I wasn’t really looking but a part of my brain must have noticed the horse in the stall on my left as I was walking down the isle toward my stalls. It wasn’t one of my horses and I wasn’t really looking but I turned around and went back to double check…something wasn’t quite right with the horse in the stall.
He had obviously slipped out of his halter…and yet he kept acting like he was tied to the spot. Even as we laughed at him and opened the door to remove the halter the horse didn’t move.
What silly things have you caught a horse doing? 
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My neighbors have a camera on their deer feeder and my horse was caught on camera eating from it. Somehow she got out of the fence and went next door to trigger the deer feeder and then came back into her field to come in for breakfast….ha ha!
When a tarp was accidentally left in the barnyard, my youngster picked it up and then dropped it. He noticed that the other horses had reacted by spooking, so he picked it up again and flapped it up and down. He got an even stronger reaction from the others. It wasn’t long until he was chasing them with it. Sure wish I had it on video!
the horse used to break through every fence. the owner was helpless. went to a course to learn to “communicate through pictures ” with the horse. the horse said :” i will always do it” the solution: the horse has a ship now and an own door. when he comes the door opens. only he can pass, not other horses. the fence stays up. thats soooo funny, not? almost bit crazy, hahaha
My Two year old filly which I have owned sense she was 4 1/2 months old has been loved and spoiled from the day she was brought home. Sense day one we have had to revamp many things around the farm. To name a couple.The front pasture fence was extended another three foot high due her jumping to get to the greener grass in the front yard. I have found her in the center of my barn eating hay after she jumped over the manger and left skin and hair from her back legs along the top of it, we have had to place boards from manger to the ceiling to prevent her from going over it again. In May I decided to buy a half sister to her (that also just turned two), I then realized just how spoiled my baby was. even though we had two other horses before I brought her home as a weanling she has decided NO other horse should be anywhere near me. Every time I tried to walk near the new filly she would walk in between and chase her away , every time I tried to get a picture of the new horse she would stick her head in the picture. If the new one was in the barn and I went in she would run in and chase her out, then she would place herself in the barn door SIDEWAYS so as I could not get out near the new horse .
When three buddy fillies escaped the pasture, my arabian gelding came to the barn to tell on them. He nickered toward the barn and then nickered toward the broken down fence. He kept doing this (just like Lassie) until WE GOT IT!
They were safely rescued and we have been very alert when my arabian speaks ever since.
They can be so funny! Recently when a mare here had to have emergency leg stitches, our extraverted little yearling filly out of that mare was so fascinated with what the vet was doing. She kept intently watching his movements and following his hands with her head. She was like a little vet student.
I was halter breaking a weanling pony and was scratching her butt, trying to get her to enjoy my touches. My 2 year old red roan Peptoboonsmal grandaughter 2 year old came up to see what I was doing and had to join in the action as well. Funniest thing I have ever seen a horse do!!!
http://youtu.be/_Qjhe4pdGdI
That is a cute video! Thanks for posting it.
My filly can open sliding doors which isn’t unusual cause most horses can, but she manages to open the tack room sliding door where there is a small kitchen with a fridge. Most boarders keep their carrots and apples and there is always pop or something to drink. I usually let her roam around the barn while cleaning her stall. So I watched her one day as She opened the tack room door and then preceded to open the fridge door and helped herself to some apples that were left behind…..no idea how she figured that out but she one smart cookie!!
My barn has a haflinger pony who I swear has thumbs. She’s always been an escape artist, but she usually has to break something to do it. This summer, she’s gotten out of 2 different paddocks without breaking a chain or a double ended snap. The gate was open both times and the two people who were in that paddock last know that they shut the gate when they left because she had been standing at the gate whinnying to them as they walked away with another horse. One girl turned around 3 times to check on her and the gate was shut and locked. Not five minutes later, the pony was out of the gate and nothing was broken!
I had a mare in a paddock with a pond and swans and when I put grain IN the pond to feed the birds she would go snorkeling under water to get that grain. She was very accomplished at eating grain underwater from the bottom of the pond.
I use an old clawfoot bathtub for one of my feeding troughs. It’s a standard size bathtub about 30″ wide by 60″ long. Smokey, a solid black and white paint and his solid black and white Paint/Appy cross colt, Buddy, like to remind me when the tub is empty by getting completely into the tub, all four hooves, and do a little tap dance. It’s hilarious to watch and it makes quite a racket since the tub is four inches off the ground on blocks to allow drainage out the drain hole.
