33S ThS HORSS. 



"VICIOUS TO CLEAN. 



It would scarcely be believed to what an extent this exists in some horses, 

 that are otherwise perfectly quiet. It is only at great hazard that they can 

 be cleaned at all. The origin of this is probably some maltreatment. 

 There is a great difference in the sensibility of the skin in different horses. 

 Some seem as if they could scarcely be made to feel the whip ; others 

 cannot bear a fly to alight on them without an expression of annoyance. 

 In young horses the skin is peculiarly delicate. If they have been curried 

 with a broken comb, or hardly rubbed with an uneven brush, the recol- 

 lection of the torture they have felt makes them impatient, and even 

 vicious, during every succeeding operation of the kind. Many grooms, 

 likewise, seem to delight in producing these exhibitions of uneasiness and 

 vice ; although when they are carried a little too far, and to the hazard of 

 the limbs of the groom, the animals that have been almost tutored into 

 these expressions of irritation, are brutally kicked and punished. 



This, however, is a vice which may be conquered. If the animal be 

 dressed with a lighter hand, and wisped rather than brushed, and the 

 places where the sldn is most sensitive be avoided as much as thorough 

 cleanliness will allow, the horse will gradually lose the recollection of 

 former ill-treatment, and become tractable and quiet. 



VICIOUS TO SHOE. 



The correction of this is more peculiarly the business of the smith ; yet the 

 master should diligently concern himself with it, for it is oftener the con- 

 sequence of injudicious or bad usage than of natural vice. It may be 

 expected that there will be some difficulty in shoeing a young [horse for 

 the first few times. It is an operation which gives him a little uneasiness. 

 The man to whom he is most accustomed should go with him to the 

 forge ; and if another and steady horse were shod before him, he might 

 be induced more readily to submit. We cannot deny, that after the habit 

 of resisting this necessary operation is formed, force may sometimes be 

 necessary to reduce our rebellious servant to obedience ; but we affirm 

 that the majority of horses vicious to shoe are rendered so by harsh usage, 

 and by the pain of correction being added to the uneasiness of shoeing. It 

 should be a rule in every forge that no smith should be permitted to strike 

 a horse, much less to twitch or to gag him, without the master-farrier's 

 order; and that a young horse should never be twitched or struck. There 

 are few horses that may not be gradually rendered manageable for this 

 purpose by mildness and firmness in the operator. They will soon 

 understand that no harm is meant, and they will not depart from their 

 ■usual habit of obedience ; but if the remembrance of corporal punishment 

 is connected with shoeing, they will always be fidgety, if not dangerous. [^ 

 This is a very serious vice, for it not only exposes the animal to occa- 

 sional severe injury from his own struggles, but also from ^the correction 

 of the irritated smith, whose limbs, and even whose life being in jeopardy, 

 may be forgiven if he is sometimes a little too hard-handed. Such a 

 horse is very liable, and without any fault of the smith, to be pricked and 

 lamed in shoeing ; and if the habit should be confirmed, and should in- 

 crease, and it at length becomes necessary to cast him, or to put him in the 

 trevis, the owner may be assured that many years will not pass ere some 

 formidable and even fatal accident will take place. If, therefore, mild 

 treatment will not correct the vice, the horse cannot be too soon got 

 rid of. 



