CURING BALKY HORSES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 11, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 31.

CURING BALKY HORSES.

AN officer of the police detail said recently: "When I was a mounted policeman I learned of a most humane and kind method of curing a balky horse. It not only never fails, but it does not give the slightest pain to the animal. When the horse refuses to go, take the front foot at the fetlock and bend the leg at the kneejoint. Hold it thus for three minutes, and let it down, and the horse will go. The only way in which I can account for this effective mastery of the horse is that he can think of only one thing at a time, and, having made up his mind not to go, my theory is that the bending of the leg takes his mind from the original thought.

"There have been some barbarously cruel methods resorted to to make a balky horse go its way, such as filling the mouth with sand, severely beating the horse, or, as in one recent case, cutting out his tongue. The Humane Societies would have their hands full to care for all these cruelties to animals. If they only knew, the owners of horses would adopt my treatment, and there would be no trouble with the erstwhile troublesome balky horse."—Selected.