Trimming the an ornery horse who knows all the tricks

[StormyDay]

As some of you know, I took in two horses last fall. One of them, Dutch, came to me with some emotional baggage and I think in general he just wasn’t treated well.

The main problem I’m having with him is he absolutely hates having his feet trimmed.

He picks up his feet and holds them for me fine. He has big dinner plate feet, so he is very patient when I’m doing that. But any time farrier tools get involved he starts pulling all the tricks. Leg flinging, stepping into the farrier, refusing to pick up his feet, basically falling over to get the farrier to let go. He’s not trying to be dangerous or injure anyone, he just doesn’t want to be trimmed and has the size to back that opinion up. As of now, he hasn’t hurt anyone and I want it to stay that way.

He very obviously was allowed to get away with this behavior in the past and now uses it when he’s rather be doing something else. From the records I could get, it looks like he hasn’t been trimmed since around 2012 when he left the Amish.

Things I’ve tried;

• Different farriers (gone through 3 at this time)
• Getting him really used to the farrier stand (I have my own)
• Using rewards (food) to be trimmed
• Feeding him hay/grain during trimming
• Me trying to trim him (was totally fine until he realized the nippers were being used. I also tried only rasping on a different day but he wasn’t a fan of that either)
• Pain meds before the trim (was on bute for 3 days leading up, no difference. Also tried banamine one time, no difference)
• Sedation during trim (fought through it, was useless)
• extra ground work (it worked with me; he doesn’t pull the getting into my bubble or stepping into me crap with me, but it didn’t do anything to help the farriers)
• one farrier tried not using a stand, just the leg between his legs. that did not work out at all.

At this point I’ve had 2 farriers tell me that they won’t work on him and one say he won’t until I get draft stocks. And these were farriers who have draft experience…. I get it; it’s not fun to trim a horse that doesn’t want to be trimmed, and it’s almost impossible when they weigh 1800 pounds.

I managed to get him trimmed myself today but it was not a fun or pretty process, and it took almost 2 hours.

Usually it goes as such;
He is perfect getting his feet picked out.
Farrier sets up tools and asks him to hold his foot on the hoofjack. He holds it there for a second but then immediately flings it forward in front of him the second the nippers/rasp/etc comes into play. Because he is so darn big no human could hold onto that hoof. Farrier picks back up the hoof and tries again. Same result. Farrier gets mad and smacks his knee when he flings forward/ties his hoof up with a rope/smacks him/some other useless punishment technique.
Back feet; picks them out fine. Puts his hoof on the stand fine. The second the nippers/rasp start being used, he pretends to ‘fall over’. Then after that, he pretends his leg no longer bends backwards. If the farrier insists, he just pretends to fall over.

I would love some ideas on what to do here. Are the draft stocks really that helpful? Should I just invest in them? Training ideas? Possible obscure medical reasons? It’s so frustrating because he is such a sweetheart, literally a giant 1800 pound teddy bear, the type of horse that you see 8 kids on bareback walking down the road.

[Scribbler]

Do you practice putting his foot in the hoof jack? Can you rasp him?

There’s a reason draft stocks were invented.

[StormyDay]

Yes, almost daily as I use it to hold his feet up when I’m picking them out. He will hold his foot up on his own (in my hand) but that hoof weighs a ton so it’s easier for me to use the stand.
He has no problem keeping it on the rest; so long as no one starts to try to trim him.

[4Frogs_aLilypad]

Are there any farriers in your area that have experience with drafts?

[endlessclimb]

A one legged hobble until he figures out he can’t have the foot back under any circumstances, with lots and lots of treats to show him it’s a good thing?

You’re right, this is tricky with a gigantic horse who isn’t interested in participating.

[Bluey]

@endlessclimb

A one legged hobble until he figures out he can’t have the foot back under any circumstances, with lots and lots of treats to show him it’s a good thing?

You’re right, this is tricky with a gigantic horse who isn’t interested in participating.

One legged hobble doesn’t work well with a horse that lays down, as this one has already learned to do.
If the OP wants to try that, be sure you can turn the horse loose quickly, don’t tie solid and have the hobble where it will let go easily if you need to free him before he hurts himself if he falls wrong.

Wonder if it would work to teach him to lay down and then trim?
I did that with a crippled pregnant mare they gave us that really could not stand to be trimmed without pain, and we didn’t want to use pain killer medication due to her pregnancy.
Once taught, she would lay down on her own when she knew it was time for a pedicure:

[endlessclimb]

I saw it as the horse intentionally “loses his balance”, not that he falls over.

