Can't believe what I have just witnessed

[Patriciathestripper1]

Ok I'm not going mad but this did happen:
Went over to my stables to show Dh where I wanted my outdoor security light putting.
Whilst he was up the ladder securing it to the side of the stables I started tying up hay nets and doing waters (we have two horses and my DD pony)
When I went into DD's pony's stable and whilst doing his net I heard something 'plop' into his water bucket (large builders rubble type bucket)
I went to look and it was a mouse that must have just fallen in (we find them sometimes in the horses buckets dead in the mornings but not very often)
I shouted for Dh to come quick. I'm not a wimpy sort but I didn't want to touch it but also didn't want it to drown.
My daughters pony went over to the bucket whilst I was standing in the stable door and looked down at the mouse and then to my utter amazement he pushed some of the straw up the side of his water bucket asthough he did it all the time so some of the straw went into the water and the mouse climbed out!
I have had horses all my life (parents had them so brought up with them) and I have never seen anything like that. One animal helping another from a different species?
My Dh thinks iabu and the pony didn't 'help' the mouse out of the bucket but I saw it with my own eyes so I know it happened.
After a lot of 'yes it did'. 'No it didn't' I tried to recreate it with my DD wind up fish which her pony promptly picked up out of the water bucket (I think he thought it was a treat I'd dropped in as she sometimes puts an apple in there for him to 'bob' to occupy him) and he bit and broke it but I know he did it.

What a coincidence Stripper - so am I . . .

Love this thread!

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😀

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Joan

Lovely story, OP.

Ohhh!!! I'm welling up here...
(BTW I believe you and what a lovely pony (smile)

Animals are deadly creatures, we humans could learn a lot from studying them and heeding their behaviour

My childhood dog (afghan hound) and the cat (came to house as a kitten after dog was there) were best friends used to sleep together etc... Cat used to follow dog on walks round park. Sadly we had to rehome both animals due to my brother's chronic asthma and allergy to both (only found this out later when had both animals) and mum rehomed them and cat went to live up the road and dog with territorial army a good few miles away. Cat used to come to house and garden from its new home looking for his doggy friend.

That's lovely and kind of him - one of mine prefers to stamp on them! Several times I've found flattened mice (that I thought were bits of poo!) whilst mucking out .

Monkey, my horse used to do that as well!

The amount of tears that got absorbed into her coat through my teenage years...

My grandmother, a farmer her whole life, told us all that she once went to collect eggs from the chickens and saw 2 rats stealing eggs.
One was lying on its back, clutching the egg on its stomach while another rat had its tail between its teeth, dragging it along
No one believed her but I completely believe they would cooperate like that to get food!

I love this thread.

I grew up with a cat that would bat cooling cakes off the top of a high cupboard for the dog that was the reason they'd been put up a height in the first place.

The cat was definitely more intelligent than the dog mind. She'd eat wasps and bees just for the hell of it!

Good news for a change....yippee!!

Donttouchthatlarry-

It awful but I'm giggling away imagining a moody horse stomping on mice then looking all happy when he gets one.

What a lovely thread OP and monkey. It's made me laugh and cry. Cheered me right up. Thank you

I found one of my goldfishes on the floor once, had jumped out, I thought it was dead as not moving but was not stiff so I put it back into the tank, well it was still alive but wobbly and floating on its side, anyway another goldfish went up to it and helped it swim around until it was back to normal, then they separated! who knew goldfish had feelings, could be compassionate and assist a fellow in distress!!! absolutely incredible, but it happened! congrats on such a clever pony.

What a lovely lovely story

Of course animals help each other. We used to have hedgehogs that we fed. One night we heard the neighbours cat growling and screeching she was telling the fox he couldn't eat the hedgehog food and chased him off. Then along came the mummy hedgehog with her babies from the bushes and ate their dinnwr while the cat sat by protectively watching them

Heartwarming

I came home once to find our two baby rabbits had escaped and my Skye terrier had cornered them and then laid across the corner to stop them escaping.