Late summer

My broken shoulder is healing slowly, but here I am using two hands at the computer!  It's been a crazy experience ... pain, swelling, immobility, lack of sleep, frustration and .... the many gracious, kind and helpful offers of food and support from island folk.  It takes a community to mend a broken shoulder!

One of the bright spots has been shared clicker training sessions with a friend who is an experienced horse person, but fairly new to clicker training.  Bonus - she is also a physio!  As a keen student of positive reinforcement training, she has been coming over weekly and working with the donkeys and me.

Until last week, I could only participate by instructing and observing but not interacting with the donkeys directly.  Now though, I am able to do a bit more, although have had to tweak my handling skills in order to protect my sore shoulder.

I have learned SO much and have enjoyed having a buddy to work with.  Filming our sessions hasn't been possible but perhaps soon, as I would really like to capture some of our work. Even note-taking has been a challenge for me until recently but today's task is to make a training chart for each donkey.

Each of the four donkeys moves through lessons at a different speed and some are learning behaviours more suited to their individual personality.  For example, Rose LOVES to pick things up, so I have a few games that "feature" that particular behaviour.  More about that in another post.

In the meantime, here are some recent summer photos:

Gathering at the water bucket