Читать книгу Haney's Art of Training Animals - W. H. Burroughs - Страница 16

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From the number of “infallible recipes” given in the papers for curing balky horses we should judge a little light on the subject is called for by horsemen. The various remedies which different correspondents describe as having proved effective in their own experience would form a curious collection, though some of them betray a remarkable lack of real knowledge about the matter. One genius has discovered that stuffing a horse’s mouth and nostrils with road dust is highly successful. Another humane individual deeply deplores the barbarous practice of whacking balky horses over the head and legs, and suggests that there should be substituted a system of steady, but not very severe, pounding in one spot with a “smooth club,” until “the pain grows intolerable and he starts nervously forward.” One hero, whose valor deserves to be chronicled for the admiration of future ages, thus modestly relates his experience with “one of the perverse animals,” as he calls his horse:

“The first work I did with him after he came into my possession was to draw a load of hay from the meadow. He started a few rods and then stood still, and no amount of urging that I could command would induce him to budge an inch. I took the pitchfork and sat down on the fore end of the load and began to prick him about the root of his tail, inserting the tines just through the skin. He kicked, but the load of hay was a complete protection. I kept on, moderately and persistently pricking for about five minutes, when he started for the barn. He never attempted to balk but once after, when the mere sight of the pitchfork was sufficient to make him draw.”

In Cecil county, Maryland, a farmer resorted to a rather novel expedient for getting some “go” out of a balky horse. Having loaded his wagon rather heavily with wheat, the horses were either unable or refused to draw it. After trying for some time to put them in motion, he set fire to a sheaf of wheat, and applied the flame to one of the horses. The horse, not relishing the application, by a well directed kick deposited the blazing sheaf in the load of wheat. This becoming ignited, was entirely consumed, together with the wagon. One of the horses, also, narrowly escaped perishing in the conflagration.

Many of the cases of “balkiness” are nothing but want of power to perform the task assigned; a necessary pause from temporary exhaustion. A driver who understands his business will give his team a breathing spell occasionally while pulling a heavy load. Another thing, if you find your team becoming exhausted and about to give out, it is well to stop them of your own accord; and it is well, too, to give them a few moments rest before encountering a peculiarly difficult part of the route.

If you have balky horses, it is your own fault, and not the horse’s, for if they do not pull true there is some cause for it, and if you will remove the cause the effect will cease. When your horse balks he is excited and does not know what you want him to do. For instance, a young horse that has never been “set” in a gully with a load before, is whipped by his owner or driver because he does not draw the load out. The animal is willing to do what he can, but he does not know how to draw out the load. He tries and finds that it does not move, not knowing that a steadier and stronger pull would do it, and when the lash comes down upon him and he hears the yells of his driver he is frightened, and jumps and rears through fear rather than ugliness or balkiness. No better way could possibly be devised to make a horse balky than to beat him under such circumstances. When he gets a little excited, stop him five or ten minutes, let him become calm; go to the balky horse, pat him and speak gently to him, and as soon as he is over his excitement, he will, in nine cases out of ten, pull at the word. After you have gentled him a while, and his excitement has cooled down, take him by the bits; turn him each way a few minutes as far as you can; gentle him a little; unrein him; then step before the balky horse, and let the other start first, then you can take them anywhere you wish. A balky horse is always high spirited and starts quick; half the pull is out before the other starts; by standing before him the other starts first. By close application to this rule, you can make any balky horse pull. If a horse has been badly spoiled you should hitch him to the empty wagon, and pull it around a while on level ground; then put on a little load and increase it gradually, caressing as before, and in a short, time you can have a good work horse.

You might as well attempt to make a horse move a three story building and draw it off, as to get out of a slough with a heavy load, when the animal has never been taught by degrees to draw a load out of such places. It is true that it is bad policy to unhitch a horse from a load under such circumstances, but it is far worse to beat him an hour and then have to do it. Our way of teaching colts is as follows: We put on light loads, after they are well broken to a harness, and go into bad places where it requires hard pulling by degrees; and the animal learns how to draw the load out. He reasons as a man does, thus: “I have been here before and got out, and I can do it again,” and out he goes. We add to the load one or two hundred pounds, and go through the same process, then wait a day or two and try him again, taking care that we require nothing to be done extra except with a lighter load. This is teaching a horse to have confidence in himself, which is the basis of all good draught horses.

A Scotch paper describes a curious case of horse management, and though the same treatment has been equally successful in other instances we are inclined to believe the true secret lies partly in gentling the animal while the preparations are being made. The fact related is curious and may be useful, so we reproduce it:

“On Saturday last a groom, mounted on a high mettled hunter, entered the High street of Coldstream, and, when opposite Sir John Majoribank’s monument, the horse began to plunge and rear to a fearful extent, swerving to the right and then to the left, but go forward he would not, nor could all the exertions of the groom overcome his obstinacy. The street was filled with people expecting to see the animal destroy himself on the spikes of the iron railing around the monument, when Mr. McDougal, saddler, walked up to the groom, and said: ‘I think, my man, you are not taking the proper method to make the horse go; allow me to show you a trick worth knowing.’ ‘Well,’ says the groom, ‘if you can make him go, it’s more than I can;’ when Mr. McDougal took a piece of whipcord, which he tied with a firm knot on the end of the animal’s ear, which he bent gently down, fastening the end of the string to the check buckle of the bridle, which done, he patted the horse’s neck once or twice, and said, ‘Now, let me see you go quietly home like a good horse,’ and, astonishing to relate, it moved off as gently as if nothing had happened. Mr. McDougal says he has seen, in London, horses which no manner of force could make go, while this mild treatment was always successful.”