Sunday, February 19, 2012

Clipping time

Today I cleaned my clipper blades (long overdue), oiled the clippers and took them out to the barn. Galen has been working fairly hard and it's been warm enough that he's sweating quite a bit. I figured that a very small clip job on the bottom of his neck might help him with cooling out a bit faster. He's got a pretty good winter coat for a Teke, even though he does wear a rainsheet in the winter and sometimes a blanket if it's really nasty out.

I did forget that he's never seen clippers before - I don't worry about nose or ear whiskers and one of the great things about endurance is that no one expects you to have a 'show-ready' horse, polished and clipped. So, we spent some time just getting used to those noisy things. He was very good, all in all, although I wish I had a photo of how far back he was leaning, without moving his feet. I just went slowly, kept telling him what a good boy he was, gave him treats when he relaxed, and we got that neck shaved a bit without much trouble. So, tomorrow we'll see if that helps with the cooling, as we're hauling out to the Redmond Watershed, for a nice, long ride, as long as the weather cooperates.

Monica commented that it 'took pounds off him'. Hmmm, maybe that is an option for humans also..

2 comments:

HHmstead said...

So you live in the Redmond Watershed area. I've been riding those trails again with ladies from my Sno-King Saddle-Up Group. They're so nice & amazingly dry!

Tekelady said...

Yes, we do a lot of our winter conditioning in the Watershed. Even if the weather is not very nice, those trails tend to be wonderful. Hardly any mud!