Re: Re: Re: uh-oh, Insulted Farrier

["Dave & Abby Bloxsom" <cyclone@snet.net>]

> (OK, OK, I said I was done....the computer store closed before I could get
> the thing in yet tonight so I'm back!).  As a third party observer/helper
I
> have the opportunity to see some interesting situations arise.  I am not
> saying that farriers should be violent with our horses

I couldn't resist chiming in here:

Imagine this please.  1) You are crouching for a good hour or two under a
horse rasping the skin off your knuckles and fingertips, holding maybe 20
lbs in your lap. (Now try that by itself.  Easy?)  2) The horse in question
smacks you in the face 3 or 4 times with its tail.  3)  In the space of a
few minutes (maybe it's the end of the day and you're tired) you burn
yourself on a shoe and hammer your thumb.  4)  Then the horse turns around
between feet and spills your brand new box of 250 nails into the dirt, which
you then have to pick up one at a time and wipe off because you put each one
in your mouth before it goes in the shoe.  5) You get 6 or 7 nails wrung off
so their sharp edges are in your palm as you seat the heads in the shoe,
when the horse yanks his foot out of your hand.

At this point it's pretty irrelevant how many times this has happened with
the one horse, or why it happens at all, right?

I've lived nearly all of my 40 years (oops - I'm giving myself away)
watching horses shod, and I've watched cheerful farriers and cranky ones,
good and bad.  In the last 2 years, I've learned to shoe myself, and I HAVE
TO SAY IT'S CHANGED MY PERSPECTIVE!!!

-Abby Bloxsom