How to teach a Shetland pony to pull a cart | Teddy the Shetland

[Music] hi guys so during lockdown i decided to buy a cart for teddy i bought a sort of um cheap looking cart that needed doing up and i've been teaching him how to pull it um he has before this pulled all sorts of different things but i thought it was finally time to get him the right equipment so we have a lovely leather harness from mini horse shop which we already had and i thought it was about time that we got him a cart so that we can actually teach him how to drive and i noticed that there weren't many videos of how to teach a shetland pony how to drive on youtube so we decided to do some videoing and we hope you enjoy it it might be worth adding that it's literally been arctic recently it's been snowing and there's been icicles hanging from trees and the ground's been rock-solid so the ponies haven't actually been able to get out very much but it's been really useful um having this cart because obviously where i am an adult i can't ride teddy um so this is a really good way of he's just opening the gate to free himself this is a really good way of exercising him and he actually has really taken to it really really well um he is pretty unflattled to be honest in most things so i did think that he would take to it well but he's probably taken to it even better than i thought and um it's lots of fun and you get lots of funny looks with a with a blonde golden retriever like pony running towards you pulling a cart but it is keeping his waistline nice and trim and yeah he's having lots of fun so stay tuned this video will include um the sort of steps i have taken to teach him how to pull the cart and um and sort of his equipment and how i had come up to it and stuff so yeah hope you enjoy p.s i actually look like the michelin man i think i've got about five layers on um including two really thick coats so yeah if you think i'm looking a little round that is why hey albert and that leads quite nicely onto his horse where wish for 2021 which as you can see is to get a six-pack um teddy obviously always has aspirations to be the fittest most um attractive looking mini floof that he can be so to get a six-pack is definitely one of his goals for this year and maybe with the carpooling it is actually doable um so watch this space [Music] [Music] so this is the cart it's very basic as i said and it probably it needs a paint um because it's a little bit flaky in the paint department but nothing we can't fix and i'm going to obviously um sort out the back rest and um a few other things but it's perfectly functional um rusty doesn't like it very much uh actually that's a lie rusty loves it he has been in lots of different trips in it and sits next to us on the sea which is quite cute but yeah it was a bargain and um i'll probably get a nicer one once i know that he can actually well now i know that he can actually pull apart but there's no point in spending loads of money on one if um he didn't like it so yeah he went for this one and it is really quite candy so here she is pulling the cart as you can see she's demonstrating it's quite light um actually she's lost the plot actually i find um it's quite good at carrying stuff for example it's currently carrying a box of teddy's brand new stickers which we're about to show you guys and also um it's quite it's quite light isn't it it's a lot lighter than um i thought you actually had to push it down rather than like lift it up to pull it i thought it would be really heavy today um so i'm just going to get in the back and go for a ride by my uh being called my sister i'm just gonna practice my planning we're just cleaning out the garage so ignore the background oh my gosh it's like a tea cup oh my gosh it's like thought park you two are so helpful thank you right okay well that's that what do you think of the cart love it love it such a great workout as well for anyone wanting to find their apps this summer so good right okay okay molly out so i mentioned teddy merch you can see his logo here on his back in sticker form his logo was made by eleanor tomlinson and we got these stickers from a company called sticker mule and you can see this one's really shiny it's quite cool um this is a mailer which will contain to be confirmed and there we go the first big reveal of teddy's um logo collection this is a car sticker which is quite cool um super cute design the first bit of ted's cart driving equipment is his beautiful tiny bridle so it's a brown bridle made by elevator equestrian and it's really beautifully made um it's handmade and it's basically like a big horse's bridal in tiny form it even has the black brass clencher brow band and you can see his bit his gold bit is from noy schuler but it's the tiniest um size that they do in a snaffle um and he's obviously used to the bit because he has been ridden um for a year and a bit so that is something he didn't need to get used to but it's very beautiful nevertheless and it goes perfectly with his harness so this is the bridle that he wore in his famous shoot um where he was on the news grazing on the royal windsor lawns with allegra which was pretty special it was very smart and he wore little white dressage bandages too she made him look adorable so nice to have a bridle that actually fits them perfectly so that is that and obviously for carpooling we don't have normal length rain so i normally keep them off until the last minute so his actual harness from mini horse shops looks like this it's brown again to match his bridle and it's really smart it's leather um so i mean i can't exactly say that i'm a pro horse driver so i'm sure there will be people that do this slightly differently but the way i put it on i am have purely taught myself by watching videos and looking at photos but basically it goes over his head albert's about to disrupt the filming how we get back it goes over his head this bit sits here and we had to put extra holes in it because he's so small that it was a bit big for him when we first got it so we actually used a drill to put holes in excellent so thick and so yeah i just place it over his head and then um i'm going to turn him around so you can see besides these straps are called the trace straps and can be secured on this little metal um twirly bit at the top and then i will do up the single girth around his tummy so i put his harness on and i can show you all the little bits so obviously this is his bridle which i showed thank you teddy snort this bit goes over his head so there's the very first bit that goes on and the reins when i put them on in a minute will feed through here and then attach to his little bit rings there and these are the tray straps which attach to the cart and we have safety attachments just in case of um they're needing to be let