The Farrier Is NOT Your Friend

When the farrier comes, run. 

Whether your feet are getting trimmed, hammered, or burned, the first thing you should do is run when you know that the farrier is there for you. 

If you are in the pasture, be prepared for two things: your owner coming to bring you to the farrier or the farrier himself coming to catch you.

Now, when your owner comes to catch you for this dirty job and does not bring food, we recommend performing the pasture chase (as explained in an earlier blog post). If there is a bucket of feed swinging from your owner’s hand, stop what you are doing and go eat the feed--even if it means having your hooves messed with. 

If the farrier comes to catch you, we very highly recommend performing the pasture chase, whether feed is in the picture or not. 

Eventually, humans usually do win and will capture you. When this happens, you have two choices: standing perfectly still while the farrier does his work (meaning that it will be over quickly) or not standing still even for a second (meaning that it will take twice, if not three times as long, but the farrier will wish he was never born). 

If you choose to stand like an angel and let the farrier mess with your hooves, our only piece of advice is, well, to stand there perfectly still. 

Caddy demonstrates how to stand like an angel to get it over with quickly.

If you choose to hop all over the place making it extremely difficult and stressful for the farrier, we have one good piece of advice: You don’t need all four legs to move. If the farrier is holding one of them, by all means hop around on the other three! 

That's our two bits!

Water Wars

We horses need water to live. Obviously. There are three kinds of water and three things we can drink water out of. Today we will be going over the pros and cons of each.

Kinds of water: The first kind of water is the water that comes directly from creeks, rivers, etc. This water is preferred by most horses but does have a serious draw back. Sometimes the water can get polluted or tainted by something that will give us a nasty stomach-ache.

The second kind of water is the more chemically tasting water. Although we are not sure where this water comes from, we know that it is clean and refreshing. The odd taste is the only draw back to this water. If you do not like the taste of your water, refuse to drink for a while. When your human finds out, they will most likely put delicious flavors in the water.

The third and final kind of water is the kind that humans call “well” water. This water is very refreshing and tastes like just plain water. This water, like the more chemically tasting water, is usually clean and dirt free.

Kinds of things to drink water out of: The first thing you can drink out of is the creek, river, etc. itself. While the water is always full and fresh, sometimes it can be difficult to get to. Often small creeks are lower than the ground you are on, making you climb down a small drop to get to them.

The second kind of thing you can drink water out of is a bucket. Buckets come in all shapes and sizes. It could be a tub out in your pasture or a smaller bucket in your stall. Buckets and tubs have a few downfalls. One, they are not constantly full. They run out eventually and you are left with nothing until your human fills it back up. Two, they can get very, very dirty if not regularly cleaned. Dirt, slime, or poop can get stuck to the sides, making the water inside taste nasty.

Caddy takes a sip of water from a small bucket.

The third thing you can drink water out of is an automatic water fountain. While these all operate differently, the basic gist of the water fountain is this: They fill up with clean water when you put your mouth near or on them. Then when you are done, the water you didn’t drink is whisked away elsewhere so it doesn't become dirty or nasty. Although automatic water fountains are not very common, these water holders are very highly rated with only two small drawbacks. Sometimes horses find it challenging to operate these fountains, and some horses are even afraid of them.

Razzle drinks from an automatic water fountain.

Caddy's favorite combo is well water from a fountain, while Razzle prefers creek water from the creek. What's your favorite water/container combo?

That’s our two bits!

The S.W.A.T Team

The winter season brings cold winds and sometimes snow. The summer season brings heat and fly swatting. You're cheering for winter now, right? Sadly it doesn't matter what we wish for; we are still stuck in summer for many many more months. So, here are some fly swatting tips to get you through summer.

Prissy could use some fly swatting advice!

1. Gather your pasture mates together and discuss your techniques. Maybe they have some that no one but them knows about!

2. Nose to butt. Nose to butt. Your tail is a very efficient fly swatter, but it can not reach your face. By standing side by side with another horses's tail you can kill two flies with one tail. The other horse's tail swats the flies on your face and your tail swats theirs.

3. Stand in tall grass. The flies have a harder time getting to your legs when they have to weave through stalks of grass.

4. Allow your human to put the ridiculous looking mask on your face! This will stop the flies from bothering areas around your eyes.

Some of our pasture mates keep flies off with masks.

5. Also allow your human to spray you with the nasty smelling liquid. The flies do not like this substance and will avoid you.

We hope that helps your fly problem.

That's our two bits!

The Invisible Squirrel

When your human is riding you, an easy way to get out of doing something you don't want to do is to spook at something. Humans usually are not able to tell when you are faking it and when you are truly scared, so you need not worry about your acting abilities.

Let’s say your human wants you go down part of a trail that you do not like in particular. Not wanting to go down it, you have two choices. You can be defeated by your rider and go down the horrible path, or you can pretend to be scared of something.

 

Razzle would rather go back to the barn.

When you are pretending to be scared, be sure to remember the three S’s: Stop, Stare, and Shake.

Stop moving. You need to basically become a rock and freeze. 

Stare at something. Just pick a random object to look at. It can be invisible; it really doesn’t matter.

Shake a little—just enough to make your rider feel sorry for you. If they start to urge you on, shake a little more and refuse to budge. Keep your legs spread out evenly and stay planted to the ground. This will usually convince your rider that there is some big scary monster up ahead that only your super senses can detect.

If there are other horses riding along side of you, be sure to use the international horse signal for pretend danger: invisible squirrel. This will alert your horse companions that there is not really any true danger up ahead, but that they need to pretend there is to keep up the show.

That’s our two bits!

 

How Scary is That?

We horses are flighters, not fighters. Almost everything is scary. But there are some things that we do not need to be afraid of. Today we have compiled a list of things that the average horse might be scared of. These are our scary ratings survey results:

Please note that all fear ratings are out of 10.

·        Plastic bags and other flimsy noise-producing items. Fear Rating: 9

Although their scare rating is abnormally high, studies have shown that a plastic bag or other flimsy noise-producing object has almost never been known to hurt horses; therefore, we actually need not be afraid of these items.

Possibly the most scary of all, but not harmful!

·        Foreign animals. Fear Rating: 6

Depending on the kind of animal, the rating can vary, so be sure to keep a good eye out. Note that foreign animals have been known to attack or hurt horses.

Clearly Vegas is not afraid of dogs.

·        Bull Whips. Fear Rating: 3

These should never actually hurt you. It is just the loud cracking sound that is scary. If your human is using a bull whip to hurt you, report to an older horse who may be able to give you tips on how to get out of this situation. It is very, very rare for this to happen though.

·        Standing Water. Fear Rating: 3

Water is a good thing, though many horses forget this. When asked to step into the water, do not fear. Although smaller puddles may appear deep and dangerous, 99.9 percent of the time horses do step in these puddles, they are perfectly fine.

·        New Surroundings. Fear Rating: 10

Be afraid of all new things! Whether it is a new stall, a new arena, a new trailer, a new tree, be on guard. If you do not know what it is, how can you be sure it won’t hurt you?

That’s our two bits!