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Last summer, one of my students had to cancel her lesson because her horse had a bad allergic reaction to fly spray. The liquid had got on his skin instead of his hair, causing swelling and soreness. She commented that here she had been trying to help him and had hurt him instead. The incident got me thinking. I thought of the times we don't pay attention to the directions on the bottle. Fly spray bottles say not to wet the skin and not to spray in the saddle area, yet how many of us are careful to follow those directions? Deworming paste gives specific doses according to body weight, yet how many of us use a weight tape on our horses and then adjust the dose accordingly? And what about the supplements and medications we use on our horses without paying close attention to the recommended dosages or how one interacts with another? My student's comment that she had been trying to help her horse started me thinking of all the things we do to be kind to our horses that are not really in their best interest. Applying fly spray, of course, is not one of those things. In fact, it falls in the opposite category of the sometimes unpleasant things we do to our horses for their own good. Overfeeding and under-training are probably the two most common indulgences that hurt the horse in the long run. Many people seem to equate feeding with showing affection. So we feed our horses what they like rather than what they need. Sometimes a treat becomes a gallon of oats. I have often seen people give their horses a big feed of grain when they return from a ride, disregarding the rule of not feeding grain to a hot horse and risking colic. Obese horses are another case in point. It seems mean to confine a horse in a dry corral for part of the day. After all, they would rather be eating grass 24 hours a day. However, laminitis, a common consequence of unregulated turnout on good pasture, is a high price to pay. Horses are not capable of foreseeing the consequences of their actions so it is our responsibility to see the consequences for them. If your horse is an "easy keeper" who runs to fat easily, maybe it's time to start controlling how much he eats. Then there's the problem of the foal who is allowed to do whatever he wants because he's only a baby. When he grows into an undisciplined two-year-old, he becomes a safety risk for people and perhaps suffers abuse when someone tries to correct his behaviour the wrong way. The same goes for the riding horse who doesn't receive proper training or who is allowed to do what she wants when out on a ride. Just as children need education, a horse's best insurance for a long, happy life is good training. A poorly trained horse is less likely to find a good home than her well-mannered counterpart. © 2001 Elizabeth Gredley
Where
to Keep Your Horse
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