I'm a bit bummed today, it's the last day of my clicker class. I had soooo much fun learning from Leslie, I wish I could continue, but can't swing it at this time. I'm hoping next year I can afford to take it least two of her courses. I noticed alot of improvements in the donks overall. Rocky is less timid of new objects, he even trotted over to the fence when I was rolling a loud garbage can down the road - something that he usually wouldn't do!! Instead of his normal OMG what's that, he came over to investigate!!

Daisy is doing fantastic with trailer loading, she hops right in now. The last session I did with her I was C/T for backing out slowly.  Since the  click ends the behavior it slowed her down - previously she would've rushed out backwards ( or forwards ). So clicking her for backing out slowed her down, I was literally clicking for each foot going the right direction. Which resulted in her taking her time and backing out safely! It was very cool to see, and I was very proud of her!!

Rocky is still working on his trail bridge, he got to sniff the trailer in the last session. I'll be working more on the trail bridge this week - I have yet to get those back feet on it!!

The donkeys possibly have a gig this month!! It's for a local business who is putting on a mixer, they're doing the gold rush days theme. I got lucky & found another pack saddle, so now they each have one. Although I'll need to do some quick fabrication as the new one does not have a britchen, nor do I have an extra set of bags!

I might just get creative and put some ropes on the extra set of boxes I have. I need to have a costume too!! So I'm hoping this week I can check out the local costume store - we have one in town that has  a HUGE selection, and see what I can find. The thing is that there were not a lot of female miners during the gold rush. I'm still doing research on this subject so I can find the appropriate attire. It's fun learning about the gold rush and what women actually did during those times..

Been working some braiding into my busy schedule!!
I'm on the 3rd spider strap of the current britchen I'm making....braiding takes alot of time. but it's so awesome when it's done!!

I was doing some more research on clicker training & I found a gal that had a free course. so i signed up & hoped that there was room for me ( very small classes). It's all online, so I don't have to take the donks anywhere.

I got an email the next day & I'm in! yay. so basically since it's online, there is a course description/tasks. While you work on these tasks you video your progress. Then  you post it for the trainer to see. She gives you feed back via a voice over. It is sooooo cool! I've only done one day so far & it's nice to know where each donk stands. So far Daisy is ready to move on from target training, to targeting objects. Rocky is still getting the hang of touching the target without being worried about it. 

It's so neat to get feedback from a trainer. She has a whole bunch of courses. I really hope that I can participate in  a 'real' one, the free one is cool, but it's only a week. I'm sure I'll be wanting more at the end of this week!!

If you want to check out the trainer's website here's the link

http://www.clickhorse.info/


she's also got a radio show ( theres a link on her website) where they talk about clicker training. 

Got pics of the halters on their new 'heads'! SOOO cute!!

We had quite a bit of rain recently and all sorts of grass is sprouting all over!! Of course the donks LOVE it!!!

Finally finished up this project! Had so much going on lately I felt like they were never going to get done! They turned out super cute though. I cannot wait to see them on the customer's donkeys!! Especially the pink one, the donkey is pretty much black, solid black. so that color is really going to pop big time!!

These leads have a ring at the end, so the donkey can be quickly tied, also it can be used in the same fashion to tie to another animal when packing.

I knew it was going to rain this week, so Saturday I slapped a coat of paint on the trailer. The inside got it's 3rd coat and I taped off the outside and did a quick coat.

So after lots of problems with my gun, I finally got it painted!!  the outside coat is really light. I'm happy i got it least something on it, and it does look one step better than crap!! haha

Now it just needs new lights ( I'd LOVE to rewire it), new tires, new pads, and after that it should be good to go! Oh ya I still have to apply bedliner on the inside, unfortunately i can't get the grey herculiner locally. So I may have to do black.BLEH.

Local artist Ann Ranlett came out and photographed the donks for some reference photos, they did not want to pose. All Daisy wanted to do was stick her face right in the camera. She was being extra bratty yesterday, I think it'd due to the weather, we had our first storm roll in with plenty of rain last night.