NECESSITY OF OBEDIENCE. 45 



a useful member of society is to treat him as a servant who 

 has to be taught his work, and from whom, implicit 

 obedience has to be demanded. Until he does his work 

 honestly and well, the less petting he gets the better ; for 

 he is apt to become headstrong and fractious by a small 

 amount of indulgence in his own way. I entirely deprecate 

 punishing a stubborn horse with whip or spur, which he can 

 resist ; but I insist on the necessity after proving to him 

 that he has nothing to fear, and after teaching him to 

 understand the meaning of our signals of impressing on 

 him the fact that he must obey. I shall endeavour, in due 

 course, to explain how such obedience can be peremptorily 

 enforced. 



If we have a dispute as to discipline with a horse, we 

 should not part company with him before making him 

 yield, lest he may carry away the mischievous impression 

 that he has got the best of the battle. The breaker need 

 not attempt to do too much at any one lesson ; but what he 

 undertakes he should succeed in performing before quitting 

 his pupil. For instance, with a horse that will not allow his 

 hind legs to be touched, the breaker may reasonably content 

 himself with making him quiet to handle about those parts, 

 without insisting on his standing submissively to be shod 

 " behind," which is an operation that might be attempted 

 on the following day. Also, we should make use of our 

 knowledge of the limited scope of the horse's reasoning 

 powers, to change the subject of contention if we fear that 

 there is any chance of our being worsted in a pitched battle 

 with the animal, so that the victory, even if it does not 

 affect the original cause of dispute, should always remain 

 on our side. As an illustration, I may mention the advis- 

 ability of forcibly making a determined runaway lie down 

 until he thoroughly " gives in," in order to make him yield 

 the more readily to the indications of the reins. 



