466 FAMILIAR TALK 



from the abuse of the punishment to which I was subject- 

 ing him. Yet as soon as I comprehended the idea of doing 

 it properly, I was able in a few minutes to make him do it 

 without difficulty, showing that the real trouble was in my- 

 self and not in the horse. In looking back over my past 

 experience, I can see that hundreds of times I struggled 

 and worked with horses for hours, and even days, regard- 

 ing it a great feat when I finally succeeded, even after the 

 use of the most severe treatment, cases which, had I 

 known how to treat them as I by after experience learned 

 to do, I could have succeeded in subduing in from a few 

 minutes to an hour. 



A very common and dangerous cause of trouble is in 

 being led to believe that because a horse has submitted to 

 treatment in one place to the point of making him docile, 

 he must prove equally so in others. To show the danger 

 of this, I will refer to an incident in point : 



While at a small town in Western New York, a man 

 informed me that he had a six-year-old runaway colt that 

 was entirely unmanageable. He wished to join the class, 

 and bring in this colt for treatment. In consequence of a 

 serious indisposition at the time, I could not do the work 

 of teaching a class, and so informed the people. There 

 was, however, so much interest in the matter that they 

 volunteered to be satisfied with the instructions of my 

 assistant, who was fully competent to give all the os- 

 sential points, and to make the experiments. I cautioned 

 him in regard to the character of the horse upon which ho 

 would experiment, for though I did not see the horse, yet 

 from the description given I knew he was one that would 

 require very careful treatment ; that no matter how well 

 he might drive before the class in the building, on no ac- 

 count must the attempt be made to drive him out of doors. 



With these precautions observed, I apprehended no 



