Can we have Dumb Horse Nationals?

[Marty]

Ok this is so dumb.

I have a horse that is just plain dumb. Always has been. She just never seems to get anything. But she is very sweet, loving, and gorgeous so that has to count for her lack of brains. I'm not mentioning any names here mind you (Angel) because I don't want to embarrass her any more than she already is. Well this mare is the ultimate pig. Super vacumn cleaner in the barn every day sucking out any morsel she can find a dropping anywhere.

Picture this: I'm setting the scene:

Now, she eats her dinners in the run in. If it's nasty weather, I put the buckets inside the stalls but usually if the weather is nice, I just have them sitting on the fence line. One over here for one horse, and one way over here for the other horse. I use a flat back bucket for this out there, not feeders.

Well, dopey here likes to grab the bucket handle and knock it aside and flings it every day so she can make sure she didn't spill any of her grain on the ground underneath it. I always put the bucket handle down but she still manages to always manuever that bucket handle back up so she can carry it in her mouth. And I'm really careful about bucket handles too and I always duck tape the little part on the end so nobody will ever get an eye poked out. So anyhow, I put the bucket inside a milk crate thinking she won't pull it out of there. Wrong. Every day she is pulling the bucket out of the milk crate walks around with it and then she is flinging it and now knocking the milk crate over too. This is going on for nearly a year.

So I finally attached the milk crate to the fence. Doesn't help. She still takes her bucket out of the milk crate by the handle, even though she can't get the milk crate loose from the fence. She has to grab that darn bucket anyhow and parade around with it before she throws it usually in a pile of poop.

Ok I can play hardball. So now I take the bucket handle and attach that to the fence with a safety release snap, inside the milk crate. Surely now she cannot get it it loose now. CORRECT!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no way she can get the bucket un snapped and fling it now. Yay!

So what disaster did I have today?

Well I look over and couldn't believe what I saw: There she is attached to the fence! !!!!

She somehow got her HEAD stuck through the handle of the bucket.....which of course was attached to the fence~! Yep, there she stood stuck as she could be, handle in the head, pressing down hard on her brain, and part of the handle.....get this: stuck in her mouth!!!!!!!!! LIKE A BIT!!!!!!!! I am not kidding here. I go over there and start pushing down on her head to free it and no way, the handle of the bucket is stuck tight with one part over behind both her ears, and the rest of it in her mouth, over the tongue!!!!!

Ok, not to worry, I have a quick release safety snap right? WRONG. What a bunch of bull they are: it would not open and release for nothing. I'm pressing the thing like crazy and my hands are shaking a mile a minute and its not opening for nothing so I cannot release the stupid handle. OH!

So I do the next best thing and as calm as I can possibly be SCREAM MY HEAD OFF FOR THE HUS!!!!!! who was in the garage and I'm yelling I need bolt cutters FAST. Poor stupid horse thank heavens she wasn't struggleing. She just stood there like a dope. So I"m talking to her and asking her stuff like "How on earth......." trying to keep her calm, which apparently she was since her face stuck in a bucket is her favorite pastime. And while I'm waiting I keep trying to smash her brains down to get that handle of her head because now I think its going to cut into her head and I have these visions of her tongue getting sliced off......

Finally, the Hus comes up and takes a look and of course he asks me what I did to her!!!!!!! And why!!!!!!! ugh.......And I"m all panicked out and screaming "bolt cutters, bolt cutters, we have to cut this fence right now, she's dying!!!!" And he's like "oh stop she's fine" and I get this "you should feed her more and she wouldn't be doing this"

And at that I am really wanting to SCREAM some more........

Well, all he does is pushes down on her head one time and boom, her head comes right out from being stuck that easy. Of course it didn't work for me! Of course not!

So she gets loose just as happy as she can be and comes right to my pockets where she knows the treats are!!!!!!! And before I could even think, there she is right back nudgeing the milk crate to check for dropped grain again that fast! Needless to say, she ate out of a rubber bucket tonite that doesn't have a handle on it!!!!!!!!! :arg!

