Handling Experience

 

Livery yard

 

For some time in the summer of 2014, I worked on a livery yard/riding school. Alongside riding lessons, I spent time mucking out, tacking up and getting the horses from the yard to the field. This improved my confidence around horses massively as I did not have much previous experience. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zoo

 

During my two year course at Reaseheath College, I spent a lot of time working on the on-site zoo. Here, I worked with a large variety of animals, including large mammals, reptiles, small mammals, aquatics, amphibians, and insects. This broadened by knowledge and skills within the animal industry and helped me decide the route I wanted to take at university. 

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Dog Grooming

 

At my local dog grooming salon, I spent 4 intensive weeks learning and developing dog grooming skills. Although I have grown up with dogs and had a good level of handling skills already, this experience definitely brought them to a more professional standard. I got over 150 hours of experience in various areas such as handling, bathing, brushing, drying, nail clipping and ear plucking. Another advantage of this is that I was able to see into the business aspect of the animal industry, as it was a small family-run business. I feel as though this consolidated my desire to work with dogs.