White Horse Pilgrim was kind enough to share these photos with me, and grant permission to use them in a post. They have been sitting in my inbox for far too long now, but seem to somewhat fit with the theme of today's post, and my previous one. If you look closely, WHP says, the person holding the horse's hooves in the horse OWNER. (And we wonder why horse's behave over there? Hmmm.... Not only do these animals WORK and work HARD for a living, the owners hold hooves for their farrier. I think I could like that idea....)
In the Safety First, Please post, I mentioned that working on a tied horse is not an option for me. While I gave one example of a problem I encountered, I want to relay a few other observations gathered from over the years.The biggest one being that when a horse is tied to a tree, a wall, a post, or a solid object of any sort, and a problem arises, your escape routes are pretty limited and someone getting bloody is a pretty good bet. You've all seen it- fairly young horse, brought fresh from his stall/ pasture into the barn, hooked to the wall in the arena or on a set of crossties, and the farrier/ iron hanger grabs a leg, hoists it up in the air, and KA-POW! Dobbins eyes about bug out of his head, his entire body locks up, and you can count the seconds until he blows. When he blows, the iron hanger either gets beat up some, or he decides that roughing up the horse is a *good* thing.
What exactly did the horse learn from that?
A) Being tied is not so good
B) Having someone mess with your feet is REALLY not such a great idea.
What did the dude under the horse learn from it?
Hard to tell really, since they seem to keep repeating the pattern, over and over and over again. Not only repeat it, but it is passed along from one iron hanger to the next, year after year.
Now since I personally have a *thing* about confined spaces- and yes, being under a horse tied to a wall meets the "confined" standards in my book, I'd much rather take my chances with someone holding the horse, and teaching them what to look for and how to hold properly. I'd rather take a bit longer, teach the owner, and teach the horse, then to take a chance on winding up in an emergency room somewhere.
The other issue I have with the above mentioned action is this:When you "work" with a horse, providing any type of service, it pays to bear in mind that you might be the one who provides this service for a long time. If you wish to make this an EASY task, teach a bit and keep things calm and quiet. And even if you are NOT going to be the service provider for an extended period of time, think about the people who will come behind you. Did you leave the animal better off, in better health, with better training, than when you first arrived? Or will the next guy get the sh*t kicked out of him, too?
3 comments:
I used to travel with my farrier to help hold horses on once in awhile. One of the things he taught me was to hold the horse and bend his head to the same side as the farrier (and me). That way if he blows up, the rear end goes away from both of us. I can also put pressure on the spot under their ear that calms them down and almost puts them to sleep which is handy with an excitable one.
We don't ever tie our horses. They will either ground tie or we hold the horse for them. I already told you about the one time we "tied" the horse....YIKES!!!
Looking at those pictures makes me cringe. Yowee!
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