Can anyone top this or you gonna let me win Dumb Horse Nationals?

 

[countrycharm]

between this and the feed prioblem you had the other day your place sounds like a very entertaining place to be!!! i just LOVE your stories, i can picture it like i was there, and im sure would have done the same thing!!! hehe

 

[Calekio]

OMG i think i would have so panicked in that situation.

Well i have 3 dumb ponies.

I have a 1 month old foal.. who keeps losing his mum..... she can be stood 5 feet away with another pony and he'll be screaming at running around looking for her... course... she ain't gonna answer him!

a 4yr old gelding... who we know actually has some mental issues... and when youngster (and still occassionally now) if you don't walk him 'through' a gateway... he'll walk into it head first!

And a yearling colt.. who just loves to get his head stuck in things... i think he is my worse...

As a weanling foal i was going down to fed them all i saw Spirit stood very close to the fence.... wasn't till i got closer i relised that head was stuck through the stock fence! Course my first thought was 'what the heck and how on earth and... i'm down here on my own and i'm not leaving him'

So cradling him so he didn't move i managed to search my phone out of my pocket to ring the yard owner (who lives on site), very quickly saying spirit got his head stuck in the fence, i need wire cutters now.. help)

So she comes out.... and we cut him free.. uneventfully... its a a good thing he idn't panick and that he did it at the right time as i'd been out only 10mins earlier and he was fine.... can't imagine the thought of him being there all night.

The second of his little accidents 3 months later involved sheep hurdles..... now... i've always used sheep hurdles as they are safe... right... wrong...

So were on the yard doing something with ponies.. everyone is waiting for tea... the fields have about 5 sheep hurdles dividing the field to the post and rail fencing.... i suddenly hear the hurdles clash, look round and there is spirit with his head through one of them... still attached to the other 4 (3 on one side of him, 1 on the other side of him) first thing i do.... scream 'Spirit stand' as i can see him just about to bolt backwards in panick... all the ponies getting loose into each other fields and running round... and i'm running fast as i can to my little boy, grab him round the neck with one hand the other hand supporting the 6x4foot hurdle he is attached to... luckily i had someone on the yard with me so she followed me out... i'm pretty sure i've got hold of him and she wouldn't of been help in this situation so i just yell to her 'go find the yard owner now'

She goes off.. can't find her... her son comes out... he can't find her.. seemed like ages but really was only 30 seconds till she walk onto the yard from the neighbours... wonder whats going on before she see's me with spirit....

So with me still holding neck and sheep hurdle, she stands behind him to stop him backing up, girl on yard removed the other 4 sheep hurdles (yer we hadn't done that.. i was panicking lol) and with her soon lifting the hurdle and turning it round, i had to try and turn his head sideways till his head slipped out...

Panick over... but i'm nearly dead on the floor at this point from the panick! Next thing we did was flip all the hurdles over so the big gap is at the bottom... not the top...

Its a good thing my little boy is so calm and trusting is all i can say.... as the vision of him panicking and bolting off with all these sheep hurdles doesn't bare thinking about the broken legs/neck that could have come next!

 

[Minimor]

OH!

Good to know you got smart & gave her a rubber pail without a handle.

Good plan!

 

[Margaret]

Oh Marty,

That was hilarious!! From the beginning to the end..

I couldnt stop laughing as it got funnier by the minute.

I am glad it all turned out well, and its a good thing she was calm in the midst of a trial..

What a good girl she was after all, not making worse of the situtation by staying still.

And just leave it to a man to come up with a money/trouble saving solution in a crisis. Hats off to your hubby there.

And yes I have one of those horses that loves grain so much that he uses his head as a battering ram, and isnt happy til he knocks off all the hook over the fence type buckets, so he can see if there is one morsel of grain left.

But I cant come close to topping your story.

Thanks for the great morning giggles.

 

[Riverdance]

I would say she is pretty smart.not stupid!! Stupid just stands there and eats, she has found a way to play and eat at the same time and when she got stuck, stayed quiet till help came.

We all have desasters in the making and these little horses will just stand there quietly till help arrives. Would a large horse do that? NO WAY!! They will fight something till the death!!

