I think there might be a few people on here who are interested in Lucy Rees' work - and following on from Diane's post back in June, I joined her and a couple of other people in Spain to meet Lucy and learn more about observational methods for studying behaviour.

If anybody would like a bit more detail, I've written some of it up in my blog:
http://jacksons-five.livejournal.com/8493.html
http://jacksons-five.livejournal.com/8824.html
http://jacksons-five.livejournal.com/9211.html
http://jacksons-five.livejournal.com/9377.html

or alternatively, email me!

It was a great week, superbly free of the commercialisation I have experienced when attending big name clinics and demos in the UK, and with a fantastic group of people, all of whom were well-informed, questioning, full of positive reinforcement, and just about the nicest group of people you'd never met to spend a week sharing a candlelit cellar with!

Thank you, Dorothy, for sharing your write-ups. I really enjoyed reading them (and some of your other journal entries, like the one on "Leaders and followers"). You write really clearly, and the subject matter is a total breath of fresh air after the usual "NH is ... showing your horse who's boss in the same sort of way that they would" stuff one gets elsewhere.

Thank you, Francis - actually Lucy asked if I knew you (well, Glasgow is a bit small that way - you're almost guaranteed to meet someone you know on Byres Road!)

It has been very valuable to me to keep the diary - Jackson and I make very slow but enjoyable progress and without being able to look back, I would sometimes wonder if we were making any at all!

I'm not quite sure how - it was not a riding course - but Lucy has somehow given me a lot of confidence, and this week since I got back, I have been having a lot of fun with Jackson: I will try to get to Spain for one of her riding courses next year. I just need to learn a bit more Spanish in the meantime

Lots of ETAs! I just remembered that as I had to meet someone I'd never met before at an airport, I suggested that I would be the one carrying a copy of Horse and Rider... so the copy of H&R in the other post came to Spain with me and was read by everybody... and Debbie's article came in for a lot of discussion.

Gosh, this is wonderful stuff, Dorothy:

"After this discussion, we talked about the most common causes of behaviour problems (having banished the words “naughty”, “stubborn”, “silly”, “testing boundaries”, “dominant” and “stupid” from our vocabularies)"....Hooray!

All the great points about stallions -wonderful observations.......... - the place is only about an hour and a half from here, I must get the contact details!

Many, many thanks for posting up your commentary.
Rita

Love your write ups - thank you for writing and posting them!
Would really like to email you but do not have your address. When you have a moment would you be kind enough to email me?
emma@voicesforhorses.co.uk
Thanks so much
Emma

Sorry, Emma - I am suspicious of spambots so didn't fill in the email part! You can get me at dorothy . heffernan @ gmail . com (just delete the spaces).

Thank you! Will be in touch
Emma