And perhaps if he tries that and realizes it doesn’t work, he will quit.

For me, it would be worth a try - but like you said, in an open area where you can boogie away to get clear of whatever happens. Nice soft area in case the horse fully goes down. Lots of praise when he quits fighting and relaxes again.

OP, does he seem scared? It’s hard for me to understand why he wants to argue and fiddle about so much. He seems like a nice guy, it’s just weird.

[ThreeWishes]

What sedative did you try? Dormosedan worked for my hard to trim horse. Others he would just blow through. Eventually we weaned him off having to use it. It was like he learned to tolerate it via the Dorm.

[trubandloki]

Do you know someone with a set of stocks that you can take this horse to and work with it in them? That might be worth the time to see if buying your own set is the answer.

[ASB_Stars]

@ThreeWishes

What sedative did you try? Dormosedan worked for my hard to trim horse. Others he would just blow through. Eventually we weaned him off having to use it. It was like he learned to tolerate it via the Dorm.

This. Be sure to get the gel under his tongue, and allow enough time after administration. I have a rescue here who is just nasty about his feet. No matter how many times we do his feet, he is still a jerk.

[buck22]

I also have a horse named Dutch who was VERY similar. Was ok to have his feet picked out, but anything beyond that was a rodeo. Fortunately, he’s a little guy, so it wasn’t quite what you are dealing with.

His atrocities with the farrier were the final straw with the former owner and it’s how he ended up with me.

He too knew all the tricks, including the wobbling. He would break the cross ties. Blow through sedative. Broke a twitch. His most devious trick was to suddenly stand on the hoof jack and then try to launch himself over the top of you.

He too didn’t want to hurt anyone. He just didn’t want to be trimmed and had a never-ending bag of evasion tricks. And when his tricks didn’t work the way he planned, he went downright feral.

3 farriers fired me, and he was the reason I learned how to trim. He even ran over the top of the woman who I hired to teach me to trim.

So I just went really slowly with him and kept my expectations low. We’d work daily, I pick up his foot for picking out. Reward him. Then pick up his foot and take a single swipe with the rasp and call it a day before he had a chance to get upset. I never expected to give him a full trim in a day, I just hoped to tick the needle a little bit each time I worked with him.

What I learned was if I let him dictate where I could and couldn’t put his foot, he’d let me get away with a lot more. He preferred his foot held underneath him and low to the ground, not yanked out to the side or pulled up high. Because of this, in the 15 years I’ve been trimming, I never learned the “farrier stance” of a hoof between my knees, and I’ve always had to use very sharp rasps because I always hold his hoof with one hand, and only have one hand to work with.

In the end, it turned out that it was all entirely pain. It took years to discover, but he had an injury to his withers. It wasn’t the trimming that bothered him, it was cranking his foot up and out to the side. That caused his scapula to press into a painful place. He learned to recognize the farrier’s tools meant pain.

After discovering his wither issues, we switched to driving. A couple of years into that journey, we were advancing and he needed to be shod. The first time with the farrier was complete and utter mayhem – partly because the farrier wouldn’t listen to me, partly because Dutch remembered.

I coached my farrier, he was patient, we went slow, we held his foot where he wanted it, and he turned into a model citizen.

[ChocoMare]

^ What they said.

I trim just such a drafty: Belgian/Clyde cross. Once upon a time, someone used a pressure washer to wash his feathers and the PAIN from that has never left his memory. Alas, drafty memory is akin to an elephant’s, both good and bad.

So for him, even tho his hooves are 7" across, I hold it in my one hand, as low as possible, and rasp with the other. Granted, he’s not as Bad as your boy, but there is no way on this earth I can hold a hoof he doesn’t want me to… he pulled the same the male farrier before me, but all that got him was a smack with the rasp. Great… reinforce bad behavior with fear. -sigh-

It’s gonna take you alone, with a lot of time, to tiny bit by tiny bit, gain his trust. Even as Buck22 said: One swipe with the rasp and be done for the day. Repeat next day.

[Postandrails]

@buck22

So I just went really slowly with him and kept my expectations low. We’d work daily, I pick up his foot for picking out. Reward him. Then pick up his foot and take a single swipe with the rasp and call it a day before he had a chance to get upset. I never expected to give him a full trim in a day, I just hoped to tick the needle a little bit each time I worked with him.