Think about all of the little guys trained to drive, how easy was that? Most, Pretty easy. I have one now who is the most difficult one I have ever had. She will rear and buck and kick,(all of this, hopefully makes me think she will be my most talented yet) Yet, Saturday when I was working her, she manages to buck and kick and wrap herself in all of the lines I use for training. Big horse DISASTER

Little horse, she stopped her nonsense and just stood there while I untangled and unraveled all of the lines. Then back to work and back to kicking, bucking and rearing.

Then there was one of my stallions. Each gate is also wired so that they can not go through or under or stick a leg through. Well I had the vet here to US some of my mares. I have an isle between all of the paddock areas, gated in different areas to move horses through. Well, I was in the back paddock area taking mares out of it and the stallion there was not too happy about it. I left his gate open so that he could come up the ally, but I closed one of the ally gates to keep him from fence fighting another stallion in a closer paddock area. I also had a friend here having a couple of her mares US. I had to run to the house for something and when I got back (only a few minutes) my friend came out and held me back and told me to be calm. That two of my stallions were fighting through two gates and one of the gates had come off its hooks and landed on my stallion. (she thought he was dead as he was just laying there on his back with the gate on top of him).

This is a 14" gate with wire on it to keep them from sticking anything through! A heavy gate!! How in heck did it come off?

I ran to the back and there was my vet with the stallion on his back and his head in her lap. Gate on top of him crushing him and his legs through the gate wire (all four legs!!) My friend and I got the gate off as quickly as possible. With the four legs through the gate, it took us a while and the stallion did not move the whole time. (I thought he was dead too). We got the gate off of him and he jumped up and acted like he did this every day and what was our problem :stupid Actually it was the smartest thing he could have done (after being so stupid). Would a big horse have allowed you to do that and have been as quiet? My vet was amazed!!

These guys are so smart. They sure did not get their brains from the bigger horses. Or should I say, we may have bred them down in size, but they retained a larger brain!!

 

[Sassy'sMom]

Oh Marty! Thank you so much for sharing that with us! I am sitting here at work, reading the forum

, and laughing out loud! I couldn't help it! People were looking at me like I was crazy!

That was just too funny!

I am sure it wasn't funny at the time, but it was great humor for those of us reading it!

 

[shelly]

OH Marty...THANK YOU-THANK YOU-THANK YOU for making my day!!!!!!

:yeah

That was the funniest thing I have heard in a long time

:rofl

:rofl

She sounds like a real character, that Angel!

HEHEHE

 

[ErikaS.]

Marty, I just had to ask- is she a blond? (er, I mean, palomino?)

No really, jk, but I have a Nubian goat that does nearly the same thing. Sawdust for brains, I think.

 

[hobbyhorse23]

Marty, what a riot!! Bolt cutters indeed.

Would a large horse do that? NO WAY!! They will fight something till the death!! ...Yet, Saturday when I was working her, she manages to buck and kick and wrap herself in all of the lines I use for training. Big horse DISASTER

...

Would a big horse have allowed you to do that and have been as quiet? ...

These guys are so smart. They sure did not get their brains from the bigger horses. Or should I say, we may have bred them down in size, but they retained a larger brain!!

Riverdance, what the heck kind of big horses have you had?!

Good lord! *LOL* I agree with you whole-heartedly that the minis are much more "thinking" animals in general with a vastly reduced flight instinct but my mom's Arab was the kind who would stand for five hours with his foot stuck in a fence and wait for you to rescue him. My own Arab will panic on his own but calms the minute I arrive and lets me get him out. So they're not all that bad.

Leia

 

[tagalong]

Too funny, Marty!

May I submit an entry in the Dumb Horse Nationals? Will there be a Top Ten?? Will there be ribbons??!! Will there be a Supreme Champion??!!!

My entry = Amy. Pretty. Ex-show mare. Has had 3 lovely fillies. A Supreme halter horse. Did I mention pretty? Well, pretty is as pretty does - cuz she is dumber than a bag of hammers.

