Monthly Archives: February 2018

The Old “Guilt Trip”

Did your parents do that to you? My mother tried it every chance she got. She would say “oh feel sorry for that little string bean, it’s lonely, you have to eat it.” Really??? a string bean has feelings? My mother was good at manipulation. She wasn’t big on spanking but boy she would never let you forget when you made a bad decision. I would say “just hit me and get it over with.” She also never told you that you couldn’t do something right, she just said to let her do it because she had more practice and could do it better and faster. So with all this said, I have a horrible guilt over things. I carry it along like dragging a bag of dirty laundry.

Now Bob doesn’t use the guilt factor, but the animals sure do. It’s the eyes. They look at you with the eyes. The puppy has it down pat, much like my mother. “OMG!” she’s my mother reincarnated! The growling, the whining, and the guilt, especially the guilt. Good thing I don’t believe in reincarnation. When Bob and I are getting showered and ready to go out, she comes crawling with her one shoulder to the carpet, with her one eye looking up, and piddles as she comes, like “no, you’re not going to leave me again.” Then she checks if she piddled and crawls around feeling guilty. “Oh no! did I lay a guilt trip on her too?” Now I’m my mother.

Although the puppy has it down pat, the horses know how to work it too. Zoey is very good at it. I guess 18 years of practice works. And people think animals are dumb. They lay a guilt trip for a second or two, but it sticks with me for days.

My friend finally decided her Thoroughbred is not the horse she needs. All she really wanted was a quiet trail horse to ride around her neighborhood. She really loved him and he is so personable, but he was keeping her from her goal. He needed more, she needed less. It wasn’t fair to either of them. So she sold him.

The trailer arrived to pick him up. The horses that were down by the barn were put in the barn, they all came to attention. Fri started screaming, Zoey was circling in her stall, Copper stood watching intently, and Tigger started pacing. Why was that strange trailer here? Was someone new coming or was someone here leaving. Tig was pulled from his stall and now everyone was responding.

So my friend led him out and showed him the trailer. He loaded just fine the week before in to the boogey dental trailer so this one was more like my trailer and I didn’t think there would be a problem. She handed over the lead to the trucker, figured it was his equipment let him do it. He was kind and gentle. Took his time and tried to make friends and comfort Tig. Tig was kind back, but had no intention of getting into that trailer. Nothing bad, just a little side to side evasion tactic. The driver tried for about 10 minutes using all the normal logic. A little lunging, a little backing, and more calm attempts. Now Tig is very food motivated and will usually follow a bucket of sweet feed anywhere. Not this time. His owner got his favorite horse treats. Nope. We tried standing on each side of the ramp. Nope. He would get to the base and just stop. He kept his eye on me the whole time. I kept my eye on him the whole time. So I went and sat on the mounting block and watched from a short distance. I figured if I was out-of-the-way he’d have to pay attention to them. She tried loading him. No his eye was still on me. We put a chain on his nose, and I went back to the mounting block. Nope. I could feel him pleading with me to make them stop. I told the trucker, he’s not a bad horse, he’s just testing you all. What I knew was that he knew exactly what was going to happen and he didn’t want to leave his home and his friends. “All I could hear in my head was “please make them stop. I don’t want to leave.” Ripped my heart out. I couldn’t stand watching his anguish, he was getting upset. So I walked over, put the chain in his mouth. Now the trucker protested, said he didn’t like to do that to a horse. I told him I don’t believe in it either, but he’s off the track and is used to it. I also told him that you don’t use it, it’s just there and he calms down and accepts things. I spoke with Tig and told him he had to do this. He put his head up in protest as I started to walk him. I stop and told him that this was unacceptable behavior. He dropped his head and followed me right in. When I clipped him in the trailer he placed his nose against me like he always did. I told him I can’t help him this time, and we closed him in. He started pawing and complaining about what was happening.

This was the beginning of this horrible nightmare of a guilt trip. First of all I always hate any of my boarders horses to leave. They are like my babies. Then to have this horse trust me that I would make this all go away and I didn’t, hurt me immensely. He trusted me and I let him down. It wasn’t my choice, but I didn’t want him to become more upset than he was. My girlfriend followed the trailer to where it was going and told me that he was so lathered and dripping wet that the trailer floor was covered in sweat.

Now Bob was a great help. He told me “that horse will never trust you again.” No he probably won’t, but I think I could get him to. However, he won’t ever have to.

