Can't believe what I have just witnessed

Joan

Lovely story, OP.

This is lovely. Hate when people don't believe something you saw with your own eyes how frustrating

How amazing.I've never seen a sheep do anything like that but years ago I had a ewe who stood at the gate bleating at me.Eventually I went to see what she wanted and found that her lamb was caught up in a stack net and she wanted me to free it.Once I'd done that they went away happy.

What a lovely thing to witness and what a sweet pony ... can ponies have a because I think he deserves one

You'll notice the horse was male...so not a big girls blouse! :O)

I love the hero pony!! And we need pics of Sybil and Nellie too. Muscovy ducks are particularly intelligent apparently.

Pity you couldn't record it. It'd be No.1 on Toutube!

Animals are more intelligent than people credit them for. What a lovely pony.

Whatever the horse's motives, it was a lovely gesture and a nice story which made me smile.

We have a squirrel and pigeon that work on unison to empty the bird seed container to suit both their needs. I am truely not anthopomorphising/ projecting...I am not the only family member to see them working together. We buy a LOT of seed. Fat lil creatures, but savvy😀

Love this thread!

What a coincidence Stripper - so am I . . .

We were once walking on a causeway next to a saltmarsh grazed by sheep one spring, with our dog (one a lead of course). From quite a distance we could see a lamb standing in the middle of the path baaing. As we approached, it held its ground, looking and baaing at us - odd behaviour for a lamb. We stopped, wondering what was up with it, and not wanting to scare it - and noticed a sheep stuck on its back nearby. DH went and righted it, lamb ran to join her - obviously its mother. My opinion of the intelligence and bravery of sheep changed that day!

BTW OP - if your lovely pony disappears, I will probably have stolen it. It will be in my kitchen eating apples

There's a clip youtube somewhere showing a hippopotamus helping a wildebeest calf, or possibly a bat zebra, out of a rive away from crocodiles. I think animals have a much stronger emotional life than we give them credit for, and are also very ethical. If another animal is vulnerable, and is neither a predator nor a competitor for resources, I think they often help each other.

Zebra - I have seen exactly the same thing happen with a rabbit and my five terriers. They had the rabbit trapped and it froze. My boss terrier (something of a Matriarch) then sniffed the rabbit and warned the others off it. I thought she would kill it as soon as it moved again, but she waited quietly, and it became confident to start hopping again - a couple of tentative little hops then it shot into the brambles. None of them followed it, even though two of them were squeaking with excitement!

Lovely pony and lovely story OP.

We have ponies and I believe you. We have a couple of pet sheep too. Sister was lunging her cob one day and the sheep ran across where pony was going. Pony nearly broke her neck stopping in time so she didn't trample them. Waited until they had both passed then carried on.

And my little old pony who has never so much as pulled a face at another pony defended her old friend against my new pony and the rest of the herd last year when they were hoolying around establishing pecking order. Her friend had always been the 'boss' but was older than my pony. My old girl forced her up the field and into a corner near us and the gate and sent every other pony who came near flying back down the field with its arse smacked. This was a pony we used to nanny baby ponies. Never seen her even think about gaffering any of the others.

And when dd was tiny (4) we had a naughty colt escape onto the yard. I was in with dd in old ponies stable at the time. Figured dd would be safer in there than trying to get across the yard to feed room while a knobhead colt trying to climb into stables of unimpressed mares.

Helped mate capture knobhead then heard dd crying. Rushed back to stable to find her sitting in back corner on water bucket with a wet arse and a pony guarding her. Dd was crying because pony had pushed her all the way back into the corner and dd had stepped back into water bucket. But pony wouldn't let her move.

She was protecting her from knobhead colt pony. In the wild if a colt or stallion gets with a herd of mares they will sometimes kill the foals to save resources for their own offspring.

Ponies are cleverer than we give them credit for. And very much do care for other species.

How absolutely delightful!! Your DD is lucky to have such a sweet pony

Aww some lovely stories in here.
My mums childhood dog used to stop her cats killing things. Apparently if the dog caught them playing with mice she'd hold them down until the mouse had escaped.

I love this! Just what I needed after reading sad news stories. Clever pony.

What a nice story :)
I remember my mum's cat bringing in a mouse and letting it go in the kitchen. The dog promptly swallowed it whole and alive. Dogs are dicks.

Nellie is my 17 year old Parson Jack Russell. Almost blind, deaf, arthritic and prone to seizures. Sybil is the lame Muscovey duck which has adopted us. I feed her twice a day.
While walking Nellie and the duck round the field next to the river at 11pm she had a seizure.
Sybil limped over to us making frantic cooing noises and started to shake Nellie's life jacket, nibbled her face and seemed very distressed. As Nellie recovered and we continued our walk the duck walked alongside Nellie, chattering to her and occasionaly nibbling her face. Sybil got an extra supper that night.

That's lovely. Once a wood pigeon flew into my window and ended up in the garden, stunned and unable to move. While my neighbour and I were panicking about what to do, 2 cats came prowling over. Next thing my neighbour's dog moved on front of the pigeon and growled at the cats, as if to protect the bird.

Wow! I never liked horses until I read that posting. I'm in love with your pony now! Animals are clever. Not quite the same but I was by the canal one day and a young pigeon fell in to the water from underneath the bridge and my dog started to whine and lay down watching it. The pigeon saw it and I swear this too is true, the pigeon made eye contact with him and did a brilliant front crawl with its wings to us, from the middle of the canal to the edge where the dog was, and I was able to lie down and pull it out. I took it home, caged it, let it dry and next day it flew away.

What a lovely story! Whether it was because he didn't want mouse-flavoured water, was helping another animal out, or fiddling with the straw, still nice to read. We once had a mouse drown in our chickens' water overnight. No equine rescuer there