hobbles

[Mickie Newnam <akelakhan@earthlink.net>]

I had a Half-Arab mare that I bought as a 10-yr-old.  I don't know what
her background was, but she would freak out if she got anything around a
leg!  After that, I swore I would have any horse I owned trained to
hobbles, for their own safety. (I know, I should have done it with her,
too, but never got around to it).
I've never had to do it with my gelding, since he's always seemed to
naturally assume that if he gets tangled up in anything it's my job to
fix it.  He once hooked his hackamore noseband to a fence rail via a
horseshoe that had been left hanging on it when he went to scratch while
I was closing a gate after dismounting.  I felt a little tug on the
fence and turned my heead to look at him; he was standing there with his
head stuck to the fence looking at me as if to say "OK, I messed up!
Get me out of this!".  He'll occasionally get a rope wrapped around a
foot and simply nicker to me when I walk into view.  I praise him
profusely!
But if he didn't have this tendency naturally, I know he'd have learned
to hobble so he wouldn't feak out over something potentially dangerous,
even if I never used the hobbles for their original purpose.
Mickie



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.    
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/RideCamp   
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=