The Open House 2009..........Clipping Doc

Sometimes I think that horses are just like kids, the minute you say one thing about their behavior they're going to do the exact opposite just to make a liar out of you. Well, that's exactly what happened when we decided to clip Doc.

I had worked a few times at putting a halter on and off his face. I'd even did a little bit of work asking him to give to pressure. When I say a little bit, that's exactly what I mean. The colt had just enough to have an idea but nowhere near enough to truly understand what was being asked of him.

When I went into the stall to capture him, it took Colleen blocking his escape before I could catch him to halter. The whole time I was putting the halter on his eyes were darting around looking for a quick exit. Nothing about that had changed. It was when we actually went to clip him that he surprised me.

I used a small rope cable that I have made as a restraint just in case the colt got crazy on us. Colleen held him with minimum pressure on the cable and I turned the clippers on.

Doc got a bit wide eyed but just waited to see what I planned to do. He wasn't sure what he thought of me clipping off the long hairs on his muzzle. He tossed his head just a bit but nothing we couldn't handle. I moved on up his face coming back on occasion to take just a few more of those sensitive feeler hairs off and Doc pretty much stood there.

The whole time he had this slightly concerned expression on his face. He held his head higher than usual but other than that he tolerated getting his face show clipped pretty darn well. Both Colleen and I were afraid to mention his unusual compliance for fear we might just jinx the whole thing......but all in all the colt let me clip his face as well as any of the young horses did. Did I happen to mention, he'd never been clipped before?

When it was time to move onto clipping his ears, I figured things would fly. Doc again proved me wrong as he stood there with his head cocked just a bit. Only when I tried to get the deepest of hairs did I get a reaction from this colt. Even that reaction was small and I was able to do a thorough job of cleaning hair out of the colt's ears.

The whole process took less than fifteen minutes. For a foal on this farm I think that's some kind of record. Doc was clearly the easiest of all of my foals to clip............yet he'd been the most difficult of all to worm. I guess it just goes to show you never really know what you're going to get.

To be continued......................