440 RESTIVENESS. 



The dock should not— for the first three or four days— be brought higher than 

 the back. Dangerous irritation and inflammation would probably be produced. 

 It may, after that, be gradually raised to an elevation of forty-five degrees. 

 The horse should betaken out of the pulleys, and gently exercised once or 

 twice every day ; but the pulleys cannot finally be dispensed wvth until a 

 fortnight after the wounds have healed, because the process of contraction, or 

 the approach of the divided parts, goes on for some time after the skm is perfect 

 over the incisions, and the tail would thus sink below the desired elevation. 



If the tail has not been unnecessarily extended by enormous weights, no bad 

 consequences will usually follow ; but if considerable inflammation should 

 ensue, the tail must be taken from the pulley and diligently fomented with 

 simple warm water, and a dose of physic given. Locked-jaw has in some rare 

 instances followed, under which the horse generally perishes. The best means 

 of cure in the early state of this disease is to amputate the tail at the joint above 

 the highest incision. In order to prevent the hair from coming off, it should 

 be unplaited and combed out every fourth or fifth day. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE VICES AND DISAGREEABLE OR DANGEROUS HABITS 

 OF THE HORSE. 



The horse has many excellent qualities, but he has likewise defects, and 

 these occasionally amounting to vices. Some of them may be attributed to 

 natural temper, for the human being scarcely discovers more peculiarities of 

 habit and disposition than does the horse. The majority of them, however, as 

 perhaps in the human being, are consequences of a faulty education. Their 

 early instructor has been ignorant and brutal, and they have become obstinate 

 and vicious. 



RESTIVENESS. 



At the head of the vices of the horse is restivenebs, the most annoying and 

 the most dangerous of all. It is the produce of bad temper and worse educa- 

 tion ; and, like all other habits founded on nature and stamped by education, it 

 is inveterate. Whether it appears in the form of kicking, or rearing, or plung- 

 ing, or bolting, or in any way that threatens danger to the rider or the horse, 

 it rarely admits of cure. A determined rider may to a certain extent subju- 

 gate the animal ; or the horse may have his favourites, or form his attach- 

 ments, and with some particular person he may be comparatively or perfectly 

 manageable ; but others cannot long depend upon him, and even his master is 

 not always sure of him. It is a rule, that admits of very few exceptions, that 

 he neither displays his wisdom nor consults his safety, who attempts to conquer 

 a restive horse. 



An excellent veterinary surgeon, and a man of great experience in horses, 

 Mr. Castley, truly said, in ' The Veterinarian,' — " From whatever cause the 

 vicious habits of horses may originate, whether from some mismanagement or from 

 natural badness of temper, or from what is called in Yorkshire a mistetch, when- 

 ever these animals acquire one of them, and it becomes in some degree confirmed, 

 they very seldom, if ever, altogether forget it. In reference to driving it is so 



