Are horses just giant puppies then?

[WillowtreeHouse]

I have found a new route to take my dog for his evening walk, river on one side and a field on the other. There is a massive and I mean massive horse in the field and almost from the first time we went, he comes over and walks along the fence with us making little noises. Ddog is a gentle old lab with arthritis and has clearly fallen in love with said massive horse (I've decided his name is Major) and won't move until he's over at the fence and walks with us.

Tonight ddog dropped his ball over the fence and Major the horse picked it up, ran away with it, kicked it around for a bit absolutely living his best life, then brought it back and gave it back to ddog. Honestly never seen anything like it in my life, he actually gently gave it back to ddog. I have now also fallen in love with this horse. 🐴

So my question is, how do I keep a horse in a small house with barely any garden?

There’s nothing wrong and it’s not a no no. Most normal people walk round the countryside and take pictures of all sorts of random thing belonging to other people. Maybe sheep, cows, flowers, donkeys, horses etc. But this is MN and there’s always one.

My horse is in a field down the road, in the summer we get quite a lot of tourists and I expect 100’s of people have taken pictures of her and her field mates. I wouldn’t occur to any of us to be offended (and we wouldn’t know anyhow).

i walked through a field with my dog, two horses, or ponies perhaps, the came running up, but then they went in front of me kicking their legs out at me,
i was in the middle of the field and had to scramble through the hedge
always have a fear of horses now

Same here!

My friend's fjord horse used to be photographed all the time by families with little kids who were overjoyed to see the horse from Frozen. We always used to smile and wave.

The have a right to take photos from public rights of way. Of course they shouldn't trespass.

It was probably your dog they were threatened by rather than you. I would much rather walk through a field of horses than cows to be honest. Cows will stampede and flatten you, horses won’t. But I do agree it can be disconcerting. Waving your arms and shooing them away normally works for horses and but seems to encourage cows. I would trust most horses, never cows.

Anyone watching the coronation mainly to see the horses and which ones will be a tiny bit naughty?

Not watching but DH asked if we were putting a big screen in the field so the horses could watch the parade horses.

@WillowtreeHouse Your doggie's little TEEFS!! :-) I love them!

Mine was a wanker to other people. He’d walk away from anyone trying to catch him in, but would always come to call for me. Other horses weren’t allowed near me. He hated dogs, tho and would try to stamp on them, so the groom had to stop taking the yard dogs with her to catch in. He was my ‘big dog’, as my DH said. Horsey love of my life. Being coy in the photo.

I have a similar teef-y photo of my lunatic hound

Oh yes we loved Apollo the drum horse who kept walking sideways and Invader the ex-racehorse turned cavalry horse with his eyebrows.

I just posted a photo in "the tackroom" of my adorable but suddenly lame palomino boy and my incredibly naughty welsh pony. Pony can turn on taps, nods for yes when I ask questions, escapes to play with the neighbours horses , bites the horse and steals his food. But both the horse and myself love her.

@margarine17 you reminded me of my late Arab / Connemara who could let himself out of his stable & bang on the kitchen window for food.. ;-)
If he was in a field, he could get into the barbed-wired-off barley field.. never found out exactly how, apart from a few of his hairs on the lowest rung of the barbed wire.. :-0
My friend's pony would go missing from a different field & we would find him lying in the middle of a herd of (also lying-down) cows ;-)

i dont know how the musicians manage, on horseback, the drummer!
amazing.

I had a pony who used to like stopping at a gate to watch the lambs playing. He would just walk past it the rest of the year. Another who used to school himself in the field, doing 20 metre circles in a lovely collected trot and nice square halts.

Strangers taking pics of them in the field wouldn’t bother me much, in fact the best photo I have of my first pony was taken by a passer by, pre digital cameras, who came back and left us a copy with a note on the gate.

Mine is very nosey. He likes to stopand watch if people are working in the garden or doing stuff to their house. Not at all bothered by hammering, drills, heavy machinery etc but if he sees a donkey he is terrified.

MyGhastIsFlabbered

Such a typical staffie pose. Had to look again to check it wasn’t mine. Total softie despite the teeth though.

My old horse was very gentle with dogs and kids. He used to groom the yard dog over his stable door.

He used to love his chickens in the barn and I'd find him lying down with a chicken perched on him.

He used to chase and stamp on rabbits though 🤦‍♀️

My horse would love a pet of his own - he especially loves dogs and will always lower his head to say hello and give them a sniff - hes very gentle with them and even dogs who are usually wary of horses seem to know he wont hurt them. The yard cat will sit on his back and he shared his stable with a racing pigeon for a week when it had got lost on its way home (he would eat his breakfast with the pigeon sat on the floor next to him eating a pile of birdseed)! He's also very gentle with children - my young niece has been learning to ride and has ridden him a few times now. This is the same horse that can show rodeo horses how its done and has put me in hospital!

Love this thread so much, thanks OP

My daughters horse is gentle and gorgeous until she doesn't want to do something then all of a sudden she's starving and can't possibly move from the hay bale 😳😂

Ha ha mine is like this, he used to stop and stare in people's windows if he saw someone moving around 🤦 and loves one of the neighbours and belts down the field to see him in the garden and hangs around the fence if they're having a BBQ or party - they don't feed him and the fence is high to prevent them getting their heads over but he lifts his head right up to peer over and be nosey 🤣.
But he does believe donkeys do the devil's work, we once ended up in the middle of a group of 4 at an old yard, they escaped and ran towards us in the yard and he froze, I could literally feel him shaking underneath me as they went round us and he shot off in the opposite direction as soon as they passed 🙈 he used to stop and stare in the direction of them, trembling if they started braying 🤣. He did get brave enough to have a nose to nose with one once but was still highly suspicious - someone told me it's the smell of them, a bit like pigs, that puts some horses off them.

@justgettingthroughtheday unfortunately, I don't think your stance in supported by the law. However, it's a good point made in this thread that one ought to be careful about how photos might be used.

He sounds utterly gorgeous 😍
Terrified of donkeys! 😄

A lot of horses think donkeys are evil.