This is exactly how I would deal with him. Are you familiar with the “advance and retreat” method? The gist of it is to only do as much as he is comfortable with, and back off immediately before he starts to object, and build from there. As an example, place his hoof on the stand, and just lay the rasp on his hoof without using it. Remove the rasp, take his hoof off the stand and praise him. Give him a break for a couple of minutes, repeat the same exercise a couple of times and then next time try to swipe the rasp once or twice. Stop, reward and give him a break. At every stage, when you reach the point where you know he is about to object, immediately and deliberately stop. Put the rasp down on the ground or use some other way to show that you are finished.

This method actually teaches them that you will stop before they get too fearful/objectionable, they start to feel in control of your behaviour, and they will leave it longer and longer before objecting. You have to start small though to enforce the idea that you are not asking for much and you need to make it really obvious that you have stopped and are backing off. Put the hoof down, reward him and give him a few minutes break. While you’re doing this retraining, if he reaches the point that he actually starts to object, then think of it as your timing being off. The idea is to stop immediately before he gets to that point and very obviously let him know you’ve finished.

If you can’t even touch his hoof with the rasp before he objects, then your starting point would be to just show him the rasp while you approach him and as soon as he looks like he thinks you’re getting too close, you turn away from him and retreat.

I also agree that you should see if he will rest his toe on the ground with his heel raised, and see if he’s prepared to accept the rasp in that position.

I wouldn’t let anyone else try to trim him until he is ready. The worst thing is to allow him to get into a battle.

[blue_heron]

We have one of these. Weird that they are so similar. Older draft, not really scared but super annoying and not interested. Will cause a disturbance and scare himself. He’s too big for this to happen. IV sedation, mix Dorm and Ace if you need it done. Otherwise, keep picking away as you are doing.

[StormyDay]

@4Frogs_aLilypad all 3 supposedly had draft experience.

@endlessclimb I could try that, but I really don’t want him to escalate any further. I think in the past some people have done some really shitty things to him and this is all a fear response. However, he never acts afraid, just obstinate. But he may be hiding his fear.

@Bluey that’s really a cute pic. What a good girl.
I certainly could try to teach him to lay down.

@ThreeWishes injection ace. Maybe I should ask for the dorm and try that instead.

@trubandloki I don’t; I wish I did! The neighbors have cattle stocks but I don’t think that’s the same

@buck22 @Postandrails will try that, just doing a little bit every day and trying to make it a positive experience. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is pain related but until I get his feet under control I can’t really have the vet out to do a lameness exam on him, because they were (they still aren’t perfect, but I did at least get him mostly trimmed) so bad I’d think that in itself would cause pain. I did try to see if he would rest his toe, but that was a no go; as soon as the nippers started he was moving again.

@ChocoMare ugh that’s terrible!

[endlessclimb]

Are his feet super dry? Could you soak/ice them before starting?

[ThreeWishes]

Ace was the tranq that my horse blew through. Dormosedan can be purchased from your vet as an oral gel. My horse’s issues were initially pain related that led to behavioral issues. The dorm kind of got him over the hump. It produced a horse who was chill but also still “aware”. And over time he learned that the trimming wasn’t the catastrophe he envisioned. Best wishes! Whether this can be fixed through training or assistance via chemistry I really hope your horse figures it out. Lucky horse to have such a wonderful new home!

[StormyDay]

@endlessclimb if anything the opposite; we have had a wet winter.

@ThreeWishes I’ll ask about it for next time.

[Sarah616]

You might even ask your vet to be present at the next couple trims until you can work with the horse enough to where he hopefully becomes more manageable and safe for everyone to work around. The vet can sedate or even anesthetize and lay the horse down to do the trim. It’s not ideal, but it’s a potential way to get him trimmed where nothing is painful or fearful for him (even past memory that’s making him think something bad will happen, or if he’s truly just ornery! A big horse like that who doesn’t want something done is unsafe for all involved). Seeing as it will likely take a while to get him to accept the trimming without chemistry, It would at least get his feet cared for. It’s probably not a problem that will be resolved in between two trims; it sounds like a long, ongoing problem/habit.

[Montanas_Girl]

Ace isn’t a reliable tranquilizer for horses like this, as it is fairly mild and easy to “blow” through. My vet recommends dorm for this kind of sedation; I definitely recommend trying to get the vet and a farrier there for the next attempt, as drafts can be tricky to sedate.