ALARMING COLTS WHEN SHOEING. 197 



and kindness than by force and fear, interest alone 

 should induce us to adopt the former mode. 



No man of sense conversant with horses will deny 

 that where the generality of them resist, fear, not 

 vice, is the cause of it. Fear, then, is the very first 

 thing we should do away with in the colt, and nothing 

 but beginning with him from his infancy will do this. 



We have frequently a great deal of trouble in 

 shoeing a colt the first time it is done. How, in the 

 name of common sense, could we expect any thing else ? 

 A goose naturally often chooses to stand on one leg: 

 I have had to do with some thousands of horses, but 

 I must say I never saw one voluntarily stand upon 

 three, unless in great agony with the fourth. The 

 actual fear of falling will make the colt resist being 

 held in, to him, an unnatural position ; yet the animal 

 is expected to allow a smith to hold him by force in 

 a position for a quarter of an hour together that he 

 never before stood in for a minute in his life. He 

 perhaps kicks at this ; when, to re-assure his fears, he 

 probably gets a stroke with the hammer. This is 

 enough to make a horse troublesome to shoe for life. 

 Many horses hate smiths : some will not approach a 

 forge. This does not proceed from the kindness they 

 have received from such men or in such places. Some 

 horses will not permit a smith to come near them in 

 his smith's dress ; put the groom's stable dress on 

 him, and the horse will allow himself to be shod. 

 Can any thing speak plainer ? The animal does not 

 resist your wishes, or care about being shod ; he dreads 

 the smith, not the shoeing. Horses have no natural 

 antipathy to smiths or forges, but they have to ill- 

 usage. A colt has no more natural objection to 

 permitting you to touch his hind leg than his head; 



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