Post surgery recovery, gaining trust and Natural horsemanship?

[EmmyJ]

Hi there,
In September I had to make a hard decision and put my horse of 4 years out on full loan while I went away to uni. In Jan/Feb he fell ill and had to have major surgery in which he had a foot of intestine removed due to ulcers and a disease called 'meckel's diverticulum'!
Due to a change circumstance, the loaner is being forced to return my horse to me in May (I am unbelievably excited).
However...
The disease he fell ill from is one he has had all his life and therefore it is highly likely he will be a different horse to the one I sent off..
He is physically fully recovered however obviously hasn't been sat on yet..
The lady had started some natural horsemanship training with him which I would like to continue however I have never done this type of thing before!

I was thinking that this could be a fresh start for us and maybe I'd start with some ground work and bonding but I have no idea how or where to start! Another problem is that he's very very sensitive around the wound (as I would be!).

So if anyone could recommend methods, books, people, equipment etc I would be really very grateful! Any information would be great!
Thank you in advance!!

 

[Brightbay]

You might find it useful to use a positive reinforcement approach - helpful in training, but also helpful in terms of overcoming issues such as headshyness - or being touched around scars where they've previously experienced pain. You combine the training with helping the horse to build a positive association with what you're doing, and of course that means they build a positive association with you as well. Very rewarding way of training (and the horses enjoy it too ). Connection Training is one way of learning about it, although there are various other trainers offering similar techniques
http://connectiontraining.com/connection-training/