My friend Peggy Shadel was bragging to me yesterday. I was waiting in line at the Mountain West Bank when she came up to say hello.
"I suppose you're having lots of fun with your Lily," she said. That's all it took for me to expound about my latest project and challenge.
"Lily doesn't clip," I told her. "Royce told me when I bought her that she doesn't like the clippers around her muzzle." At the time, I didn't think that was a big deal. Hearing Peggy talk about how her horses would follow her around the barnyard just to get a shave made me long for the days when Rambo and Casey would do the same. In fact, shortly before Rambo died, I had clipped both him and Casey right in front of Lily so she'd get the idea that a good equine barber session for horses was much like a human appointment with the massage therapist.
Lily didn't buy it, not one bit. I'd already tried her a time or two with the clippers and learned that Royce's claim that "Lily doesn't like to clip" was a bit of an understatement. The sight of anything resembling clippers, even a safety razor or something so tiny as nail clippers sends Lily into a state of instant, demonstrative resistance. Her eye grows evil and cold while her head and neck collaborate into perpetual, evasive jerking mode. Sometimes, half her body (the front half) comes off the ground, sometimes a front hoof comes off the ground, feigning a strike.
It's actually kinda scary to watch this same horse who loves a bath or falls into a deep sleep while Laurie bands her mane for show with nearly 50 tiny rubberbands. I told my sisters that Lily doesn't do clipping. I think they figured they could handle the situation. One day they came over, tried to clip her with one sister holding, the other, clipping. No luck.
So, they had also brought a twitch along. It's a humane but effective device used to pinch off a nose nerve, thus causing the animal to think more about the nose than any other outside stimuli. Most horses will allow anything when twitched. When twitching (and clipping, tooth work, etc.) is completed, a good nose rub will erase and feelings of revenge on the part of the horse.
While Barbara twitched Lily, Laurie was able to clip her bridle path but nothing else. For horse shows, the primping, besides the bath, includes well manicured and polished hooves, closely trimmed fetlocks, bridle path, whiskers, neck hairs and that unsightly long hair growing inside the ears. In some cases, horses are even completely body clipped. The completed project gives the horse a refined, polished look and a distinct advantage over grungy, flea-bitten competitors.
Well, so far, we've managed a couple of minor successes with the bridle path and the fetlocks, but Lily still has all her whiskers and most of her ear hair. Laurie did manage to clip off the white paint from last March when Lily tried to assist while I painted the fence.
Those clipping successes have not come cheaply. In one case, two sisters were holding, pushing, and encouraging Miss Lily while the other was trying her luck at aiming those clippers toward the general area of where hair needed removing.
The last time we sisters all got together as barber and assistants to Lily, I heard words like "Witch! . . . get OUT of my space . . .jab those knuckles into her side---don't just push on her . . . this horse is gonna be a monster if we don't get her over this now." Lily also bent the metal twitch during that session.
The nice thing about Lily is that she doesn't hold grudges. As soon as clippers disappear, she turns nice. Bring 'em back out a second later, and she's an instant "witch," as Barbara has so eloquently suggested.
After all our attempts, Lily went to the show with whiskers and hairy ears. We all agreed that our lives were more important than a little extra beauty parlor polish.
Since that show, and knowing that the Bonner County Fair horse show will come up next month, I've been doing a lot of thinking and experimenting. I've thought about sedation, which Royce said he tried once unsuccessfully. Seems Lily in "lala" land is just as intent as Lily in full mental capacity. I've thought about stocks. Royce said he used the stocks without much success.
So, I've resorted to that basic psychological staple: Pavlov's dog. Instead, this is Pavlov's horse. Lily's learning to associate clippers with food. She gets grain with her clippers. In fact, I've even put the clippers in her grain bucket---running, no less. Lily loves that grain, and she's learning, in baby foal steps, to nibble alongside those vibrating clippers.
She still does her Lily dancing and jerking, but we're making headway. I must note that I also stand BEHIND the stall fence, holding the clippers where Lily cannot reach me with those front paws. She remains untied and free to make her own choices. She wants her grain badly enough that her choices often lead her straight toward the bucket and the clippers. I yell ugly tones at her when she's bad and speak ever so softly when she's good. Lily knows the difference and seems to be responding accordingly.
I figure it will take at least a sack of Equine Junior feed before I can declare success, but we've got time. And, there's more grain where that came from. With luck and patience, Lily will be well manicured for the Fair horse show, and with a little more luck, she may even chase me around the barnyard for a shave and a haircut, just like Rambo and Casey did.
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