 1/2 months old. Life is tough as a hill pony.  If you are born late, you are weaned early to tie in with the pony sale.

So being touched was not high on Titch's priorities, so we just stood hanging over his stable door till he was ready to approach us. Gently, slowly I managed to touch him on the shoulder.  What a feeling!  I understand about rewarding horses by releasing them.  By that I mean that a horse feels rewarded if you leave it alone, and so I used this to extend the area he felt safe to be touched in. Touch his shoulder, walk away.  If he did not want to accept, I shadowed him, my gaze lowered, until he stopped moving away, then I immediately walked away, in order to reward his stopping.  In this way I got closer and closer, touching his shoulder, neck, cheek, face (nice face rub!), along his withers, back, hind quarters, back to the withers, shoulder, leg, and so by day 2 or 3 he was fairly comfortable with the format of the 15-20 minute sessions several times a day, where a human wanted to touch him all over and rewarded him for not moving away. By day 4 he was so much more comfortable,I could stroke his tummy, waggle his tail, even touch his nether regions with no negative reaction.  What a star! I was even able to tap his hooves on the outside, though picking them up is still something we need more practice with.

I had to get a book! When on a steep learning curve, I always get a book to help! I checked out the internet and it seemed that Sarah Weston was the British expert on handling feral foals, so I got her book 'No Fear, No Force', which has helped immensely.  I have done some horsemanship with my adult horses but was not sure how much to do with a foal.  Sarah's book certainly expanded my expectations.