TIMIDITY OR OBSTINACY DIFFICULT TO MANAGE. 311 



stable till he had forgotten the injudicious treatment ; 

 and it would very likely take as much time and 

 trouble to restore his confidence as it would take to 

 make him do what was wanted had he been more 

 properly treated. 



This makes it so difficult to teach nervous, fidgetty, 

 timid horses. The sight of a whip or stick so alarms 

 them that they become confused, and are then in- 

 capable of learning. A horse knows these are 

 instruments by which he can be punished, and it is 

 proper and necessary that he should do so; but he 

 must have naturally, or be brought to that state of 

 confidence in himself and with us as only to regard 

 them with fear in case he is aware that he has done 

 wrong, or contemplates doing so, for we must use 

 them as signals and aids; and if he is so timid as 

 always to be apprehensive of punishment the moment 

 he sees them, he is perpetually thinking merely of how 

 to get out of their reach, and consequently will not 

 attend to any thing else. 



A horse that has any thing bordering on obstinacy 

 in his disposition is very difficult to teach ; not but 

 that the greatest obstinacy is to be overcome by time, 

 patience, ingenuity of contrivance, reward, and punish- 

 ment. But the difficulty of dealing with so perverse 

 an animal is this : his bad and obstinate temper makes 

 him dislike to do any thing that his inclination does 

 not prompt him to do : he resists : to overcome his 

 wilfulness we may be forced to have recourse to punish- 

 ment more or less : this rouses all the energies of a 

 bad disposition, and he turns sulky or vicious. We 

 must then either leave him master of the field, or, by 

 deprivation and the agency of fear, deter him from 

 showing or putting in practice his vicious propen- 



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