Driving (animal)

“ Horses that behave well in the city are often the very worst in the country, so susceptible is the animal to environment.
On narrow country roads three out of five will behave badly, and unless the outward signs are unmistakable, it is never safe to assume one is meeting an old plug,—even the plug sometimes jumps the ditch.
The safe, the prudent, the courteous thing to do is to stop and let the driver drive or lead his horse by; if a child or woman is driving, get out and lead the horse.
By stopping the machine most horses can be gotten by without much trouble. ”

“ The man in charge of the beast naturally leads the horse on his right-hand side. A motor-car comes in sight. The animal grows more restive than usual, and the unfortunate man is most likely to find himself in the disagreeable position of being jammed between the road fence and the horse. ”

“ So the dog lay down in the middle of the road, and was soon fast asleep. While he was sleeping a carter passed by, driving a waggon drawn by three horses, and laden with two barrels of wine. The sparrow noticed that the man was not going out of his way to avoid the dog, but was driving right in the middle of the road where the poor animal lay ”

“ The driver of the motor should then talk soothingly to the horse, and the groom should also encourage it as much as possible. The horse will follow with his eyes the movements of the car, and, as a rule, in a little while will allow it to be driven close by without any further signs of fear. The horse should then be harnessed and taken out on the road, the motor-car driven out to meet it, and sent a number of times past it until the animal takes little or no notice. ”

“ Dogs, you know, are as great a nuisance to automobiles as they are to cycles, and they charge at one's car with such vehemence that their impetus almost carries them under the wheels. Sometimes they show their strength by galloping alongside the car for a couple of hundred yards, barking so furiously the while that their bodies are contorted by the violence of the effort. I was driving at a moderate pace (something under thirty miles an hour) when a beautiful collie which had been standing by the roadside walked quietly out and planted himself with his back to me in front of the car. ”

“ In large droves it is advisable to keep the herd in as long and narrow a line as possible, and to facilitate the driving, a few bullocks are usually separated from the others and kept moving in the van as a sort of pace-setter.
It is surprising how readily the drove falls into the spirit of this strolling march, some battle-scarred old bull leading, and the others following him in the dust.
It is said that neither fools, women, nor children can drive cattle. ”

“ On rough ground, as on hummocks of ice, the sledge would be frequently overturned, or altogether stopped, if the driver did not repeatedly get off and by lifting or drawing it on one side, steer clear of those accidents. At all times, indeed, except on a smooth and well made road, he is pretty constantly employed, thus, with his feet, which, together with his never ceasing vociferations and frequent use of the whip, renders the driving of one of these vehicles by no means an easy or a pleasant task. ”

“ We at times encountered a string of waggons at some narrow sharp turn of the corkscrew path, and were whirled by them, with our off-wheels curiously circling the unguarded ledge of a precipice some four or five hundred feet deep, where a wheel-horse suddenly jibbing, or a leader shying or falling, would, in all human probability, have provided the wolves and bears with a banquet, and the journalists with a neat paragraph, headed, "Melancholy result of fast driving, attended with serious loss of valuable lives." ”

“ The driving of each of these requires special skill, only to be acquired by practice combined with knowledge of the characteristics peculiar to the several animals employed. The most accomplished driver of spirited horses would probably be in difficulties if called upon to drive sixteen or twenty dogs in an arctic sledge, or a team of oxen or mules drawing the guns of a mountain battery ”

“ It is commonly said that it is impossible to run over a duck, and in truth, clumsy as they appear to be on their legs, it is very nearly so, though I did once accomplish the feat. I was driving fast round a rather sharp turn in the road, when I suddenly found myself in the middle of them, and one was unable to waddle off quick enough to save his life. ”

“ This principle can be applied to the subject of driving as well, if not better, than to most others. To drive one horse, over one road, day in and day out, becomes a weariness to the flesh, instead of a refreshment. If you have only one horse, you can at least both ride him and drive him. If you have two, you can drive them abreast as a pair, or one in front of the other as a tandem, and both [356] can be ridden. As soon as your stable enlarges to four, you can have no end of variety if care and patience are exercised. ”

“ Never allow the groom or grooms to stop your horse or horses, whether one, two, or four, when you drive into the stable. This makes horses restless, makes them back, slide, or kick, and in the case of a four may result in a general mix-up. Stop your horses gradually, with voice and reins, but stop them yourself. They have come in from the drive more or less accustomed to your hands and ways, according as you are more or less proficient, and a rough hand on bit or nose, and an apparition in front of them, ought to, and generally does, upset them. ”

“ Of course we are writing now of those who wish to get practice and pleasure out of their stables, not merely for those who use their horses for purposes of transportation only. Do not start out with the notion that the only way to drive a tandem, or a four, is to have exactly the proper vehicle, the right harness to the shape of a buckle, and horses of just such and such a character. The show ring is one thing; driving for sport and pleasure is quite another. ”

“ These, in driving, must always be a walk or a trot—never a canter, which, owing to the draught, would be equally injurious to the horse and to the carriage. Either of these paces, moreover, should be suited to the nature of the road. Rapid driving, on the stones especially, exposes a carriage to injury, both from shocks against others, and from those which attend its own motion. However, it is sometimes for a moment necessary, in order to get out of the way of carts, waggons, &c. ”

“ In passing such a light the eyes should be kept on the road and shielded, if possible, from the glare of the other machine. The precaution of driving slowly under such circumstances goes without saying.
Unlighted Vehicles. —Unlighted, horse-drawn vehicles, bicycles, and animals driven or walking in the street frequently give the automobile driver palpitation of the heart. ”

