Last summer my wife and I enjoyed visiting our friends Dick and Mary in Montana. They have about 45 quarter horses and they were thrilled to show us the herd and take us along one evening to feed them. That evening we also helped get a three-month-old filly into the barn in order to medicate a cut on her face. The filly was a little skittish, but we got her into the barn and into a large stall and then Dick tried to get a halter on her head to hold her still in order to clean and medicate the cut. She, however, would have none of it and even in the confinement of the stall was more than a handful.

Then a horse trainer friend of theirs popped in and asked if she could help. It took her about twenty minutes to calm the animal, and slowly she was able to clean its wound and to medicate it. S…