222 Our Noblest Friend, The Horse 



gently. Originally a wild animal, the horse has 

 many of these instincts unchanged. Never believe 

 that he serves you because he loves you and wishes 

 to do so. He does nothing of the sort. Your scent 

 is unpleasant to him; your presence, until he finds 

 that to you he must look for food and shelter, is 

 distasteful ; he allows you to handle and to work 

 him, not because he delights in so doing, but because 

 he has been deceived into thinking that he cannot 

 help himself; and he acquiesces just in the degree 

 that he is hoodwinked, and to the extent that he 

 has found resistance useless. He is foolish, he is 

 timid, he has but limited intelligence — and it is in 

 these qualities that our safeguard lies, if he is 

 properly handled and educated as common sense 

 defines; in the same qualities that our constant 

 danger exists if he is pampered and indulged, as 

 sentiment and the current mistaken ideas of humane 

 treatment dictate. 



