Notes from Maine - 2023/02/19

The mornings have included a lot of barn time recently. The last time the farrier was here, trimming and shaping the horse feet, the farrier said, “Earl is a doofus.” When I agreed, the follow-up question was, “Will you work on that before next time?”

“How so?” I asked.

Earl was the first “brand new” horse I’ve had. When he arrived here, he was so small that you could pick him up and carry him around. Now he weighs over 2,000 pounds and he is (for lack of a better word) somewhat of a doofus. I educated Earl on the fine art of picking up a foot when I pointed to it and said, “This foot!” He does that pretty well. Sometimes, his foot is presented enthusiastically enough to knock you over. After the foot arrives, expectations are somewhat cloudy. I tend to spend less than a minute inspecting and cleaning the hoof. On a daily basis one needs to remove rocks and debris. My horses are barefoot, so they don’t have shoes to inspect, but I’m also looking for cracks or chips that might become a problem. Almost every year, Earl will get an abscess in his hoof that requires soaking. 

Maybelle is a lovely horse who will hold her foot aloft for any amount of clipping and scraping.

Earl is somewhat of a doofus. For my purposes, his patience is perfectly adequate. I’m spending less than a minute per foot. The farrier can take up to ten minutes using his nippers, knife, and rasp to clean up one of Earl’s monstrous hooves. By the way, hoofs (the regular plural) used to be more common but the usage has drifted towards hooves (the irregular plural) over the past 100 years. The inflection point was about 1974. That’s when instances in literature were 50/50 for hoofs and hooves (thank you, Grammar Girl). Now, hooves have taken the lead. They’ve taken the bulk of my morning as well.

A few minutes into his pedicure, Earl starts to fidget. A farrier is hunched over, working on a foot that’s cradled between their thighs. Any tiny motion by Earl will disturb the farrier’s balance. In a cold barn, on a February morning, the farrier will be sweating before they’ve finished the first of four feet.

Other horses I’ve known showed up here with decent manners. After working with Earl to lift his feet, I guess I assumed that our mission was accomplished. There’s so much more to do. I started reading. All the sources pretty much say the same thing—work with the horse extensively, every day, to build their patience to hoof work. It’s important to never “reward” fidgeting, leaning, biting, kicking, or maiming by immediately putting the foot down. You’re supposed to wait out the bad behavior so the horse realizes that calm patience is rewarded—not outbursts. 

So, that’s what we’re working on. Each morning, I go out and work on his feet for longer and longer. Today, we played a game with a front foot. Every time he put a little weight in my hand, I jiggled and bounced the hoof until he took the weight back off. When he was a doofus, I responded like a doofus. Calmness was rewarded with calmness. 

The farrier is supposed to come back in April. I’m curious to see if all this effort leads to a change in behavior. Earl used to be terrified of needles. He still is, but he used to be as well. I have an empty dosing syringe that I attached a rubber band to. It lives in my pocket. Every few days, I’ll pull out the syringe, put it against his neck and snap the rubber band against his skin. After a month or two, he realized that syringes were no big deal and the snap wasn’t much of an irritation. He’s still deeply suspicious when the vet comes at him with a syringe. Last time he was due for vaccinations, I demonstrated my technique. Earl yawned as I simulated giving him a shot. The vet laughed and uncorked a needle. Earl’s eyes went wide. 

He stayed calm enough to get the shot done. I wouldn’t say he’s cured, but nobody got hurt. So there’s definitely a difference between when I do something and when someone else tries it. I’m curious to see if he still gives the farrier a hard time.

When I started with horses, I took classes and watched videos. I can’t remember who passed along this wisdom, but it has proven true over the years—horses have to learn everything with both eyes. When Homo sapiens see something, it’s almost always with both eyes. Objects and actions are the same if they’re happening on our right or our left. For Equus caballus, vision is divided most of the time. You might come towards them with a new brush on their left side. At first, maybe they freak out. Then, they figure out that there’s no threat and you can approach them the same way with no response. The first time they see it on their right side, they might just freak out again. The concept seemed farfetched when I first heard it. Over the years, I’ve come to accept it as true.

I think the same thing might be true for different people. Earl is getting better about me holding his feet up for minutes at a time. The farrier might get different treatment. We’ll see. It’s pleasant enough standing out in the barn and holding a foot aloft for minutes at a time. I guess it’s nice to have an excuse to do that.