As we all know, being little is sometimes tough. When you're a little kid, rules are the worst thing in the world, no one wants to follow them and it's not until we're older that we realize that sometimes, rules are a good thing. This is the same with horses. For India, breaking rules is what she does best. Being in a field all day eating and doing almost nothing, can sometimes get boring for a young horse, just like it would for a little kid. Trouble making is all in a days work. Any way she can try to make herself entertained, India is sure to do it. "What kind of trouble can a horse get into anyways?!" is usually a question asked by many people, but the possibilities are endless!
A big problem for India, is her love of food. She will do almost anything to get the best hay or grass, even if that means putting herself in dangerous situations. Imagine being called at 6am one morning, barely awake, and someone telling you that your horse is on their back porch looking into their kitchen window?! Well, for me, this has happened.... 4 times.... in 2 weeks. "What about the fences?!" you ask? They're there, she just ignores them. Don't be fooled now, electric fences are VERY electric, usually one shock to a horse will stop them from ever going near it again. But not India. India is probably the smartest horse I have ever come across in all my life. She knows that the shock will only hurt for a second, and then be over. By swatting her tail at the fence, she realizes that the shock will go off, which is very smart of her, because a shock to her tail is barely noticeable to her. She then barrels through the fence and goes where she wants to. Who needs rules?! Not India.
This may seem cute now, but there are a lot of safety issues regarding her rebellious streak! If she ever walked onto the road and got hit by a car, there would be no choice but to put her down if she was injured enough. As well as getting hit by a car, farmers are sometimes not so nice to unwanted visitors no matter how cute they are. It is law that if your horse ends up on property they are not legally allowed to be on, they can be 1) taken by the livestock humane society 2) kept by the landowners, or even 3) some farmers will shoot animals that don't belong there.
From owning a 'little kid', it is finally clear to me just how important rules really are!
It's a good means for you to learn responsibility though! I was just curious, what made you name her India? It's an interesting name for a horse I think and I was just wanted to know what made you want to name her that or what made you incline towards that name apart from others?
ReplyDeleteI named her India because when she was a baby, the white patch on her face looked just like India the country! As shes grown it's turned into more of a blob, but at one point in time it did!
ReplyDeleteWow. India is such a bad-ass! Once I was on a farm with one of my younger cousins and he touched an electric fence and got zapped...true story.
ReplyDeletethe window story is funny! I would've loved to see the look on those peoples faces! is there some sort of obedience school for horses? is teaching a horse rules similar to teaching a dog rules? like do you use hand gestures/signals or anything?
ReplyDeletethe people didn't really care she was in their yard, they thought she was cute and their kids thought it was like magic having a pony show up in their backyard one morning! Haha. Yes, horses and dogs are very similar, the only difference really is that a horse can kill you if it gets out of control. They mostly respond to voice signals-- "Woah" means stop and making a little kissy sound means go.
ReplyDeleteNicola! I have done that too! It hurts!
Food! I used to be like that when I was young, although I clearly wasn't a horse. I used to climb the cupboards and often fall just to get the cookies my mom made.
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