Boarder deserves something for problematic staff. What a bizarre response.
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I’ll tell ya one thing… I can get my horse a full lap around the arena.
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This makes no sense. On par with your other posts.
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Not worth responding to. You miss the actual point but don’t seem to care. Really, stop posting. You aren’t doing yourself favors.
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If you are just going to individually respond to everyone saying “nuh uh, y’all are mean and I’m not going to engage with you” maybe you should just stop responding? Asking for advice on COTH always gets you a ton of answers that are *useless. Best to just go “mmm, I’m going to ignore that” and move on.
*By useless I don’t mean people shouldn’t respond and give their opinion, but it is common for posters to get… wildly offtopic AND somewhat insulting while they’re at it, regardless of OP deserves that. For example, I once asked how to get metal residue off my mare’s butt because she liked leaning on the fence. Most of the responses ignored what I asked and told me that my mare was probably rubbing her tail due to worms (she wasn’t rubbing her tail, didn’t have worms, had been dewormed/checked recently, and didn’t have dry skin). Rather than sit and argue that she didn’t have worms, she just liked pooping close to the fence, I did not respond. The most useful advice I received was “She’ll start shedding in a month so don’t worry about it.”
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I’m surprised that this post is still going.
J-Lu - I guess I missed it upthread - but did you have a meeting with the barn owners?
As for blanketing in general, I think it’s pretty easy for just about any situation to go wrong when throwing something big and flappy over the back of a 1000+ animal. If there is anyone on this thread that hasn’t had a sketchy blanketing experience at least once in their lives, I’d actually say I think they are lying. I honestly can’t imagine making it a practice to blanket in a field, but I suppose it probably is faster for field boarded horses.
My “sketchiest” blanket story was deciding to quickly throw blankets on after turning horses out because the wind had picked up while they were eating in stalls. After the wind grabbed the blanket and spooked horse #1, causing pandemonium in the field and causing one horse to trip, I decided they were less likely to die from the wind than from trying to blanket horses #2 and #3.
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I never blanketed when I was younger and didn’t blanket Charlie until I started clipping him to keep him cool in the unseasonably warm, early winter months. He only gets a sheet now when we have a deep freeze. All that to say, my blanketing data points are limited.
When I was doing mornings at a previous barn, every horse had a PITA blanket temp/chart. In that month (?) that I was helping out, I had one horse that needed to have a grazing muzzle put on because she didn’t like the static and would bite. Another one was a kicker and of course had the most complicated blankets to deal with, and a couple others were just grumps about it. That BO didn’t pay people peanuts which was why the boarders started stepping in because she couldn’t keep hired help and didn’t charge enough for the extra service.
Following this thread along…the hot wire seems to be the obvious culprit to me. I was super lucky once when I was leading a horse out for turnout, didn’t notice that the stupid electrical tape was touching the gate (which is shouldn’t have been but the BO was not on top of anything, had “fixed” the fence but didnt secure the extra tape), and the horse and I got both shocked. Thankfully we were both just like “WTF” and shook it off. I was lucky. Accidents happen (and can also be prevented). At the end of the day, whether I was leading that horse or someone with less experience was, the result would have been the same. And not even a blanket involved in that story!
And as an owner of a boarded horse, I also very much agree with training them to be idiot-proof when it comes to handling.
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Any place I’ve boarded, if you go to the BO’s with this attitude, whether staff is family or not, and regardless of the nature of the mistake that was made, there’s a high probability of being asked to leave. You may not get another chance next time.
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Ahem.
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Anyway.
I blanketed my mare tonight. In the dark. Like I have for the past few weeks, and the last three winters. It was very uneventful. Sometimes I halter her, tonight I didn’t. She tried to wander away when the wind blew the blanket around me, but stopped when she got distracted by something.
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Heck blanketing tied can be dangerous too.
And unblanketing…I have a horse who thinks static is going to kill him. No joke - I kissed him on the nose one day and shocked him (it was exceptionally dry out), and he didn’t come near me for quite awhile without dragon snorting at me. He is a very sensitive soul.
I had him on the cross ties weeks later and despite carefully trying to remove the blanket to avoid static, the static zapped anyway, he hit the front of the cross ties, then the back of the cross ties, and then bounced around a few times. It was very perilous and thankfully neither of us were injured.
Who do I complain to?
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I have one like this too. We do not do over the head…it just isn’t worth it. So, it take me 20 seconds more to buckle the front. Even the slightest hum of electricity, especially around her head and she freaks out.
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Yourself. You’re clearly unqualified to blanket/unblanket your horse. Send yourself an email suggesting that you get some training before attempting to do so again.
ETA: I had one that hated static too. It’s funny, I haven’t really experienced that much static electricity with other horses, but this poor guy seemed to have it all the time. And it wigged him out, bless him. I had to keep Static Guard spray in my grooming box to spray down my brushes and/or him.
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That’s a brilliant idea. I feel so badly for him because he gets so incredibly offended!!!
Email sent. I wonder if I’ll fire myself!
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Great advice. Threads tend to take on a life of their own despite the facts presented. Thank you for the reminder - I appreciate it!
Have you read ANYTHING here? Apparently not by your response. @Alterration appears to be a horse person. 
Appearances are deceiving. I might be a cat.
(Also, I’m totally kidding…)
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What does that even mean?
OP, you asked for advice. You got advice. Many have taken the opportunity to share very funny stories of their own blanketing woes, and that is part of what makes this community so fun. We can laugh at ourselves. Or not. Either way, you’ve made it very clear that you don’t like the advice you’ve gotten. So noted. Why not move on? Let the rest of us laugh at ourselves and enjoy our horses.
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Thanks! I’ve always boarded at places with dedicated horse staff. The BOs prided themselves on horse care and meant it. I boarded at one place with the teen taking care of the horses but she was dedicated, did young riders and went on to a medical degree. She was really on the ball. I boarded at their private facility for years. I’ve never had such pushback from a boarding facility and I’ve boarded my whole life. All wanted to make life easier for the horse and not hire unqualified staff. I guess we’ve answered my question.
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