The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-01-27
DOCKING NEW YORK HORSES.

Agitation is promised to urge the
passage of laws against docking horses,
and owners of horses in New York
are being petitioned to join in the
crusade. Dealers never dock horses,
except at the request of buyer. To
offer horse for sale with bob tail
is to create the suspicion that it is
second hand," one that has seen
service before in the city, instead of
being fresh from green pastures. Yet
none of the dealers will sign the petit
ton. They declare that the opera
ton of docking is not excessively
painful and is atoned for by the easy
life it leads to. To have the tail
shortened is the initiation the rough
horse pays to gain the comfort and
light duties of private stable.
Fashion is not the only reason to
actuate the buyers in having their
horses docked, but it is the principal
one. A few say that the shortening
of the tail makes for cleanliness, as
the tail does not become draggled with
mud and dust when docked, and an
other maintains that it is really COM
fort to horse to remove the heavy
and useless mass of hair. City horses
do not Craze in pasture, SO the argu-
ment that the switching of the long
tail keeps away mosquitoes and flies
has no value in this argument but
a decided objection may be voiced
against the nuisance switching tails
would be to a horse or pair in heavy
harness. All style and grace in front
action, a pair with hanging tails would
look as untidy otherwise as a woman
in bedraggled skirts. So said one of
New York's coaching amateurs, and
he had plenty to add to the plea for
docking.
Essentially docking is not a pain
full operation, continued this driving
man. "Shears are no longer used,
and if the horse is fretful, nervous
one, it is first chloroformed. But I
have never seen this done; nor has
it been necessary. In the spring /
have had a vet dock half dozen in
half an hour in my stable when con-
verting road trotters into road coach
teams. This is how we do it:
1--WE do not feed the horse on the
morning of the operation, and when
it is brought into the operating stall
the horse at once begins to MUNICH
eagerly on the oats in the manger.
A canvas hammock is flung under its
belly and the horse hoisted to its tip
toes by pulleys, when gate is stuck
across the stall close to its heels and
the tail pulled over, the fiat top rail
making an operating table. A stout
twine is tied tight about the tail at
the point to be severed. The hair is
turned back and bound, exposing the
bare skin, and the assistant takes hold
of the lower end of the tail and holds
it firmly for the docking.
ga few short jabs with surgeons s
knife and the tail is severed. Mean
while, a cauterizing iron has been
brought to white heat in charcoal
hand fire, such as plumbers carry,
and the next act is to scar the cut
with the iron. The assistant holds
the severed part so that the hairs will
cover the cut, and with the applica-
ton of the iron there is an odor of
burning hair and flesh. The horse
winces, and would crouch, kick or
break away but for being strung up
in the hammock. But it does not
take the tenth part Of a second to seal
up the wound. AS soon as the iron
is taken off the horse will resume its
munching of oats, and it feeds with
out a check, excepting while the
cauterizing iron is applied, through
out the entire op Grafton.
"Trotting horse breeders and dri-
vers all along have been prejudiced
against docking, concluded the whip,
"and 1 was glad to see that the Horse
Show judges did not share this feel
ing, for the trotting stallion to which
they awarded all the highest honors,
Guy Fortune, had a docked tail and
was also driven in heavy harness as a
high stopper. The Tapping tail is a
nuisance to road drivers, and the only
way sulky driver overcomes it is to
sit on the brush. The long. heavy
tail is, to my mind, waste of energy.
The horse should put his strength into
better things-every ounce of it. AT
hackney farms the colts are docked
before they are weaned and while the
artilage is soft. To sport docked
tail seems now the destiny of half the
trotting bred horses, so fail to see
why the trotting men should aid the
anti docking bills. If they were UP
to date the trotting horse breeders
would do the docking at the farms. .
No one knows what the horses
think about it. That docking is cruel
may be granted, but the gains to the
horse seem to counterbalance the
hurts. The pain is momentary the
benefits long and substantial ones
The movement in favor of the anti
docking bills is supported mainly by
non-horse owners, say the whips who
drive high steppers and like 'en
docked. ~. Y. Sun.
AM AN HONEST MANl
H. IL. = ae4f nj "