Re: RC: SOFTY

[Linda Cowles <lindac@gilroy.com>]

"Karen J. Zelinsky" wrote:
 .... have any of you ever FELT the ROOF of
> your horse's mouth?  The shocking truth is that it LOOKS like ours, so we
> probably ASSUME that it is HARD like ours, but guess what?  It is soft...
> ...Poor critters - we put metal into a soft, spongy
> little environment!  

<heh!heh!heh!> It's really weird, huh?! It has these weird... ridges.

It's fascinating seeing how different bits work in your horses mouth. I
was having trouble with a "very gentle" snaffle on Cammie when I first
started doing collected arena work - her head would fly in the air the
minute I took gentle contact.

I blamed it on "bad hands" and asked a dressage savvy friend to watch.
"Nope, your hands are fine... check her teeth, they look like they may
be bothering her."

And so my first oral exploration began....

I peeled her lips back... "they look okay."

"Check the back teeth for points." 

Uh oh - NOW I have to look for points... oh dear. I had the vet "check
and float their teeth", but had no clue what his hand was doing when it
was shoved elbow deep between their jaws ... all I could do is watch his
face for signs that they'd live...

"Points?" But my friend had escaped. 

So for about an hour, 16.2 Cammie resisted as I explored, and I learned
a lot. 

Armed with my vet books, a flashlight and the scientific curiosity
inherited from my Dad's family, and standing on a bale of alfalfa (16.2
is tall), I carefully explored her mouth. I found no "points" - not that
I could identify as such! 

I was disappointed; the easy answer would have been to (proudly!) call
the vet and announce "I checked Cam's teeth (!!) and she has Points...."
It would feel good, showing that yes, I looked for points, and *knew*
what they were when I found them. "What A Good Owner!" I could imagine
my neat vet saying, "good thing you checked - why, they could have
sliced her tongue off!". 

Sort of like me saying "What A Good Dog, Sam!!". We all need to be pet,
huh? But... no Points, no pets.... shoot.

I had no clue where to go next, but had begun to enjoy understanding how
her mouth worked. I'd gotten the clever idea of pulling her tongue
between her molars to keep her from biting down; this tactic protected
me, got it out of my way - and it restrained her too. It's hard to peer
into a huge, mad sorta-TB witchy mare's mouth with a flashlight when
they are too actively resisting!!! So, now she was quietly resigned to
this activity... why stop? 

If it wasn't "points", what could it be? I checked for sores... nope.
Wolf teeth? Look them up in the book - usually found in geldings.
"Usually"! I checked the bars of her mouth for the little teeth... Nope.
Her tongue looked okay - just a little stretched and dry!

I put the bit back in to see if it was hitting any teeth. Nope. It fit
between the bars of her mouth okay too - or seemed to. It looked
comfortable. There weren't any metal spurs where the D ring joined the
mouth piece, no sharp edges.

So I looped my finger in the ring and asked for a yield, pulling very
slightly backwards - YEOW!!! 

Cam had grown very interested and quiet during the bit examination
phase, as if she had her hooves crossed that I'd figure this out. When I
moved the bit into riding position, her mouth flew open and she evaded
like she did under saddle... Cool! I asked her to relax again, stuck my
finger in along side the bit - and then realized, just like Karen, that
the joint in the snaffle had no where to go except right into the mushy
soft pallet of poor Cam's mouth - she had a very shallow roof.

> (Now, be careful when you run to the barn and stick
> your fingers in his/her mouth!  You know the safe place for
> "finger-entry"!!

Once horses get used to having hands in their mouths - if you are
respectful and quiet and firm - they relax and accept it. I had a few be
obnoxious starting out, but if I can stay quiet and firm and unyielding,
they have all eventually submitted. I "pill" all sorts of horses by
holding their tongue, placing the pill way back in their mouths - past
the back molars, and giving the tongue a gentle pull and quickly
releasing it to sling-shot the pill down their throats... it's a
technique that takes practice to perfect, but works like a dream.

The point in THAT story is that I've shoved my hands into the dark
recesses of *many* horse mouths, including into the huge faces of 17.2
warmblood breeding stallions, and have never once been bit. I am
**VERY** careful, but not fearful. 
 
> Maybe all of you knew this eons ago, but with all the horse work I've
> been doing, it's amazing how many people never felt inside a horse's
> mouth!

This is really great that you "just did it"... most of us get forced
into looking the horse in the mouth when there's a problem, so we aren't
sure what "normal and healthy" looks like. Kudos to you, Karen.

Knowing this stuff doesn't mean we are good at checking it out... when I
rode Gav in a D ring snaffle last weekend, he was very resistant. He has
worked well in one (with practice) before, so I attributed the evasion
to not wanting to round up (that's hard!)... but now... you know, I
never checked to see how it fit him. 

After saying all of this, I'm sitting here mentally replacing the
mullein mouth snaffle I lost track of years ago. They all liked that
bit, and I didn't have to think about checking it. We only have so much
time, we can't be perfect, can we? 

  -- Linda

-- 

  Linda Cowles  
  Lion Oaks Ranch 
  Gilroy CA



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