When I first realized I needed a Fanny Pack to help with (peacefully) training JuJu the donkey, I thought about most people my age with kids... and how dorky they probably feel in their mini van carrying diaper bags instead of sexy handbags. I be-moaned my new dorked out stage in life publicly on my facebook status and was miraculously rewarded with the CUTEST vintage fabric handmade fanny pack ever from artist/writer/crafter Autumn Wiggins!YAY! Let the non violent, reward heavy, totally hip fanny style donkey training begin!!!
My first Fanny Pack goal was to get JuJu the donkey to lift her hooves for me - this is so I can start the ritual of cleaning them for good hoof health, and for later trimming. I cut up a pear as a super special treat and filled the fanny pack with it. The fanny pack makes it fast and easy to reward the donkey WHILE she's doing what you asked instead of after, or too late for the donkey to understand which 'thing' it did right.
I have never done this with a horse or donkey before, and was learning from watching youtube videos and reading the Donkey Companion book... there was also no one around to show the little nuances to this trick so if you are an expert you will notice I was standing backwards (but it did work). I simply relied on JuJu's past experience of most likely having done this before & the fanny pack full of treats.
I have been spending alot of time rubbing JuJu down in a sort of "show and scratch" game i call "Itch and Scratch", where she shows me where her itches are and I scratch them - this has made it so she doesn't mind me touching her legs to begin with.For doing hooves, I say the word "HOOF" as a cue, I begin to lift her leg and as she starts to lift it up in my palm I hand her treats from the Fanny Pack. I also hand her another treat from the F Pack while she stands letting me hold her hoof for a while... so that she understands she will need to stand for a longer time eventually while I clean the hooves - the treats are to help her build up good feelings about this activity with me and it certainly works... she started pointing to her legs after asking me to lift them so she could get more pieces of F Pack pears!
Success!
Oh FANNY PACK... hells yeah, you are my savior! Seriously.
Thank YOu SOoooooo much Autumn for the fabulous, functional, eco and easy to work with Fanny Pack! You rock!
Xoxoxox
4 comments:
Wow! That's the coolest fanny pack I have ever seen! I always hated them but I never knew they could look cool :P
Hey Amanda -
Seriously. In my younger days I made fun of people who wore fanny packs, it was relentless and cruel. Fanny packs signaled total full on dorky-ness, with a mixture of ignorant tourist style paranoia. People who traveled to New Orleans would wear them downdown thinking that would keep them from getting mugged, not realizing in New Orleans they dont care where you keep your money cause they are going to beat you up or kill you anyway. A fanny pack was like a neon sign saying "mug here I am so scared!"
WHat I am saying in summary : I had fanny pack prejudices.
THIS fanny pack however, has taken fanny packs to some super cute level. I could be fooling myself, but JuJu the donkey totally thinks it's hip and she totally was like "Hey lady who feeds me and sings to me, you are lookin' hawt with that treatsie bag on ya!"
Ah, the ever-endless waves of fashion. As a total geek, I enjoyed the coolness of wearing a cellphone on my belt... for about three days. That's how long it took to get uncool, even amongst the geeks. I won't even go into bluetooth headsets, and how we're all certain there's something wrong with the people who still sport them as a badge of "damn I'm so much more busy than you."
Ha Gratu -
I am so out of the loop, i dont know what the what you even were talking about. I had a cell phone for one year but got rid of it. It seriously made me dizzy everytime i used it - it was a little better with an ear piece thingy but i eventually moved into the woods were there is no cell phone reception for about 5 miles or so from my place.
Blue tooth, sounds like a dental problem. Should keep the dentists busy. Or maybe just the brain surgens removing all the cell phones tumors. ;0
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