A week is the dangerous length of trip for a Shetland pony. It is long enough for a kind carer to relax her management completely, and short enough that the consequences, a cresty neck, tender feet, the first shuffle of laminitis, may only declare themselves just as you return. Everything you arrange should be designed around that single fact: her restrictions are not preferences to be followed when convenient, they are the care itself. Choose the carer for discipline, brief them on the reasoning, set the pony's week up so the right thing is also the easy thing, and make the checks daily and recorded.
The carer: chosen for firmness, introduced properly
Pick someone who has managed native ponies on restricted grazing before, or who visibly understands why yours lives that way. Have them visit before the week begins to catch her, lead her, pick out her feet, fit her muzzle, and weigh a hay net to your figure while you watch. Agree visit times, at least twice daily, and a daily report: appetite, water, droppings, how she walked, muzzle on and off at the right hours. Name a backup who receives the identical briefing, because the stand-in weekend is statistically where Shetland management goes to die.
Set the week up so rules keep themselves
Do as much of the week's discipline in advance as the yard allows. Weigh and bag hay nets for the whole week, labelled by day, so the carer's job is hanging the right net rather than judging amounts. Set her grazing strip or track exactly as it should stay, and say in writing that the fence does not move, for any reason, without a call to you. Put feed, if she has any, into measured daily pots. Leave the treats question beyond argument: a note on the stable door tends to work where a conversation does not, and it protects the carer from visiting children and helpful neighbours alike.
The daily checks that protect her feet
Each visit, the carer runs the same short round. Water fresh and inside her area. Hay net correct for the day, muzzle fitted with no rubbing at nose or jaw. Hands on: crest felt for thickening, all four feet picked out, each lower leg felt for heat or a strong pulse. Eyes on: how she walks to her hay, whether she shifts weight standing, whether she lies down more than usual. Those few observations, noted daily, form the early-warning system for the exact problem her management exists to prevent, and any change means a call to you and, for footiness or reluctance to move, to the vet the same day, with the pony brought onto soft bedding and kept still meanwhile.
Vet, backup, and authority in writing
Leave your vet's number with the out-of-hours route, written authority for the carer to call and approve emergency care, and your backup's number with the same authority. Add the individual notes that make this pony herself rather than any Shetland: which field-mate she goes out with, how she likes to be caught, the historical foot episode your vet knows about and what was done. Confirm before you leave that the vet practice will act on the carer's call. A week of small decisions should never include the decision of whether help is allowed to be summoned.
One handover, held for the whole week
The routine, the restrictions, and the contacts should sit together where the carer can reach them at every visit. KinsLe's Care Pass gives your Shetland's carer temporary, clear access to her routine, weighed forage, and key details for the week you are away, so the management you run all year is the management she actually gets while you are gone.