Teeth Floating

We took all the horses up to the vet clinic today to get the horse's teeth floated. We do this once a year to help the horses chew their food better. The vet grinds their teeth down to even them up so the horses can better chew their grain. The horses are sedated for this as they generally object to having a rasp stuck in their mouths. I decided to take them up in two batches using the 8-horse trailer. Before loading them I went around to each trooper's shed to get his horse's halter. When we released the horses into the vet clinic paddock, I left the halters on the horses with the lead rope tied around their necks. This seemed like a good idea as I didn't want all the halters getting mixed up. Different horses use different sized halters. Unfortunately, this idea turned out to be very bad. As the horses bent down to eat the grass, the lead rope slid up on their neck and created a loop in which they could get their legs stuck in. Some did, some didn't. One horse, Zeus, stepped through his but decided to just walk around that way. My horse, Apache, stuck his leg through and managed to complete at least two backward somersaults before the clinic staff could get him untangled. Duke, our new horse, didn't step through his lead rope but did decide to take a tour inside of the vet clinic. The paddock is behind the clinic surgery and the staff brings the horses inside to work on them. Duke saw the door was open and decided to explore on his own. They eventually found him in the small animal clinic. Despite all the absurdities associated with our horses, we managed to get them all back to the stables without any injuries. Maybe next year I'll just buy them all giant toothbrushes.