Horse Sex Offender List
My horse has put me on the equine sex offenders list, and I’m not very sure I can argue with him.
Here’s my confession… in 18 years of riding horses I have never cleaned a sheath. I know, I know… you may cast your stones at me. You may call me an awful horse owner…. but it’s true.
See, the place I learned to ride taught me excellent horse care. I could muck a stall and cold hose a leg before I knew how to canter properly, and I’m really grateful for that. I was introduced to the concept of sheath cleaning at age 12-13, and it was yucky…. but I watched it being done and vowed to remember this and do it when the time came.
Then my first horse was a mare. Huzzah! No cleaning necessary.
But all my other horses have been geldings… so how did I avoid this duty? There would be the occasional vet doing it, or the horse would drop and it would look “fine” so I’d give myself the excuse not to do it. Awful, I know – again, you may throw stones.
Now that I’ve owned Simon a year and I’m an adult who is supposed to be an excellent horse Mom, I realized that there was no more time to delay. He’s also started rubbing his tail recently, which really drilled home that it was time to get my hands on the package!
So I showed up to the barn with rubber gloves and KY Jelly, having watched several youtube videos and ready to do the deed.
And I did it.
All by myself.
Without giggling.
My lovely little horse was impeccably behaved, only getting annoyed once when I was trying to get the bean and all he did was lift his leg in warning. Warn me all you want buddy, I totally understand.
I also clipped, groomed and primped him for the show this weekend. Afterward as a reward for all of his patience, I decided to let him graze between the two rings where the grass is nice and thick. This area isn’t fenced in, but he had 2 cc’s of Ace so I figured it wouldn’t be a problem.
Yeah, that’s the last photo I took of him before he was like “You are not to be trusted woman!” and had me chasing him around the property.
Lesson learned – when you’re place on the horse sex offender’s list it takes a little bit more than a treat and some grazing to get back in good graces.
28 thoughts on “Horse Sex Offender List”
Yuck. I’ll stick with mares. Although they do come with their own grossness to clean.
Did you know that there is a song that goes with the sheath cleaning?>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39tJ_DYeM_Y
Came here to post the song too. LOVE this!!
You may get some interesting Web traffic with that blog title. lolz.
Nothing like a little well placed SEO, hahaha.
Lauren, your scaring me about owning geldings and stallions, lol. Yuck! 🙂
I’m with Karen…my first thought was “Oh the Google hits this might receive!” LOL
And mares forever! 🙂
I never have either. I always sucker someone else into doing it for me. I just ordered some sheath cleaner and will try to do it. Now after reading this you’ve inspired me to be a big girl 🙂
Good luck! It wasn’t nearly as bad or as hard as I thought it would be.
He looks fantastic!! I’ve been avoiding the sheath cleaning with Wiz too… but when the vet came out to do his teeth, he cleaned his sheath and even completely knocked out he was NOT happy about it! So, good excuse to always have the vet do it, right? 🙂
(In my defense, I have done it once, but I was like 11 and it ruined me forever lol)
I hope you have a great show! Can’t wait to see how you do 🙂
Definitely a good excuse. I gave him 2cc of Ace and he was really good, but if he gave me much of a problem I would have tried a different game plan.
This post cracked me up! I think I’ve cleaned maybe 2 or 3 sheaths in my life…yeah, cast stones at me, too, cause I have 2 geldings (and used to have 3). ( ; But when they drop, they look fine to me, so I haven’t felt the need to get up in there. If they ever got really bad, I’d probably just ask the vet to do it. Just not somethin I wanna mess with…lol! But my mama has to clean her gelding’s sheath EVERY DAY. He has a kidney/bladder condition and he dribbles urine constantly. He recently got a NASTY infection on his penis and it took FOREVER to go away. Now Mama has to clean that area every day so it doesn’t get infected again. Better her than me!
Funny! I will admit to not being a good horse mom most of my life and I’ve always owned geldings. First, I was never taught the importance of this nor the hows and then once I figured it out I still found ways out of doing it. But now I have finally put my “big girl” pants on and Loki got his first sheath cleaning this summer. We both survived.
Made me laugh.
When we did Ashke’s sheath in March, it took two doses of sedative and me holding his hind leg up to get the cleaning done. Even then the doc was up to her shoulder trying to reach him. He NEVER drops. NEVER. He never even relaxes enough to show the head of his penis. I have tried to desensitize him in the past six months while shampooing or rinsing him off and there is nothing doing. My sweet tempered boy becomes a fire snorting demon horse if you get any where near his sex organs. N tried to take his temp last night and he threatened to kick her after clenching his butt so tight it almost snapped the thermometer.
I will stick to paying the vet to sedate, manipulate and clean my horse, thank you very much.
Yikes. I think I’d have the vet do him too!
WHHHHHHAT?!
I do Henry’s every week!
Homeboy drops all the way every time he pees or he gets in trouble ( yeah he like to be dominated lol) so I can see the grime.
I don’t know why he is always so dirty! Glad you and Simon have taken your relationship to the next level lol! 🙂
PS. I always cleaned my mare too, is that not normal?!
Every week? He is the cleanest gelding in America! That’s awesome though. I hadn’t heard of cleaning a mare, but really is a clean horse ever a bad thing?
When I was younger, cleaning sheaths was disgusting to me. I managed to do it, but poorly, and with little enthusiasm. Now I do Fiction’s every 2 months or so (he gets disgusting!) and I hardly bat an eye.
I always clean in evenings, usually a Sunday when there’s sure to be no one around. I don’t mind doing it, but I sure don’t want anyone watching me. 🙂
One of my geldings is so small, I have trouble cleaning him, but the others are not too bad. I had to laugh because the post made me remember once when my mom was cleaning school horses’ sheathes and a little girl coming for a pony ride asked her mother “Why is she milking that horse?”
Haha, you are braver than I !! I was going to post a recent blog about sheath cleaning because I finally sucked it up and did it myself – after making my equine dentist, osteo and even a friend do it for me… in reality, it wasn’t so bad. Except for the happy faces Jingle made while I actually cleaned his sheath.. sigh, being a horse mom. In the end, I decided that those faces were “yay i’m clean faces” and since some of my non-horsie friends and family read my blog, perhaps I’ll just keep that between myself.. and my horse.
Yeah, if Simon was a person I’m not sure he’d really want me airing this all out on the internet now that I think about it…
Lol I did River’s when the vet came out to do his teeth, so he was drugged anyways…my first time ever 😛 He was amazingly good though, even though the happy drugs were wearing off when I did it, so I have hope!
Wow surprised you never cleaned a sheath.
I have never cleaned Walker’s sheath either. I asked the vet what he thought, and he told me that I didn’t need to – at least as long as he wasn’t having any problems. I think it’s one of those “different people have different opinions” things. But I decided that this was an opinion I liked!
Hope this doesn’t sound like stone-casting, but for everyone who just eye-balls their boy’s who-ha when they drop, this does NOT let you see the status of the beans (Yes, plural! Did you get all of them, Lauren?). Might be a good idea to have a vet clean it at least once a year to make sure its 100% taken care of. And remember that when you do it yourself, stand right up next to a hind leg. They can lift the leg but not kick you when you are that close. “The closer you are to danger, the farther you are from harm.”
… multiple beans? I only really checked for one!
I know what you mean though, Simon “looked” fine but the bean I got out was fairly large. I’m going to do it every 6 months in the future.
Admittedly, i’ve never cleaned a sheath either. I’m stuck in the land of random udder discharge, and I’m not sure what’s better…
That is definitely something I need to learn how to do!
Gorgeous last picture.