I just pray that he will have the home that he really needs, with someone who will love him and do things with him that he really loves to do. We were trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, and that just never works. He’s a sweet boy and deserves more out of life than he had here.

I still cry and I’m still carrying the guilt that I betrayed his trust, but in one of my morning readings God spoke to me. It said “I know that the Lord brings one blessing after another, but I’m so full of the past that there’s no room for the future. I have to let go of what’s already gone.”

He’s moved on, now I have to.

Always Something New To Learn

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Okay, so just when you thought you had it all down pat, you get a curve ball.

This will make all you people up north scratch your head. I know you are still doing Winter, but we in Florida are dealing with an above average temperature early spring. Now that will make you crazy, or at least your horses who still have their winter coats.

My mare Friday gets a thick, plush winter coat. Have no idea why. Way too much hair for Florida. She’s supposed to be a Canadian Warmblood (whatever that might be). You look at her and say Thoroughbred. Her brain is the only thing that says there is something else mixed in there, and perhaps her coat.

Now a friend picked up a Percheron a few weeks ago. He came from one of the southern states but I can’t remember which one. He had way too much hair, so she decided to clip him to resell him. She’s been in business for years and is no stranger to working with horses. So she went out and bought a new set of clippers for the occasion. They didn’t work, so she brought them back and got a different set. They didn’t work either. She went somewhere else and got a third pair. Nope. She couldn’t figure out what she was doing wrong.

I didn’t give it much thought until I went to clip Fri. Now I already have three Sunbeam body clippers, and six pairs of newly sharpened blades. Been doing this whole body clip thing for about forty years and I was ready. At least I thought I was ready. Usually I would clip horses in the fall when we would go into Hunt Season. Was taught never to clip them in the spring because their summer coats would be starting to come in and you’d mess them up. Made sense to me, but watching poor Fri soaking wet every day just made me do it. She was shedding, but not fast enough, the horse was suffering.

Got all set up with brushes, clippers, oil, blade wash, and extension cord. Usually the clippers go through the hair like butter. Went to make my first pass and they stopped dead. Adjusted the tension, nothing. So I changed blades. Nothing. So I changed clippers. Nothing. Got a few small cuts, but basically nothing was happening. So I thought maybe when he sharpened the blades he didn’t do a good job. So I called around looking for new blades. Well there has been a run on blades and I finally found a set at my feed store. Went down and found out that everyone is now using clip-on blades. My clippers are older and need the old-fashioned screw on type. But he ordered two sets for me and they would be in, in two days. Hello, I have a horse standing there with three racing stripes on her neck.

So I went home and thought about the situation. What was the problem here? First my friend, and now me. The next day I went out to the barn and started to run my hands over Fri. She appeared dry and fluffy until you sent your fingers down to her skin. She’s got that downy fuzz under her coat and that was damp, not wet, but damp. So I turned two fans on her and got her neck and shoulders dry. Clippers went right through it like it should, but stopped if I went anywhere near her ribs. So her neck and shoulders were done, but that was going to be about it for the day.

Day three. I got up early, turned the fan on her while she was eating to get the dew dry that was on the outer hair. Put her on the cross ties, turned two fans on her and went to work. If I hit and area that was not totally dry I ran the clippers in the direction with the hair and took off the top half of the hairs, let the fans do their job, and when the under coat was dry, took it down to the skin.

The longest I have ever taken to do a large draft horse with a patterned hunter clip was three hours. This Thoroughbred took me three days, but I must say that I had a great learning experience on clipping a damp horse. When I went to the hair dressers the other day I was speaking to her about my dilemma. She said “Yes the clipper people have always told her that they wouldn’t work on wet or damp hair.” Well duh, now you tell me?

I saw my first Robin two weeks ago, so they are on their way north. When your turn comes to be blessed with beautiful Spring weather, and it will, enjoy it. I am totally loving it here, and so is Fri since she’s sporting her summer look.

Nothing worth sharing should be taken to the grave with you.

Inch By Inch, Step By Step

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I can say things over and over again, but they still need to be remembered over and over again.

When working with a horse on a new thing, whatever it might be, take it slow and if it doesn’t progress, go back to the beginning or where it did work, and start again.

