Balking. Restiveness. 27 



any violent exertion. After one or two ineffective efforts he sets 

 himself back in the harness refusing to trj^ again and the vice is 

 started. Ordinary loads on bad roads full of holes from which it 

 is impossible to drag the wheels have a similar effect. The dan- 

 ger is greater if the animal is naturally of a nervous or impatient 

 disposition, and if he makes a desperate plunge forward and fails 

 at once to move the load. Such a horse hitched with a slow 

 .steady mate is liable to have expended his effort before the latter 

 has had time to join him in the pull, and it becomes impossible to 

 move the load because the two cannot be started simultaneously. 

 The conditions are aggravated if the driver is irritable and by 

 voice and acts further excites the already too excitable animal. 



I,esions of various kinds, such as shoulder bruises, absces.ses, 

 abrasions and callouses, saddle bruises, callouses, abscesses or fist- 

 ulae cause acute pain whenever the effort is made, and render the 

 animal more impatient and indisposed to try again. 



Too small a collar or one that fits badly (too narrow, uneven) 

 has often a similar effect. 



Among other causes may be named a hard bit harshly used, a 

 sharp edge of the lower jaw bone where the bit rests in the inter- 

 dental space, sores of the buccal mucous membrane in this situ- 

 ation, and caries or necrosis of the superficial layer of the bone. 

 Also chaps, ulcers, or cancroid of the angle of the mouth. 



Young horses, that are as yet imperfectly trained, are more 

 readil}^ driven to balk than old trained animals. 



Mares are more subject to the vice than geldings, by reason 

 apparently of a more nervous disposition, but much more because 

 of the excitement to which they are subjected, under the periodic 

 returns of heat. 



Pencil speaks of rare hereditary cases in which the habit is 

 uncontrollable and the animal incurable. 



Friedberger and Frohner accuse chestnut and sorrel horses as 

 being especiall}^ liable to balk. 



However started the continued exercise of the act fixes it 

 as an incurable habit a virtual psychosis. Yet the inclination 

 of the animal, his likes and dislikes to a certain extent con- 

 trol its manifestations, thus a horse rarely balks in going home, 

 and shows it mostly in going in the opposite direction, and 

 above all on a new or unknown road. 



