MyHoofPrints

FURminator – Buck likes it!

Oh, my gosh! A tool that actually works. At first I thought it was a fluke when the FURminator, also shown in the products at lower left, came to our house and removed a mountain of hair from my yellow lab and official ranch dog, Buck. This is the dog featured on the back cover of my book, Winning Bet, and by the way, Buck makes Marley look like a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Anyway, I love Buck to death and he loves me, but … among other things, there is this little issue of hair -- everywhere.
If people paid money for dog hair, I would be a millionaire. A friend who runs a tack shop in California and loves to get all the newest gadgets, came to visit this summer and gave us a FURminator. I have so much “stuff” in my house collecting dust that the FURminator did not immediately grab my attention. We used it a little in the fall (OK, I’m a naughty, infrequent dog groomer), but I thought the pile of loose dog hair it combed out was mostly the result of shedding.
Not so true. What you see in the photo is what I groomed out halfway through a brushing today! Buck liked being FURminated so much that he offered to lay down for the operation. (He hates cameras and started to get up when we snapped this shot.) Our lovely Buck has always had a nice coat, but imagine the feel of a luxurious mink wrap. That is what his fur feels like now, no kidding! I can hardly wait to try the FURminator when the horses start shedding in another month or so!

Green idea solves hoof-soak blues

Less than a month after I bought my first horse at age 12, she stepped on a nail and punctured the sole of her right front foot. Novice horse owners that my parents and I were, we took a pair of pliers and pulled the nail out. This turned out to be the worst thing we could do. Again, novices that we were – we had no 4-H horse project in Santa Clara County, California from which to learn – we thought everything was fine … until our horse went down with a high fever. The veterinarian discovered the terrible infection in her hoof. The nail hole had closed, but the injury festered from the inside, and my lovely, kind mare developed an abscess. We faced six weeks of twice-daily soaks in hot water laced with Epsom salts. After about 10 kicked-over buckets, we hated the soaks almost as much as my mare did.

Fast forward to the present … a stable client solves the kicked-over-bucket problem and accomplishes “green” recycling with used intravenous bags. A veterinarian, this client has easy access to used IV bags. Yes, they are still clean. The seal between the bag and the body prevents germs from going backwards into the bag. If this makes your spine crawl, your veterinarian could probably get you a fresh supply, or you could look online. Chopped off at the top, layered with epsom salts, and cotton at the bottom, filled with hot water, the bag is bandaged in place. (Note: If you cannot get an IV bag, why not try a heavy duty zippered storage bag?) No more kicked over buckets. No more lost medicine. No more angry horses. No more angry people. What a concept!

Read also - Nail puncture: What NOT to do

(Karin Livingston was a career 4-H leader specializing in horses, and is the author of the young-adult horse novel, Winning Bet.)

Happy tails: Inexpensive tail bag

Sometimes you just need to play. Horses, especially the well-schooled veterans, get sick and tired of the drill. Turning these ground poles into a serpentine backthrough caught my gelding's attention, and made him a lot brighter for the rest of the ride. Going bareback put us in better touch with each other, too. Note: A lot of people ask me about the tail-in-a-sock. This is an inexpensive version of the tail bag used to protect horse's tails. Get an extra-tall, knee-high athletic sock, snip the top four ways for ties, and you have a tail bag. At last check, this horse's tail dragged ten inches on the ground. Be very careful of tail bags -- at least once a week you must check, clean, comb the tail with your fingers and rebraid. A neglected tail can be an injured or dead tail. (Click on the photo to see a larger version.) Want that beautiful tail? It takes a long time to grow, so start now!

Nail puncture: What NOT to do

(An ad-free version of this blog is available as "Hoofprints" on the Amazon Kindle e-reader.)

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