I hope you all don’t mind if I share this brief story about something that happened to me yesterday. I’m so looking forward to sharing it with some fellow horse lovers, because when I told my family this story, my twinlings thought it was kind of cool, and my hubby didn’t seem too impressed. But, my daughter was with me when it happened, so she was as entertained as I was………
I had just finished harvesting the remainder of the apples off one of our two apple trees. Between the birds and Apache eating most of the granny smith apples, there weren’t many left over for us. But the red delicious apple tree gave us a pretty good harvest.
During the gathering of the apples, I found some bruised and dented fruit, so I placed them in a basket to take up to the horses, both mine and my neighbors’.
As I was sharing the apples with my neighbor friend’s 4 horses, over the fence, Apache came over to hang out and bum a few apple slices, even though I had just given her a couple apples before lunch time.
I was feeding Yalla! slices of apple when one of the slices fell to the ground. After a couple minutes of Yalla! snuffling around for the apple I realized I’d have to pick it up and re-feed it to her. So, my daughter handed me a stick to poke through the fence, and as I was squatting down, poking at the apple slice, trying to pull it closer, I felt something rubbing me on my head. I didn’t become alarmed because I figured it was just Apache licking my hat, which she has been known to do. But a minute later, just as I dragged the apple slice through the fence, I felt my hat lift from my head!
I looked up to see my hat gripped firmly, but lightly, between Apache’s teeth! What a silly mare! haha!
She shook it gently back and forth and then turned and walked away. (At this point I was giggling!) When she got about 10 feet away, she bent her head around to look at me, with my hat still clutched in her mouth. I was so tickled and entertained by her impromptu playful behavior, I didn’t want her game to end, but when she turned her head back around Apache dropped my hat onto the ground. Awww.
Of course I have no pictures of Apache taking my hat, but later I took a photo of my hat and noticed the spot where my mare had picked it up with her lips and teeth.
I wish I could have gotten it on video tape, so I could replay it. Apache mare was just so darn adorable. My daughter just wanted to know why Apache took my hat, but I didn’t care why. If I had to guess I’d say that she wanted me to stop feeding and petting the other horses and pay attention to her instead, but I’m not a horse, so I can’t be positive. But if that is what she was trying to do, she accomplished her goal because all of my attention was on her and not any of the other horses.
The other neat thing about this experience, is that I’ve been wondering for a while if this particular hat is bad luck. I hoped not because it’s a special hat that was sent to me all the way from Australia from a blog friend soon after the surgery I had to repair my ACL, after falling off of my mare Baby Doll.
But I have already been knocked down and broken my knee by Baby Doll, while wearing this hat, and recently kicked in the face by Apache, while wearing this hat.
But maybe this cute display of playfulness erases all the bad stuff? Sure hope so!
As for Apache’s behavior, I was hoping this was a trick someone had taught her earlier in her life, so I tried to get her to take my hat in her mouth again, but she wasn’t interested. She did lick my arm and hand for a while, though. And she also seemed very pleased to receive wither and butt scratches from me.
So, what I’d really like to know…….has your equine pal ever played a game like this with you? Has he or she ever stolen your hat? Your gloves? Your drink or snack? Does your horse have a sense of humor and creative ways to get your attention?
19 comments :
My guy can be pretty goofy when he wants to be, but he's not a very mouthy horse.
Then one day last winter, I had him loose in the indoor to play at liberty, and I sat on a jump to chat with my friend. As we watched, Willie found a small scrap of wood that had somehow made it to the indoor footing. He sniffed at it, nosed it, then picked it up, walked it over to me, and dropped it in my lap. He hasn't done anything like that before or since, but my friend and I were on the ground laughing -- my horse had brought me a stick!
Oh -- and I still have the stick! I have it saved in a drawer in my bedroom. :)
Betty's horse, Morgunn, can be pretty mouthy at times and frequently grabs our hats. Sugar likes to grab our water bottles.
Horses use their mouths to explore their world so I'm not sure if it's just curiosity or playfulness.
In either case, just enjoy as long as it's not too mouthy.
Dan
Indigo has not stolen my hat. Shes licked my hat and coat and everything. She tried to eat my broom once and usually knocks over everything when I have things in the paddock fixing stuff. Like yesterday as I was axeing the mothership of all jimson weed (It was HUGE! I don't know how I didn't see it I couldn't pull it out)
Other than that my aunts old standardbred double blue moon used to grab my zipper pull if I was not watching and zip my jacket up and down. He was a big ham.
Part of what convinced us to buy our guy Corky (who passed away two years ago now, at 29) was that, as we looked at several other horses in the pasture, Corky, who was supposedly hard to catch (and continued to play catch me if you can, often, over the 26 years he was with me) walked up behind my then hubby, reached over his shoulder and stole his pack of cigarettes (yuck!) out of his shirt pocket!