We used to have a mini pony and I used him in harness. Even though we have a fair sized property, I had the pony tethered to a star picket so I could control the amount of food he ate so he wouldn’t founder. We couldn’t figure out how he was getting loose with no apparent signs of struggle. One morning my partner discovered that his quarter horse was lifting the tethering line, up and off the post and he was leading the pony down the paddock. My paint colt likes playing with leads as well. A couple of times, l took his halter off and as I walked away he would grab hold of the lead and once I led him right across his paddock, by his teeth
My Mustang Buddy – Every night we would come home and all of the animals on our farm would be running free and loose (bunnies, dogs, sheep, ducks, cows, etc…). For months we swore it was our neighbors two little boys. They were always bugging us to see the animals or asking if they could go in the pens with them. We had just finished feeding for the night, we were still in the barn and our dog started going crazy. We went to see what was going on – Buddy was setting all the animals free and eventually made it to the dog kennel where he unlatched the door, walked in, and proceeded to eat the dogs food. After that we changed the locks on the stalls and gates.
my girl likes to untie herself on trails at lunchtime to come stand over me so that shes first in line for the crusts off my sandwitch. shes a lil spoilt lol but clearly loves her mother=)
A horse at the ranch I work in, Sawyer, knows how to rub his head just right on the stall wall’s edge so that he rubs his bridle right off! He doesn’t like to eat with a bit in his mouth
We decided to put fly masks on our 4 horses. Bought them, and suited everyone up. Went out to the barn the next morning and saw 3 of the 4 horses in the pasture- no fly masks on. Looked and looked and couldn’t find horse number 4. Finally went into the barn, (we have it set up as a run in with stalls on either side of a wide isle). There in the one far stall was the missing horse. He was locked in, so not only did the door have to be opened, but also closed. He had his fly mask on and had one of the other fly masks in the stall with him.
When i first got my Quarter horse he was 2yrs. He came home from the trainer. My husband is a Police Chief here and brings his unmarked police car home. One morning my husband was looking out the window only to see my horse using his car as a stepping block. Putting his hoof on the bumper and then proceeding to put his front feet in the middle of the hood…as my husband is screaming at my horse out the window i couldn’t help but laugh. Along with the damaged hood he turned his antenna into a pretzel and the fin on the back of the car with a bite mark. Some horses have no respect for the law. Needless to say i had a nice little bill to pay getting the car fixed! We ended up fencing our horses away from the house!
My Morgan will play with everything that is within neck’s reach of his stall!
My donkey takes the halter off of the horse. I had put a halter on joe and turned around to clean his feet. When I turned back around and Joe’s halter was gone and my donkey had the halter on his mouth!!
We have a mare that kept bothering our gelding. He took her by the halter and back her to the end of the pasture and put her in the corner for time out. He also likes to follow my husband around the barn and supervise his work. He will look over his shoulder, the electric saw or drill does not bother him. He also likes to open doors. He doesn’t mind closing them if he can smack someone’s butt.
My horse got down on his knees and crawled under the stall guard. Then proceeded to go and let himself into the heated lounge and turned on the lights. Too funny. What a great horse and friend he was!!
Some of my heavier coats come with elastic draw strings for the hood. Well my gelding will sometimes bite down and pull on one when your not looking. As soon as you look at him he lets go of it and it results in you getting a good snap. He does several other clever things that keep me laughing.
We boarded our horses. The stable was on my mom’s way home from work. One night, when she was almost there, she noticed that cars were slowing down in front of a house.
When she got there, she saw why. My horse, and one of the elderly ponies belonging to the barn owner were under a tree, happily munching on crab apples.
Mom told me, “I pulled in the drive and got out of the car. They both looked up at me, looked at each other, and immediately turned and headed home. When I got to the barn, one very guilty looking pony, and one smug horse, were waiting at the door. ”
We scoured every inch of that fence and still never figured out how they got loose.
I had turned our horses out in the yard to eat grass while I swept out the horse trailer. I went into the house for a minute and when I came back outside there was one horse missing. I called and called but no horse appeared so I was starting to get anxious when I walked past the open door of the horse trailer and there he stood. Waiting to go out for a ride! This happened twice with this gelding ! If he saw the horse trailer open he would just load himself up and wait! lol
Mine unties himself, then stands exactly where he is put as if he’s still tied up. Then again, he’ll put anything that stands still for long enough in his mouth (including other horses’ manes, tails, fur, skin… but without ever hurting anyone). He’s like a baby that just has to taste everything. Drives me nuts.