Seriously. Maybe two bags of hammers and a few rocks.

When the horses come in at night I am able to let them come right into the back of barn from the pasture on their own... a few at a time. They all know where their stalls are and go right to the doors and wait until I let them in.

Even if Amy has been in the same stall in the same location for many months.... about 3 times a week she has a brain freeze and cannot find her stall. Ummm.... HELLO?? She plunges up and down the aisle, getting more and more worried. All the other horses, including moms and babies, will be in their stalls eating happily. Amy's filly will be in their stall - the door will be open... and Amy will be down the aisle trying to stuff herself into a stall she has never lived in - and the resident gelding is less than amused. Or terrified to see the Bimbo rushing straight at him.

And when upon occasion the stalls need to be switched around a bit to accommodate new horses, weanlings etc. ..... give me strength. I try not to have to move Amy around - I really try. But sometimes it cannot be avoided...

I had to shift Amy and her filly around a few days ago... and the filly caught on to the new arrangement right away. But Amy? Not a chance. The new stall was right next to the old one - but Amy was sure she belonged up at the front of the barn in the foaling stall. I put everyone else away... left Amy's stall door open with the hay and grain visible... and guided her over there with my hand on her neck. She froze at the door - eyes wild and snorting in alarm with her neck arched. I realized she was snorting at the edge of the rubber mat. Because, you know, she has never seen one before (not) and has never been asked to place a hoofie on one (every day of her life) and OMG!

SNORT!

what was the STUFF in the corner??!!

(dinner) Amy's fillies have perfected the big eye-roll and saying MUTH-er!! in an exasperated tone... and this filly is no exception. Stoopid mom was in between the filly and the grain and the hay and blocking her from that comfy bed of shavings at the end of a long day - and she took ACTION! The filly spun around and squealed and kicked Amy hard in the butt three times... WHACK WHACK WHACK!!! Amy jumped straight up in the air and launched forward into the stall, doing a commendable reining horse spin... the filly bounced and skipped happily into the stall and started to eat. I shut the door and latched it. Amy shook herself and, following the filly's example, began to eat...

Good thing she has a baby to teach her stuff.

Other Amy stunts for your consideration....

A couple of years ago some friends came to see the foals... we all walk out into the pasture with the herd to watch the babies play. Amy quits grazing... looks up and calls to Wings - her filly that year. Wings calls back and trots towards her... Mom... I'm here!

Amy calls again - a bit more frantic.

Wings comes up alongside her... right under her nose and nickers.

Amy starts walking forward.... more and more frantic... calling loudly now, shouldering Wings aside. Wings is stupefied and watches her walk away. She calls to her LOUDLY... >>>insert eyeroll<<< MUTH-errr... I'm here!

Any breaks into a big trot... and then sees another foal that looks nothing like Wings in the distance - and charges down the field shrieking. Little Tiki looks up in alarm to see Amy bearing down on her - and tears off to find her own mom to save her. Doll rushes to meet her baby - Amy advances and then she and Doll have a spirited "conversation" about who owns Tiki... who has skipped over to join the exasperated Wings and the other youngsters.

I imagine the conversation went like this...

Solo : Zat ur mum?

Wings : Ummm.... yeah.

*Amy squeals at Doll - calling her a kidnapper and thief and using some very colourful language"

*Doll replies with her teeth and feet*

*Amy runs*

Tiki : Iz stoopid

Wings : Ummm... yeah. *sigh*

When you add Amy's penchant for calmly flipping over backwards into the dirt as she walked into a halter class (thank God she was kind of dirt coloured after clipping to start with) and many other little things she has done... I hope the judges will consider her for a ribbon. Or six.

Watch for her in:

Senior Mares - Bad Parenting

Senior Mares - Makes Fence Posts Look Intelligent

Senior Mares - Overreactions

And she is sure to go at least Reserve Grand in Solid Colour Arena Camouflage...

GO AMY!

 

[RockRiverTiff]

Marty you are hilarious (and so's your horse...)! And Tagalong at least your mare's low IQ is clearly not hereditary.

