Many animals, including horses, possess an uncanny ability to detect emotion as well as inner nature of an individual. Whereas you may be able to slap a forced smile on your face and hide powerful negative emotions such as stress or anger from fellow humans, you won't find it as easy to fool a horse! In fact I consider horses to be natural truth detectors due to their ability to read a person's emotional state as well as their sincerity when it comes to a love for equines.

If one of my naturally friendly horses takes an instant dislike to someone out of blue, 9 times out of 10 I'm going to respect my equine partner's instincts. Horses generally do not possess vendettas or have reason to target anyone for no real reason – they tend to call them as they see them. If a horse usually takes a liking to visitors but holds a sudden aversion to one in particular, clearly horse sees or detects something that I may not have initially caught.

Here's how to safely pick up a horse's hoof:

Starting with front hoof, approach your horse diagonally from his front so that he clearly knows you are there – you don't want to surprise him. Place yourself even with his shoulder and make sure to face his rear; you will both be facing opposite directions during hoof picking process.

Making sure that your feet aren't too close to horse's hoof, start running hand parallel to him down his shoulder and along length of his leg, finally stopping just above his ankle. Gently grasp ankle portion and click (or otherwise verbally cue him) to ask him to raise his leg. If he's well trained, that small cue will be more than enough and he'll do just what you requested. You're now free to begin picking his hoof.

If your horse is being a bit stubborn or hasn't learned how to pick up his legs yet try leaning into his shoulder as you run your hand down back of his cannon bone. You can also gently squeeze/pinch tendons to further cue him to what you would like. As you perform these physical cues make sure you provide a verbal one also (I make a clicking sound) so horse later associates your sound with requested response. Increase weight you push against his shoulder until he finally lifts his leg as requested.

When picking a horse's hoof you want to remove all debris from hoof clefts as well as rim and frog. Be careful around frog because it can sometimes be a bit sensitive, particularly if horse has thrush.