For a short time, my two horses didn’t have a great place to live, as we were inbetween bordering barns. They hard to live in my back yard and in a red neck way, we just use part of our house as fencing because we were short on wire and time. I would wake up at 9 every morning and run out to feed my two babies their hay and grain. One night was really hot so i left my window wide open, it didn’t have a screen. When i woke up the neck morning, i woke up with my bay mare and my 2 year old gelding with their heads inside of my room, craning their necks and trying to eat evrything that they could reach. It was really cute and it became a habit for my mare to stand outside my window in the mornings and wait for me to wake up and feed her breakfast 🙂
We have a paint foxtrotter cross that is neither painted nor gaited. However, he is FULL of personality… Cheyenne will not leave anyone’s fly mask on, HE MUST TAKE THEM OFF! We had him boarder for a while, all pastures at this facility were irrigated, sprinklers are on timers. Our weather in the summer can reach up to 122°… Cheyenne took it upon himself to learn how to open the sprinkler box, turn on the sprinklers then he Tango & Jim would stand in the spray of the sprinklers as they ate. I won’t get into him removing is own bridle on trail rides, him taking everyone’s halters off as they were high lined during a hunting trip then on the way home let everyone loose in the trailer. We know it’s him because he’s the ONLY one left with a halter & fly mask! LOL
This is Buds girlfriend just reading these post i new i had to share with all of you a wonderful store. when i was 3 years old my mother abandoned me and i grew up in foster care . with no father to take me in i lived the remainder of my life in foster care. when i was just 13 i lived in a home where my foster parents had many horses one being a pony named Jack he was black and white and when i herd the stories of how Jack too like me was left abandon i had no idea how much a horse and i could bond. so every morning before school i would feed him and every day after school i would ride and feed him again. one after noon like many on a weekend i decided to walk him to the back 40 alone by my self i sat in the grass wile he ate and wonder off and heard something rattled very close to me i new right off the bat it wasn’t good i new it was a rattle snake wile jack had wonder off far from me i was scared i new it was right next to me and if i moved i would get bit when i finally did see it i sat there and tried not to move or make a sound. the next thing i new jack was there and had stomped around the snake to chase it away from me i thought for sure i was going to get bit by the snake or stomped on by the horse he was so close stomping over my head i was under his belly i still did not move when he finally moved away from me far enough i got my self up and saw him kill the snake Jack saved my life that day and i will never forget that horse ever he could have ran away and never helped me because i know how horses are afraid of snakes so i new jack risked his life to save mine and i never felt abandon ever again rather it be from a horse to heal my spirit i just new that horse would always love me as i did him. I know horses can heal your very spirit. Love you Jack always and forever.
Wow Kerri, you brought tears to my eyes – they really are such loyal friends to us. I’m so glad he came into your life 🙂
My big bay gelding is always doing something with his tongue like licking my head, sticking it out for me to hold, opening his stall door as quick as I can. One day when I forgot to put the chain on his stall latch, he left himself out, opened my mare’s stall door and she came out, then he closed the stall door and latched the door!!!! He makes me laugh often.
One of my racehorses was a pretty spirited colt and had a habit of chasing anyone but me out of his stall when he was been fed. With me however, he was a sweetheart….while he would bite most people I could offer him my arm and he would grab it (not hard) and just suck on it…..I would ask him for his tongue and not only would he stick it out for me but had to stick it out the side of his mouth then flip it over and give it to me upside down…..miss my little buddy!
Tommy unties himself (and others if tied next to them) and if I haven’t latched the stall door he opens it too and just strolls out of the barn. One time I had him tied and left my grooming bag inside stall, I went to feed room when I got back he had untied himself and threw everything out of grooming bag all over stall. When I came back he quickly searched around found one of my gloves and passed it to me. Really made me laugh despite the mess! (I taught him to pick up gloves if I dropped them when out riding, he is too big for me to get on if not near mounting block.). Love my boy.
I was having some bonding time with my yearling one day in the pasture while the herd napped. I saw my mare, Izzy, watching us, then ever so slowly start coming towards us. I didn’t want to disturb my yearling as she was resting so I got up and met Izzy part way who then walked with me down the fence line until she figured it was far enough away from the others and stopped and looked at me – she wanted my attention away from the others!!
One of our geldings lost his halter once. We had not noticed until he came over to the fence. We asked Sky where his halter was at. He turned around and went out to the pasture….picked up his halter and brought it over to us.
My horse leads other horses around by the lead. He also unties himself and any other horses tied in the vicinity. Not only that but he once taught my other horse to put her head down by taking her lead in her mouth and putting pressure on it until she lowered her head at which time he let go. When she picked up her head he once again would grab the lead and put pressure on it until she put her head down.
