We have a yearling QH pinto filly. Today when I tried to shave her bridle path. (For the first time) She spooked out big time. Is there a easy way to do it without spooking her so much? How do I get her to trust me that the shaver won't hurt her. Thanks. Oh I also have a two year old half Arabain/Saddlebred he won't let me touch his ears to shave out the hair inside. He is fine with his bridle path and muzzle. Thanks again.

Horse Crazy,

-- Bri (Bodaciousshowhorse@myexcel.com), August 08, 2001

Answers

Bri - clipping a horse anywhere, let alone the ears, is a learning process for the horse. First thing let her look at and smell the clippers with them turned off. Touch her as tho you were clipping her with the clippers with them turned still turned off. Stand away from her and turn them on. When she doesn't panic at that, move closer and around her body without touching her with them. The bridlepath might be the last place she will let you clip. Just take your time with her, anything that scares her now will remain with her for the rest of her life. It might be easier if you need them done right now to used one of those manual hand clippers or blunt scissors. My feeling with clipping the inside of the ears is that it should only be done if you are showing - hair in the ears helps keep the bugs out!

-- Dianne (willow@config.com), August 08, 2001.

can you take her,,and go thru the motions, like your shaving her,, then maybe make a BUZZZZ noise,, then try it with a block of wood or something,, try to acclimatize her to the feel and the noise? Not sure if it will work,, but it worked on dogs and cats

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), August 08, 2001.

Well, the best way isn't open to you anymore -- that is to run the clipper over the foal with the blade cover on it during the first few days of the foal's life and keep it up weekly.

As Dianne said, for functionality, just use scissors at this time.

With older horses, I usually put the horse in question into a stall next to where I'm going to be working in the aisle trimming a veteran horse. Do let the horse look at the clippers closely, smell of them and so on and show them several times. Then I put the clippers down somewhere secure, but about 12 feet away and turn it on and let it buzz over there.

The horse may have a reaction to that, but it's over *there* and she is over *here* so it isn't quite so threatening as something suddenly attacking their ears. I might let it run 5 or 10 minutes that way without doing anything with it, just to let the horse get used to it and calm down. Then I'll walk up the veteran, park in cross ties, pick up the trimmer and go to work. I may trim several horses this way while the horse is observing. Stopping to let the clippers cool down and starting up again are also good to do, because it gives more input to the horse. After I've finished, I'll show it to the young horse again, and probably have a treat handy next to it at the same time.

I might do this several days, getting closer with the clippers, watching the youngster's reaction to see if they are learning yet or not. Eventually, I will let them explore the running clippers (blade cover on), and put the vibrating machine onto the horse's skin. They probably aren't going to like that either, so don't put them in the cross-ties, have them on a long cotton lead so that you can move with them and not have a blow up that goes over backwards. You need to get the horse used to the clippers the same as sacking out.

Lots of horses are sensitive around the ears. I can do anything with the ears of most my horses, but one mare is VERY bad about her ears. I didn't imprint her on ears when I started her as I was new to it as well, and she also has very sensitive ears that get a lot of bug bites in them and get quite sore -- naturally she doesn't want anyone touching them. It's a pain to work around that problem, but in the non-bug season, I can work her back into accepting handling of her ears, so perhaps your gelding is simply so sore that it's painful. If you can get a fly bonnet with ears on him to wear and prevent fly and gnat bites in his ears to prevent them from getting so sore, you may be able to work up to his allowing you to do his ears.

I've seen a few horses through the barn that have been so brutalized by previous owners (what they did I don't know) that the mere sight or sound of clippers puts the horse into near-panic. One of them had to be majorly sedated by the vet any time that he was going to be clipped for showing, so consequently, he went fuzzy most of the time. I always suspected that someone twitched him badly, and probably both a chain twitch (he knew what those were on sight and would rear up in cross times and break them to escape) and ear twitch. Some horses you just are not going to get clipped.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), August 08, 2001.