I have long been denying that one of my fillies could compete in the Dumb Horse Nationals. She's incredibly sweet and will do anything you ask of her (as long as you show her how to do it...several times) but in the one brief year I've had her she has supplied me with more than enough evidence to prove her eligibility. She does all the usual dumb horse tricks I've seen before--sleeping in poop, trying to enter a paddock through the gap between an open gate and the wall, frequent wipe outs while cantering, trotting...walking...

If you watch her in the pasture, you can see how her vapidity plagues her. One moment she's grazing peacefully, and the next she's on high alert, staring at some non-existent monster in the distance. At this point, she will either do one of two things--stare at that same point until she forgets what she was looking at in the first place and returns to grazing, or turn tail and run. If she chooses the latter, after several strides she will forget what she was running from anyway and slow from a gallop to a lazy jog and then to an "I'm just stretching my legs" walk, all the while suspiciously surveying her surroundings. When I first turned her out with the babies, they would run terrified when she ran, but now even they know she's crazy and ignore her (or worse intentionally antagonize her).

And this is her daily activities mind you. Far and away the worst "dumb horse" performance she's had was early this year. A family member had come out to the farm looking for me, and drove by her paddock at the first barn. They called me frantic to say a horse was stuck in the fence. I use cattle panels that are the same size top to bottom (approximately 5" x 5"), and have never had a horse get stuck, but the very words terrified me. I tore out of the third barn and down the lane and could see her next to the fence. Naturally when she saw me she started screaming, "Mom! Mom! Save me!" I hopped the gate and sprinted to her side, looked down, and saw that one hoof was through the panel. Not stuck...just through the panel and resting on the ground on the other side. Clearly seeing her leg on the other side of the fence was more than her mind could comprehend. She looked at me with wild eyes and trembled as I casually reached down and lifted her hoof out and set it back down next to the other one. Then she blinked once and walked off. *sigh*

 

[LittleRibbie]

Marty your stories are hysterical....LMAO the whole wat thru. Im so glad Angel stayed calm through out the whole ordeal!! You Too!! I would have been a mess!!

 

[Riverdance]

Riverdance, what the heck kind of big horses have you had?!

I used to raise Morgans and they were probably the next smartest horse breed I knew. Still, they took forever to break to cart. But, years ago I rode hunter jumpers and at that time it was thoroughbreds all the way. Boy talk about a DUMB HORSE!! They would act nuts about the stupidest thing.

I had one mare that would go bonkers every time she saw a deer on a trail (which in Connecticut where I used to live, was about every time we went out trail riding (at least 3 to 4 times a week)

:stupid . Such a dumb horse, would spook and try to run every time. dumb horse!!

 

[Slinkky]

Oh, Marty and Tagalong.....your stories were so funny!

Tag....now you have me courious, I want to see a pic of Amy. I loved your "Mare Conversation" part. Just cracked me up!

Thank for laughs ladies!

 

[hobbyhorse23]

Tagalong, RockRiverTiff....

...and at that time it was thoroughbreds all the way.

Thoroughbreds. Enough said.

(Sorry TB owners, I know there's always exceptions!

)

Leia

 

[ShaunaL]

You guys are cracking me up! and omg, Amy

 

[shelly]

Marty, Tagalong and Rockriff...[SIZE=36pt]THANK YOU[/SIZE]FOR STARTING THIS POST!!!!!! I haven't laughed this hard in a long time!!! PLEASE everyone keep this one going.....

:ThumbUp

:yeah

:SoCool

:rofl

:HappyBounce

:BananaHappy

 

[ShaunaL]

Yes I agree!! C'mon all of you, 'fess up!! I just KNOW there are more canditates out there

 

[tagalong]

BWAHAHA!

I love this line...

If you watch her in the pasture, you can see how her vapidity plagues her.

Vapidity. Good name for a show horse.

Tag....now you have me courious, I want to see a pic of Amy.

None of her younger show or professional pics are on my computer - this is the only not-so-great picture of Amy I have at hand. Not in show shape by any means.... and with 2 day old Wings - who already looks frustrated...