That is so cute weindsth, it’s like he was paying attention to what you do and copying it on her – they are such characters LOL
I had a gelding (miss him so much) that would stand and keep his front legs crossed to get the flies off of them, the vet said he’d never seen a horse do the before! He would walk around and around a tree with low hanging branches to get the flies off his back. When a horsefly would land on his back and he heard us walk out the door, he would run and position himself by the fence so it was easy for his human to swat it. He hated flying insects for sure and was smart about getting them off his back!
My Gelding who is dominated by my mare tricks her. I lay out the left over hay in the pasture in a pile. The mare always hogs as much as she can. I caught him tricking her away from it. Knowing that she loves a good roll he will walk over to the sand pile and paw it a little and she will come running over to roll, meanwhile he gets some hay. I have a video but don’t have a clue how to post it. I also have another gelding that I had to start wetting his hay when he developed a cough. We got him over it and went back to dry hay. He didn’t much care for that now he takes big mouth fulls of hay and dips it in his water bucket before he eats it.
I have heard horses dunking hay in their water is a sign of ulcers… there was a horse at our barn that would go through 2 full buckets of water at each feeding. Not sure if that’s true but perhaps he has other issues going? 🙂
When my horse was a yearling, he picked up a large branch with dead leaves on it in the pasture. It kept smacking him on the neck. Next thing he was spinning like a reining horse, swinging it around. I just happened to have a movie camera so I do have it on super 8 movie….it was 31 years ago. Before digital stuff. LOL
Yankee does a lot of silly things, including “asking for a treat” when he sees the bridle, which just warms the cockles of my heart :)… but my favorite is this story, told to me by my barn owner when Yankee was still a yearling. (“Yk” is Yankee of course).
“As I left this evening, I had an apple and decided to give it to Sunshine and Yk over the fence by my car. I held it out to Sunshine for the first bite as Yk watched avidly for his share. Sunshine nuzzled it around and knocked it out of my hand. I was outside the fence and it fell inside the fence, and it had been a long day so I just decided, well, too bad, either they find it or they don’t but I’m heading home for supper. I watched as Sunshine looked at me, then shrugged her shoulders and started grazing again, deciding I must have decided not to give it to her after all.
Yk meanwhile never took his eyes off the prize, watching the apple land on the ground. He stretched his neck over, but the apple had landed right under Sunshine’s feet, and as she stepped forward grazing, it was under her belly. Yk circled around to the other side and stretched his neck out again, but decided it was too risky to put his head under her belly, so he went around behind her and contemplated reaching between her hind feet to get that apple — no, not a good idea either. So suddenly he dashed over to the fence closest to where I was standing, which made Sunshine look up and step forward to see if he was getting something she was missing – and he dashed back around behind her, snatched the apple and charged away towards the run-in to eat it, Sunshine all oblivious to how she had been outwitted. Crafty li’l guy. ;-)”
While I was mucking out the stall, I let my horse run loose on the fairground where a huge hay stack rose into the sky. When I was finished, I called to her to come back to the barn. She neighed. I looked for her and there she was, on top of that huge mountain of hay, ready to eat her way down it. I called again. She stopped, looked at me, took a flying leap to the ground, landed safely, and trotted over into the barn
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My horse unties himself, but lots of horses do that. The interesting thing is that after he has untied he will also untie the knot at the end of a lead rope. You know the super tight knot? He won’t let go till he is done!
I had a 17’3 TB who had all kinds of tricks including unlocking snaps with his lips, doing the limbo (only on his belly) under his tie chains, would put his foot through the fence and then yell for me to get him out, and many many others. Another TB I had, I found him in a spot he was NOT supposed to be (unsafe) and called to him and he didn’t move a muscle. Upon closer inspection he was standing amidst barbed wire all tangled around his feet and did not have a scratch on him. These are the horses that are so smart and make your life so interesting!
I had a horse that could test the electric fence and know if it’s on or off. If it was off he would literally step through the bottom two strands and crawl out. He was so good at this we could never even find out where he did it. The fence wouldn’t even hardly be stretched. He would just suddenly be in the yard look at us through the kitchen window in the morning. My dad finally caught him in the act… He was a bigger horse too! Just clearly liked practicing his yoga 😉
We have one that unties himself and then will untie other horse’s, he always sticks around, but have had to chase other horse’s…a high line is now common when in the mouutains… and we have carabiners on all our gates