The Helpers

Helpers.

Helpers need to be people people more than pony people. Awareness of the pony matters, because at any stage when the pony is behaving oddly, or differently, the helper gets ready to pull the release rope. But sensitivity to the user is more important.

The pony will make things pretty obvious, head comes up, tail might start swishing, ears pricked forward, something is making the pony alert. If it is alert, it is ready to run, so the helper must be ready to pull the release rope. If it goes from a walk to any other pace, pull the release rope. It is that simple.

But the users will have just as many fears if they have never been pulled by a pony before, and are better at masking those fears. This project is about people enjoying the great outdoors, so the helper is there for two reasons, to pull the release rope if there is any risk, and to ensure the users enjoy themselves.

Helpers, like the ponies, will be varied. Some will be fit and keen to bound across Dartmoor at excessive speeds,, the intelligent ones won't. But school visits require someone prepared to walk slowly and stand around a lot while hundreds of children scratch the pony's ears. Matching helpers, ponies and users is the trick, but the project can use a wide variety of people.

An empathy with the pony is vital. helpers must see the ponies as people, not necessarily human, but as people. I can't explain exactly, but I always treat ponies as stroppy teenagers who speak a language of which I don't know a word. But I know that their primary interests are food, sex, drink and avoiding honest work. It works for me.

The helpers have to care for people and ponies. The people are more important, but the users won't like it if the helpers are indifferent to the ponies, and keeping the users happy is the whole point.

If the users feel the project is good, the ponies have a future, if not, they are cat meat. This whole project is about increasing the quality of life for all concerned, anyone indifferent to that idea, is unsuitable. Anyone subscribing to the idea is suitable.

Training Helpers

Training helpers as basic pony handlers is easy, quick and with the right people is a few minutes, but that assumes a competent, aware project leader and experienced pony. Once the project is running, helpers can train on the job to become project leaders.

Initially, project leaders will need a week or two with Nick Sanders of Rowanoak who can teach them the basics of pony handling and management as it applies to this project. This will not qualify or even train them for any other equestrian project as the whole basis of PLP is radically different to everything else which is why ponies rejected by mainstream equestrianism are exactly what we want.

I imagine the very first Guide Dog didn't behave perfectly, so I know we will we hit teething problems. Some bits will be easier than expected, some harder.

Pony welfare is no problem as there are enough vets and other experts throughout the country to ensure the ponies' well being. Leading a pony is easy, and pulling the release rope takes care of all safety issues. 

The training process will be one of discovery for all concerned, but Nick Sanders and I have a clear idea of the processes that need to be learned. This training is specific to this project. Because we can do so much work with ponies being led, the initial training will be based on ponies being led. This massively reduces the training for helper and ponies because we are only teaching a very baqsic method. The point is that this very basic method gives massive freedom to those with mobility issues. When we have experienced helpers and ponies, the training can continue into the tougher and more technical stuff.
 Exactly how long that will take to teach people, we can't say, but then the teaching profession haven't yet managed to work out a time scale for teaching children to read and write.

Nick and I both feel two weeks should be more than adequate with reasonable candidates to teach the basic process of working led ponies.. It could be less. Once we have helpers with experience coming on the project managers course, things will be simple.