When my husband asks what’s for dinner, and I tell him anything but something Italian or Sea Food, he tells me try again.  I love both of those meals, but I do enjoy other foods as well.

I was handling my friends tack, a few years back, and her saddle and bridle were so supple I had to ask what she used on them.  When she told me she used Olive Oil I was amazed.  Really?  Since I was a kid I was taught to use Saddle Soap and Neatsfoot Oil.  Then Lexol came to the forefront.  Of course I was taught to heat the oil so the leather would absorb it better, which I always did.  But my leather could not compare to hers.  So I figured it was worth a try.  Never thinking about the negatives.

What could possibly be negative about Olive Oil.  You could buy it at the grocery store.  It was probably cheaper or at least the same price as the expensive stuff they have on the market today.  Did it make a world of difference?  Not as much as I thought it would.  She had been using it for years, so I thought I would just wait and see what happens.

Now over the years the tanning process has changed.  To me, the quality of leather is not what it used to be, but the prices have surely gone up.  I’ve always gone for the best quality I could get.  When you are out Fox Hunting your life depends on the equipment you are using.  In a lot of disciplines it does.  If you’re at a full-out gallop and something breaks you’re in deep do-do.

So I oiled my tack with the Olive Oil and went about my life.

Now I never gave it a thought that a rat would have a taste for Olive Oil, but they do. They absolutely love it.  I had oiled my good tack and my older, no longer used tack with it.  My good tack, which I keep in my office was fine, but the tack I kept in the boarders tack room, which is not frequented, was like dining at a fine Italian Restaurant for a rat who wandered in.  My Jack Russell rarely went in there because the door is always closed, so there was no warning that we had a rat.  He nibbled along the back of the cantle.  It gave it an interesting look, but I went ballistic.  I never used these saddles except for breaking babies and using as a guide for body clipping so it wasn’t going to really matter, but it did to me.  The one saddle had been my first.  I’ve had it for fifty years.  It was a cheap, but all I could afford at the time.  I kept it in memory of my first horse, and my first saddle.  The second one was the saddle I most hated all these years, but I still didn’t want to see it chewed up.  It was a flat saddle that everyone had to use if they wanted to really compete in the show ring back in the 70’s.  But one of the most uncomfortable saddles I’ve ever ridden in.  The only one that was worse to sit in was the old Calvary saddles we used when we were kids.  They were great on a horses back but so hard on our butts.  How the Calvary spent hours and days in those saddles is beyond me.

I mentioned what had happened to a friend of mine who works with leather, and she laughed and said “I never recommend it for tack, rats love Olive Oil.”  No joke.

Lesson learned.  So I went back on the hunt for some products I could use to keep my leather healthy.  We don’t often think of leather as our skin, but it was somebody’s skin at one time.  Just like ours, it needs cleaning and moisturizing.  When leather dries out the fibers are no longer stretchy so they snap.  Kind of like my old wrinkly skin now.  I’ve been moisturizing since I was 15 and I still look better than most my age, but as long as I don’t look in the mirror with glass, I look just fine.

But I pass this on to you.  What ever you use, make sure it’s not on a healthy, nutritious listing of edibles for rats.