Saturday, May 19, 2012

Horses -- not so dumb

I think it's true that horses by nature are more reactors than actors in their environment. Here's a horse that figures stuff out and manipulates his surroundings.

Harv and Ri are generally reactive, but they have their moments. Once I threw a flake of hay through Harv's dutch door. I knew was poor quality -- matted, stemmy, dry, but clean and safe. I threw it in his stall, and saw his head go down. Seconds later, the flake came flyng out of the stall. Reject!


6 comments:

  1. JeanMay 19, 2012 at 2:57 PM

    I have owned two "manipulators." One learned to open his stall door and got out one night. He marched through the barn opening only the stalls of his friends and the "Bay Boy Raiders" wrecked the place.

    My Chance is another one. He's torn up two of my jackets and let one of the other horses out of a makeshift pen by untying triple square knots in baling twine holding one of the corral panels to a post.

    I love horses like that, but you certainly do have to keep your eye on them or they will outsmart you every time. *lol*

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  2. FriesianwelshxMay 19, 2012 at 6:47 PM

    That's my kind of horse!! My Friesian is exactly like that. He knows how to make things happen for himself and his "friends." One night, after a mild bout of colic, he had to be shut in a smaller, four-board dry paddock while his friends got to go on pasture. This was when he was four and kept at a lovely, 200 acre boarding facility.

    Later, we discovered all four boards missing from one section of fencing. On closer look, we noticed all four boards were stacked semi-neatly, nails down ... on the ground.

    We were the first to see that. When the boarding barn manager saw, she was amazed. She said my horse must be a Mensa club member. THIS is precisely the reason why I have four-strand electric fencing at my farm. Now, my horse cannot do his crafty deconstruction work without a "shocking" result. ;)

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  3. UnknownMay 19, 2012 at 8:18 PM

    Love it! Horses are definitely smarter than people give them credit for. I do agree that they are mostly reactors, though. But when food is involved, they can become quite the actors!

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  4. AmberRose- Girl With a DreamMay 20, 2012 at 5:44 AM

    its good to know horses have there own minds and actually react nothing worse than to see a horse that just doesnt react to anything!

    glad to see that the video, think its really cute <3

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  5. JudyMay 20, 2012 at 9:47 AM

    That's funny! I particularly like the pause where he puts on this angelic "Who, me try to open this gate" look shortly before he gets down to business.

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  6. IlloMay 21, 2012 at 3:45 AM

    that was kinda funny! (and maybe time to change the lock mechanism) I kept imagining the other horse going "FREEDOOOOM!" as it galloped past...

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