With this world of instant we want everything “Now!” Instant Oatmeal, instant communication, instant answers, instant replies. Horses have not joined this realm of instant, except of course when it comes to their meals. When they see you coming to the barn at feeding time, they don’t want to wait their turn, they want it now. Kind of sounds like Bob. Six o’clock, is dinner ready?

But with training, we’d like to wake up one morning and our horse will be fully trained. I’m kind of like that with house cleaning. I want to wake up in the morning and the good fairies would have been there and my house would be sparkling clean. When my grandchildren were little they would come running to me in the morning while I was still in bed. They would tell me that the good fairies never showed up and things looked like they did the night before. Guess we’re cleaning today. When Linda was about four years old, she would come into my house, run to the cabinet under the kitchen sink, get the bottle of Windex and head for the sliding glass door. There were always dog nose prints to be removed. She was at the right height. Wonder what kind of house keeper she turned into? She never stays in one place long enough to check it out.

So while attempting to find out how my friends TB felt about jumping, what I did find out is that he doesn’t understand or want to try to learn. He’s over sixteen hands with long legs. He’s chicken, and if he stubs his toe, he carries that leg in the air for way too long. Sissy. It was only six inches.

So it’s back to square one. Ground poles, time, and patience.

Inch by inch, step by step. I just hope I live long enough to see him accomplish this death-defying feat.

Father Doesn’t Always Know Best

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I remember that show from when I was a kid. How family dynamics have changed since then. I’m not going into that because that will open a whole can of worms.

We have knowledgeable horse people and we have horse owners. That’s not saying that horse owners are not knowledgeable, but it is saying that professional horsemen/women aren’t always right. Let’s look at that for a moment.

You have professional horsemen/women who are very knowledgeable in their fields. They have more years of experience than you have lived. When we deal with them we believe that they will make the right decisions.

Then we have the horse owner. Now this person may not have the years of experience, but if they have half a brain, they know their horse. They understand their horse and their horse understands them. Now I’m not saying that every horse owner has a corner on the market of how to handle a given situation, but they usually know how their horse is going to react.

They may not have the bag of tools needed or the aggressive behavior to give their horses confidence to move forward on an issue, but they have the clues to right a situation.

Now I will give a professional the benefit of the doubt when going to do something with one of my horses, but I’m not a stupid person, and I do know my horses. I’m not asking them to submit to my way of doing things, but I do expect them to check with me as to what will work with a particular horse.

My one mare was balking about getting into a Equine Dentists trailer. Nothing bad, just hesitating and moving from side to side. She’s usually an easy loader. She was concerned about what was going on. Why were these strong-willed men trying to make her go into a trailer with all this stuff in it? Were they going to take her away from her home? Why were all the other horses running around in their pastures? All this was making her hesitate. I had my other horse in my hand and said I will put her in the round pen and come and lead my mare into the trailer. While I was walking away, the one man took a crop to her butt. She got in, but at what cost?

Now I know this mare, and she will remember. I also know she will get even.

I didn’t understand why they had to be macho and do it their way when if I just spoke quietly to her, assured her that it was okay, and asked her to follow me in, she would have done it. Maybe not quickly, but cautiously, with no added stress. As it was she was tranquilized, then again when she balked, but by the time we got her into the trailer she had chicken eyes, and I told them that if they wanted to work on her they better hit her again. There was no softness to her eyes, only fear.

I don’t care how much you think a professional knows. I can only hope that their ego will let them check with the owner and get clues to what the owner may know about their own horse.

I will mention this to these two gentlemen, about my feelings on what took place. I did not go into it at that time because I would have reacted out of anger and disappointment. I know that they are on a time schedule and they can’t play games, but give the horse a chance to have a good experience so that next time there won’t be a hesitation or a fight. Use this as a good learning experience for the horse.

I spent a lot of time talking to them. They were indirectly testing me on my knowledge and how strong and determined I felt on various subjects. I listened to their views, and expressed and backed up mine with facts. Dug my heels in and stood my ground.

Thinking back afterwards, this mare had been done in a dental trailer before. Perhaps it was a previous experience that made her react the way she did to them.

******

I have contacted the dentist who did apologize for his assistants actions. The gentleman was just filling in for a new assistant who will be joining the group in a week. He assured me that it would not happen again. I mentioned to him that whenever we have contact with a horse we are either teaching or reinforcing something good, or something bad. But then you’ve heard me say all this before.