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!