You know it’s time to body clip your horse when he begins to look as if he’s wearing a faux fur coat. Such was the case with Danny. Though he was sleek and shiny from spring to summer, by Halloween he resembled a yak. In fact, the hair on his lower legs began to curl, to the point that I actually had someone on the trails ask me if he were part Bashkir Curly.
Grooming Danny gave me a sense of déjà vu. Years ago, my family went through a series of Old English Sheepdogs. They were all lovely, funny clowns in dog suits, but horrible to keep clean. And there I was, once again, towel-drying my Old English Sheepdog—I mean Paint gelding—with a bath towel after his post-exercise sponge bath.
Reticent to body clip him myself, since I’m not fond of horse hair wafting into every nook and cranny on my body, I called Casey, a local professional horse groomer. She makes a hefty second income body clipping horses, especially those on the breed show circuit. A veritable Wonder Woman, she can expertly body clip an entire horse in under an hour.
Me? It takes me two days, some disposable clothing and several Advil.
So I made the appointment and got Danny fully prepped for his hair appointment. Casey arrived, a suitcase of clippers in hand, and in a very short time I had a much sleeker horse. Of course this means I have to blanket Danny every night and toss a day sheet on him in cool weather, but that’s a small price to pay for having a horse that’s comfortable on sunny days. Plus, I don’t have so much hair to groom.
Now, if I could only figure out a way to make use of a small mountain of black and white horse hair…
Back to Life with Horses
Danny is very handsome no matter what his coat length. 🙂