82 The Horse Farrier. 



When we remember that we are dealing with dumb 

 brutes, and reflect how difficult it must be for them to 

 understand our motions, signs and language, we should 

 never get out of patience with them, because they 

 don't understand us, or wonder at their doing things 

 wrong. With all our intellect, if we were placed in 

 the horse's situation, it would be difficult for us to un- 

 derstand the driving of some foreigner, of foreign ways 

 and foreign language. We should always recollect 

 that our ways and language are unknown to the horse, 

 and should try to practice what we could understand, 

 were we the horse, endeavoring by some simple means 

 to work on his understanding rather than on the dif- 

 ferent parts of his body. All balked horses can be 

 started true and steady in a few minutes' time : they 

 are willing to pull as soon as they know how, and I 

 never yet found a balked horse that I could not teach 

 to start his load in fifteen, and often less than three 

 minutes' time. 



Almost any team, when first balked, will start kind- 



Before resorting to severe means the cause should be ascertained. The horse 

 may be overtaxed, his withers may be wrung, or he may be insupportably galled 

 or pained by the harness. These things should be examined into, and, if possible, 

 rectified; for, under such circumstances, cruelty may produce obstinacy and vice, 

 but not willing obedience. A horse whose shoulders are raw, or have frequently 

 been so, will not start with a cold collar. When the collar has acquired the 

 warmth of the parts on which it presses, the animal will go without reluctance. 

 Some determined balkers have been reformed by constantly wearing a false col- 

 lar, or strip of cloth round the shoulders, so that the coldness of the usual collar 

 should never be felt ; and others have been cured of balking by keeping the col- 

 lar on night and day, for the animal is not able to lie down completely at full 

 length, wbich the tired horse is always glad to do. When a horse balks, not at 

 starting, but while doing his work, it has sometimes been useful to line the collar 

 with cloth instead of leather; the perspiration is readily absorbed, tbe substance 

 which presses on the shoulder is softer, and it may be far more accurately eased 

 off at a tender place. 



