In my show career, I learned that there are times—often what seem, to me, to be random times—when Humans will insist upon doing more than just combing your hair. They will show up in the middle of the night or early in the morning hellbent on making your hair look as terrible as their own. 

As far as I’m concerned, Human decisions about when to braid are totally arbitrary. One day, we do 20-meter circles until she’s dizzy and a little green, and another day we do them in a different place, but she braids my hair and she’s green from the start, but the situation is essentially the same. I can only assume that this is a stress response from my Biped and that knitting was too complicated for her. 

My other gripe with braiding is that it’s so deeply ironic that Humans should consider it appropriate to style me. For one thing, I am already perfect as I am. For another, have you seen them? They walk around with flyaways sprouting out of their hairnets, pieces of straw stuck under helmets, and have you seen what their mops look like when they take those baseball caps off? 

In any case, my experience is that sooner or later, your Human probably will decide to braid your mane one way or another. While I am all for just avoiding anything I don’t like, my time as a columnist has taught me that “nope” is not adequate advice. You want to discourage this behavior, but you’ll need to do so systematically. Remember, Humans are foolishly taught that they wear the pants in this relationship. It’s our job to smear those pants with green slobber. To get them to stop an undesired behavior, you have to make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy. 

Here are my pointers for braiding with your Biped: 

• Preparation is key. Of course, the simplest way to prepare your mane for a terrible braiding experience is to get it dirty, but don’t make the mistake of getting actual wet mud in it. This is easily spotted by Humans and can lead to a Bath, which you absolutely don’t want. Dry dust, with as fine a particle size as you can find, is your friend here. Roll in a dust basin or dry bedded stall in the hours before braiding, taking care not to make your body so dusty that they’re likely to realize how much dirt is hiding in the mane until they start working near the scalp. By then, hopefully, it will be too late for them to do much about it. 
  
  In the longer term, training your mane to lay on the wrong side of your neck can really frustrate a braider. I do this casually based on my sleeping position at night. If you can’t get all the mane on the wrong side of your neck, try to at least get sections of it going in different directions. The more parts you can make, the better. 
  
• You dictate strand tension. If you haven’t experienced braids, I am here to tell you there is no migraine in the world like a migraine that goes down your neck as well as your head. The easiest way to avoid this is to prevent the Biped from making the braids tight. I employ a combination of approaches for this. Obviously, there’s head-shaking, but you need to time it well. Shaking as they divide a portion of hair into three parts won’t help you as much as shaking after they make their first few folds. 
  
  I combine this with a subtle lean away from the braider’s stool. I don’t actually shift my feet but simply modify my balance to take my mane slowly farther away. You can also gradually take half- and quarter-steps forward and back for maximum bicep exhaustion.
  
  If you’re not subtle enough about this, Humans will often tie you near a hay net in hopes of keeping you still. They can hardly argue with your taking enthusiastic bites from the net—often—as they try to tie off the braid, right?
  
• The battle’s not over when the braids are done. Now that you’ve made her arms all trembly and weak, the next stage of demoralization is to undo all that hard work. 
  
  Get to rubbing those braids out ASAP.
  
  The key is to rub the braids when she’s not looking and won’t be able to figure out how you’re doing it. Stall door frames are the easiest for this purpose, but I’ve also used structural support posts, water buckets, my leg, her leg, or even her entire body to rub out a braid. 
  
  Many Humans will put Lycra hoods over fresh braids in an attempt to protect their handiwork. Do not let these discourage you. If you apply enough friction, you can snap rubber band braids even through hoods, and can at least loosen sewn-in braids. 
  
  Of course, the goal is to undo as many of them as possible, but even if you can’t manage this, destabilizing the bases will help knock them off-kilter or scare up some frizz.
  

One of the main reasons Humans seem to braid manes is for photos. I don’t know about yours, but when my Biped goes to shows that she thinks demand braids, photos are typically all she comes home with. Whenever possible, angle your neck to show off the braids in profile. Photos will really reveal every asymmetrical bump, every crooked or loose base. When she reviews these later while composing an ill-advised social media post, she’ll realize none of that fuss was really worth it. 

Jitterbug is a Michigan-bred Professional Draft Cross and occasional Chronicle columnist who skillfully avoided saddles until age 5. Since then, she has been lauded for her talent in successfully managing humans while training herself to one day achieve eventing greatness. Jitter and her human live in central Kentucky. Read all of Jitter’s COTH columns.