Sometimes using the oil of
rhodium, organnnum, etc.; that are noted for their strong smell. And
sometimes they scent the hands with the sweat from under the arm, or blow
their breath into his nostrils, etc., etc. All of which, as far as the
scent goes have no effect whatever in gentling the horse, or conveying any
idea to his mind; though the works that accompany these efforts--handling
him, touching him about the nose and head, and patting him, as they direct
you should, after administering the articles, may have a very great
effect, which they mistake to be the effect of the ingredients used. And
Faucher, in his work entitled, "The Arabian art of taming Horses," page
17, tells us how to accustom a horse to a robe, by administering certain
articles to his nose; and goes on to say, that these articles must first
be applied to the horse's nose before you attempt to break him, in order
to operate successfully.
Now, reader, can you, or any one else, give one single reason how scent
can convey any idea to the horse's mind of what we want him to do? If not,
then of course strong scents of any kind are of no account in taming the
unbroken horse. For every thing that we get him to do of his own accord,
without force, must be accomplished by some means of conveying our ideas
to his mind. I say to my horse "go 'long" and he goes; "ho!" and he stops:
because these two words, of which he has learned the meaning by the tap
of the whip, and the pull of the rein that first accompanied them, convey
the two ideas to his mind of go and stop.
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