Emma will pick up water bottles LOL
She also loves Jacket Zippers! She like my cousins the best and wil take the zipper in her teeth and zip it up and down, up and down LOL She is such a goof! We laughed so hard the first time she did this!
My old horse, Em, was with me when I was eating M&M's. She sidled over to me and then grabbed a big mouthful of them out my hand and trotted away with them!
Another time, my horse Lucy was in the round pen and I sat on the ground, my phone in hand. I was going to take a picture of her adorable face when she trotted over to me and knocked my phone out of my hand, then sort of shuffled her feet so it ended up a yard away! She likes games like that. =D
~MunciEquestrian~
Sirocco, is my youngster and he loves to play with everything! He will grab buckets, hats, gloves , rakes, sticks you name it he likes it! Too funny!
I have a picture of Lily trying to push my hat off my head from behind -
ayearwithhorses.blogspot.com/2009/06/lily-helps-and-maisie-grazes.html
Lily would also pluck my sleeve, very gently, with her teeth sometimes to get my attention.
Bombay will steal anything that is loose. He's taken my hat. He also tries to take off my shoes. Sometimes he grabs my jacket and tries to pull it off. Yesterday I couldn't keep a straight face when the vet was talking to me, because Gabbrielle was trying to feed some hay to her. Swear to God... Gabbrielle had a long stick of hay in her mouth and she kept trying to stick it into the vet's mouth.
The old gelding I learned to ride on,"Satan" forgivew the name ,I didn't choose it ,butI will say he had a devilish streak.Once took my sweater off the fence and spent 20 minutes dashing around the pasture playing silly buggers with it ,he would toss it in the air and catch it then dash of with it trailing in the breeze behind him .when he was done he nonchalantly dropped it at my feet
Jesse is mouthy and is always trying to get my phone...drink my water/coffee...chew is lead rope. Jesse knows several tricks and I was going to teach him to pull someone's hat off...but decided it was not a good idea in case he decided to start doing it on his own and hurt someone! I do luv it when they do something like that all on their own ;)
I love that story because it made me remember one day when my daughter was riding my horse and her horse Bullet stood at the arena fence watching. They all come over and watch when we're riding someone else, like it's a show and they're trying to learn something. Anyway, she'd hung her crop on the post because she definitely doesn't need a crop with my horse. Her horse Bullet grabbed the crop and took off with it. He was holding it in his mouth like a dog holds a stick, right in the middle. He started galloping around, skidding down the hills, running back up, bucking and kicking up his heels like na, na, na, na, na! I got it! I got it! Na, na, na, na, na, I got it! My daughter was screaming because it was her brand new crop, lol. (I guess the crop works with or without a rider.)
Boomer, one of our horses insisted on getting his belly scratched every day this summer. No big deal except he's usually one we have to go up to to pet. Instead he'd make a beeline for us. He was turning into a regular pest. I guess his belly really itched from bug bites.
Glad to see someone got apples this year. Spring was too weird here this year.
Smokey is fascinated by my helmet. He has mouthed my hat once. I want to teach him to pick it up off the ground and hand it to me.
:)
I'm in the clinic on Sunday, my ride time is at 1. Hope to see you there!
The first horse we owned during the Civil War but a jokester!
Trying to build his barn was a chore...he would run away with the camera, the hammer, the nail pouch and even hubby's coat. Stand just out of reach and shake his head with the object in his mouth!
Great shots.
Cute story. Yes, wish there were pics.
The last couple times I have been camping by myself, Windy is stabled or tied right out side my camper door. Once, after coming back from a ride, I dropped her a flake of hay and went inside to change clothes. When I came back out she SPRINTED up to me nickering. I knew right away what she was telling me. The horse in the neighboring pen got his grain & she was telling me, "See, he got his... where is mine?"
This past weekend at the CTR, it wa pleasant enough to sleep with the windows open a bit. When I came down from my bed, she heard me and immediately was at my door nickering.
Not humorous stories, but examples of how she speaks to me when it is just her and me.
They steal anything & everything. I was wearing my daughters favorite hat from the shelter she volunteered for in Mt. & Ritzy nabbed it & got into a tug o war with Hawk. Poor hat was in pieces in minutes & Custer ate hubbies straw hat!! ;)
Gloves...all the time. Our donkey "Pistol Pete" finds them sticking out of my barn coat pocket and grabs them. I usually don't know they are gone until I reach for them and they aren't there. "Pete!" He just smiles a donkey smile and doesn't help me find them one bit...he enjoys me joining him in the pasture while "we" for them!
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