What do you make of this?

[Moniece Dickerson]

Cola was fine for the farrier at Polly's when she had her but when I got her I could not pick up the back feet,took a while of building trust then I could.The first farrier I tried she reared on his wifes shoulders,he was new and enexperienced with others than his own.I then hauled her to a place to have her feet done,told them what she had done and how bad she was.The guy got his training cane took her over by theirselves,worked with her for about five minutes rubing her legs all over with the cane then proceeded to trim all feet holding the lead rope his own self with no problem :shock: !I can not get that farrier to come here,not taking new clients and will ONLY do the girls if I haul there so with three now I had to get someone that will come here.Rick,the one that comes here is convinced she has to be druged and can only do her that way :-? but I saw her have them done with no problem with my own two eyes!What am I supposed to do here?Thanks,Moniece

[Cindy]

Find someone else.

[tinomino]

My suggestion is to find a ferrier that will do her without sedation. There is no reason to have her sedated if you have seen her done without it. Only when a horse is in severe need of a trimming and it's the only way should they be sedated. It's not nessicary.JMHO There has to be other ferriers in your area that are willing to come out and trim her. I would tell them what the other ferrier did to get her to realax and trust him. Good luck with the hunt. I'm sure you will find someone who can do the job

[paintedhorizon]

Sounds like she has everyone's numbers and knows what tricks to play to get her way

[cowboy ed]

moniece, you need to work with her about this every chance you get. if you know she has trouble with her feet, then make the extra effort to get her better about it. it just takes consistent work to get her better about it. do you know how to go about it? if not, i can write something up for you that will help. farrier work is tough enough without having to train horses to have their feet handled.

[GeorgeGuns]

What Ed said.

Plus. it might be worth a few extra trips if this fella can take some time with you and show you exactly what he does, or eve refer you to someone that he knows to be equally humane. OR - farfetched - take you regular farrier with you! (sound slike he needs his eyes opened anyway)

I often take horses' leads in my back pocket and often the horse still doesn't want to behave for the owner even right after. BUT I also give references/resources for the owners.

Take Ed up on his offer!

[motorgypsy]

A couple of things we do -

We handle feet a lot and always give a carrot slice when they yield to the "foot" command.

Our mini is rather bad about feet so we put a quick release loop in a soft stretchy leadline, put it around the fetlock and lift her feet by putting the line over her back behind the withers and pulling down. A second person is hold her. This way if she pulls the foot, it pulls on her back. Each time she yields the foot she gets a scratch and a carrot slice and immediate release.

If I have to do a reluctant horse by myself I usually loop the lead around a post and hold it in such a way that I can release it easily but still have some control over the head. I also never trap the feet of a ruluctant horse between my legs but rather balance it on the side of my calf or thigh depending on how large the horse is. I also wear hard toe shoes!

I'd definitely get a 3 foot or so piece of thin pvc and just touch her legs a lot and clean her feet a lot until she's just finally tired of arguing.

Good luck! ask as your feed stores about other farriers.