go of so the final thing that we have to do now is to put the reins on and obviously they're way longer than a normal rain and they come in two parts so as i said they feed and attach to his thick loop obviously be careful of loose bits on the floor so before teddy was able to pull anything even a tire i wanted to make sure he understood the basics so he basically needed to be able to walk stop turn left and turn right on command and that is very different um when someone is standing behind you compared to when someone is sitting on you um and obviously where teddy so little he's often only lead when children ride him so it was really important to me that he learnt um properly the basics so to do this you can either use a driving harness like i'm doing if you have one and if that's your end goal um and use the reins which are quite long this obviously wouldn't be possible with a big horse but where teddy's a tiny pony i can obviously use the um driving reins fairly easily and without being too close to his back legs because obviously it's really important you're not right close to their back legs because um even the best of horses when they're learning new things could potentially be unpredictable so you just want to be out of the firing line and not that teddy has ever kicked anyone or anything in his life um but with a big horse you can potentially um use two lunge lines instead and you can um thread the lunge lines through the stirrups on each side um so that they don't trail on the floor or you can use a single um um that you'd normally attach sort of side drains or something to for lunging and thread the lunge lines through that instead so that you're sort of mimicking um a driving harness situation so it's a bit hard filming but basically just told him to walk on and i'm gonna tell him to halt in a minute teddy stand just by gently pulling on the reins as if you would do if you're riding obviously you want to make sure they're straight it's slightly hard because i've only got one hand whereas normally you'd have one rein in each hand but stand good boy so he needs to be able to stand and then he needs to be able to turn left let's see if i can do this one-handed one good boy so that's the basics that i taught him before learning to pull anything um sorry there's quite a lot of mess around because we're clearing out our garage currently we've got so much stuff from over the years but stand hopefully that shows the sort of things i've taught him so where teddy's basically unflappable we've learnt um and we've taught him not to respond or worry or be stressed with any sort of situation it was quite hard to actually tell him or teach him to move off when you sort of gave a cue so i've tried to use voice commands rather than some people might carry a whip but teddy wouldn't absolutely wouldn't be scared of that at all because he just um is so unflappable so i just use voice commands and clicks very tempting to eat that grass but you're a good boy so i'm now going to show you how i attach the car to teddy so these bits of the cart just feed into these rings which support it um i'm gonna place the reins on the top itself and i can attach the straps to these safety released clips so you can see the trace straps are attached to these um quick release clips so if something was to happen um and this was to be put under pressure they just click open like that and the cart would be free so this is the whole setup there he is looking angelic as usual i actually found this cart by putting an advert on a page called dinky driving and someone messaged me and said that they had a project cart sale which was perfect for me because i didn't really know if it was something that i'd really get into so i didn't want to spend loads of money on something that i didn't ever use so this was the ideal find so ponies can actually pull 200 of their body weight and that means that he is obviously more than capable of pulling either rusty or me um because he's a hundred kilos so that means he can actually pull over um 200 kilos if he's over 100 kilos um and obviously i'm nowhere near um 200 kilos so he finds it really easy and um yeah honestly i picked it up myself and towed molly in it and it's really much lighter than you think very sweet brothers aren't you so when i first taught teddy to pull this car i obviously um didn't just jump in and expect him to do it exactly perfectly the first time so i attached the cart and i literally just walked next to him like i am now and you can see rusty rusty rusty is enjoying his ride with his best friend ted's um and once i was happy that he was doing it fine with me walking next to him i then got someone to walk next to me whilst i sat in the cart and so that was sort of the next step as you can see now he's fairly focused he's just taking rusty for a ride rusty right now come on good boy come on no look away from the grass good boy resist resist so then obviously once i was happy that he was um comfortable with the car because it's a little bit noisy um i could then sit in the cart with my sister leading me um so he could just she could just be there in case he has a panic which he didn't because he is not panicky um nothing makes him panic at all which is so nice um and then once i'd done all of that this is what i'm doing today the main thing when you're teaching a horse anything new is that you have to just give them so much praise so i had to tell teddy that he is basically while he was but i had to emphasize to him that he is the cleverest pony in the world and i was so pleased with what he was doing um and then obviously if they have praise they're going to enjoy doing it and they're going to want to do it well um there's no point in getting stressed they're not going to learn something new um within the space of 10 seconds so yeah the main thing i would say is just make sure you use so much praise and you do things in little steps so until they're comfortable doing the easier step so until for example um teddy was comfortable pulling a tire or until he was comfortable um long reigning i wouldn't go to the next step so i wouldn't even dream of attaching cart to him until i thought he was comfortable with the set before um so yeah that's really important we've encountered a vehicle looking very proud how many times has he been in the cart now he's such a quick learner oh there's a car coming okay show me show me a shot rusty's got the wind in his ears yeah so cold let me just give you a front angle shot oh god i have to run backwards this is hilarious so many cars and parts being like what the hell are you doing you

Channel: teddytheshetland

Views: 42,835

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Id: PiUZRbvxlaE

Length: 22min 31sec (1351 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021