“ In driving, if your horse shies, you should never whip him; you must keep control of him by a firm hold of the reins, and if possible drive him quietly up to the object that he is afraid of and make him pass it, and if practicable make him pass it two or three times until he has forgotten his fear. You must have the right hand in readiness to pull hard on the rein opposite to the side toward which he is shying, so as to avoid his overturning the trap, which, incidentally, is another demonstration of the importance of using the correct method. ”

“ It is just so that you cannot keep a dead pull on the poor brute's mouth that this position is the ideal one. You don't want to pull your horse, but to drive him. Most driving, by the way, seems to have as its central feature how to stop him, rather than how to make him go pleasantly; how to get the quickest and sharpest jerk on his mouth in case of trouble, rather than how to exert the least possible pressure that will command obedience. With a well-bitted horse, you should be able to make figure eights by moving the left hand as directed without touching the reins with the right hand at all. ”

“ Whether or not his birds have been much harassed by previous driving makes a difference to his chances. Success will be appreciated, for sportsmen keenly relish a selected partridge drive as a foretaste to a pheasant shoot. When the drive is over and the pheasants' turn has come, they feel in slightly faster but certainly smoother water. ”

“ As to its driving off its young, its habits are probably similar in this respect to other birds of prey, none of which appear to keep together in families after the young can shift for themselves; but we have never met with any one who has seen them in the act of driving. ”

“ This is of the utmost importance in driving in the city streets, where you may find yourself in serious trouble if, through inattention, you have driven well into trouble, before planning to stop. Your horse's nose, or your pole, has poked into another horse or vehicle, or you are obliged to pull up so suddenly that you throw your horse, or horses down.
In America, where we turn to the right, pull well over to your own side and slow down before you get to the street corner around which you wish to go, whether to the right or left. ”

“ If your light vehicle has such a rail as a rest for the feet, either take it out or put another rail across parallel to it so that it is impossible to catch even the toes underneath it.
If a horse gets his tail over a rein, stop him and lift his tail off the rein; do not jerk the rein from under the tail. A clever whip, driving tandem or four, can often, by a judicious turning of the horse and a flick with the whip, make the horse take his tail off the rein himself, but this is for the cognoscenti ”

“ You’d think it 34 was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a high-powered motor to navigate the streets of Lisbon, but our driver did it without turning a hair, and deserved a V.C. every minute of the time he was driving. Of course, accidents happen, and the tale of dead dogs must be enormous. ”

“ The pleasure of a driving-horse depends as much as anything else upon his stopping and standing wherever and whenever you wish him to do so. Young horses are often impatient of this restraint, coming at irregular intervals and places, and it is one of the hardest things to train a horse to do. A good plan is to have them follow behind a wagon, particularly if loaded with hay, and have the wagon start and stop, and the colt you are driving behind it do likewise. ”

“ Shorten your reins, decrease your pace, and whether it is driving in the traffic of the street or at your own door, slow up gradually. You can tell with certainty whether a man knows his business by the way he starts and stops. If you have stopped as you should, the horse is not sitting in the breeching, with his collar sliding toward the top of his head; but horse and vehicle are stopped, and yet the horse and the vehicle and harness are all in position to go on again without a jerk. ”

“ Dogs, chickens and other domestic animals at large on the highway are not pedestrians, and if one is driving at a regulation speed, or under,{71} one is not responsible for their untimely end.
It is, therefore, especially advisable to drive slowly through all towns and villages. Drive slowly past all school-houses. ”

“ The distortions of face, hands, and body, through trying to do simple things in an awkward and roundabout way; the mixing up of whip, hands, and reins, through not having toiled sufficiently over the elementary stages of the art of driving; the brake on or off when it should not be, and a complete loss of head, the horses any way, and their owner in roseate confusion, are phases of the driving for punishment one often sees. ”

“ We are dealing with four-in-hand driving here as a pastime, as an opportunity for variety in your own driving, and as a refreshing change in their way of going for your horses. Remember always that it is not hard on, but good for, your horses to give them variety of work. Horses that are well housed, carefully fed and watered, comfortably harnessed, and discreetly driven are much better for change of scene and change of work. This is not intended to mean that a light, high-strung lady's saddle-horse is improved by being put to work in the wheel of a break ”

“ There have been those who have said that the hoot of an automobile’s horn would drive even the “sense of traffic”—a new sense recently discovered by the Parisian medical journals—from out of the brain of even the most careful of persons! This is as naught compared to the Breton cab-driver’s stentorian “He, la-bas!”
As one comes to the open country again, he leaves all these distractions behind, and revels in nature, and if he be travelling by road, in the stubbornness of cows and sheep and the aggressiveness of geese and ducks, all road-users like himself. ”

“ Upon meeting a carriage, it would be much better for the sheep, were the drover to go forward, instead of sending his dog, and point off with his stick the leading sheep to the nearest side of the road; and the rest will follow, as a matter of course, while the dog walks behind the flock and brings up the stragglers. Open gates to fields are sources of great annoyance to drovers, the stock invariably making an endeavor to go through them. On observing an open gate ahead, the drover should send his dog behind him over the fence, to be ready to meet the sheep at the gate. ”

“ This concentration and settlement of the birds enables a new formation of drivers to be made, for the collection of the birds may have caused driving right away from the butts in the first instance, and in most cases not directly towards them. The object of all driving is not only to put as many grouse as possible within range of the guns, but the more important part is that of keeping on the moor all those grouse that go by the butts, to be used again and again the same day. ”