Horse Sense

Dominion over the animals huh?

       I’m certain that we have all read or heard about how many of us humans who are alleged to be smarter than the animals choose stupidly to torment animals. We’ve heard about the man who while inebriated decided to play catch … with a rattlesnake. Or the young fellows who decided that it might be fun to slingshot the tigers at the San Francisco Zoo. Have you seen the YouTube video about the African park ranger who was trying to release a leopard who was not quite ready to get out of the ranger’s truck? The ranger decided that the best way to encourage the annoyed leopard was to roll down his window … all the way … and reach back and poke the cat with a stick. Then there was the alleged “bear expert” who believed that he could set up camp in the midst of one of the most dense concentrations of brown bears in the United States and mitigate their "bear nature" by talking nice to the bears. He ended up as a hot lunch for one of the bears.

       I thought I would take a moment to contribute a story about three fellows I know who displayed the same stellar judgment while dealing with animals, but were more fortunate with their outcome. We’ll call these three titans of intellect Ace, Deano and Wheatie. Let me take a moment to state that my three friends have grown up to be very smart fellows and fine upstanding contributors to society. But I digress. This is not about how wonderfully well they turned out, but about how they started out with such tragically poor reasoning skills. Although I got the story second hand, I got the same second hand story from three of the four principles. I was unable to get the horse’s account of the story.

       “Horse?” you ask.

       Let me start from the beginning. Apparently, there was a pasture, which this particular horse was known to frequent that my three friends often passed in their travels back and forth to one another’s homes. There was also a small orchard of apple trees near the pasture and it would seem that my teenage friends could never resist the temptation to torment Mister Horse by hurling apples at him. On one cool morning, full of mischief, they stopped at the orchard and filled their jacket pockets with little green apples and began target practice with Mister Horse. The horse, as he usually did, backed away from the side of the pasture from which the projectiles were originating. But my friends were not about to be outsmarted by a stupid animal. They refilled their pockets, ducked under the barbed wire fence and moved ten yards closer. Their fruity mortars once again found their range. The horse backed up another twenty yards, obviously thinking … closer ... closer. Larry, Moe and Curly obliged by moving twenty yards closer to the horse and the center of the pasture. After one more pair of matching position changes, the horse reared up and sounded the charge. After about a half second of standing in stunned silence, it registered that:

 

·        They were in the center of the pasture some fifty yards from the safety of the barbed wire fence.

·        They had been outwitted by a “stupid animal”

·        And lastly, the stupid animal was much faster than they were.

 

       I can only imagine what went through what I charitably refer to as the brains of my friends as they scrambled for the fence line. But after their narrow escape, they did all share with me the lessons that they learned that day.

 1.   You don’t need to be faster than the horse, just faster than one of your friends.

2.   Prepare properly for your activities. Work boots are not ideal for racing a horse, regardless of how much of a head start he gives you.

3.   And lastly, horses bite when annoyed and they have absolutely no compunction about taking a back pocket (and however much flesh comes along) from a pair of Levis.

 

       In closing I must give them credit for having learned (sort of). Though I am sorry to say that I cannot tell you that they never threw apples at the horse again, I can say that they were never again lured inside of the fence line by Mister Horse.

Reviews

[Doreen]

This gives a little insight on 'horse sense'. Lure the silly, small humans unwittingly to retribution. Hehe. And some think humans are smarter than animals....Great story. Though I feel very bad for the poor horse, it's a comfort to know that it got the last word. :)

[Eve]

The Empire strikes back! oh yeah! lol, love this , lesson number three is too funny...ha! that's what they get!

[:)]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I love when animal's and nature get revenge... :)

[shythatway]

Lovely. Cows do this too, I might add. As always, your way of storytelling is great.

[Tony]

Ahhh....those crazy humans. Some learn when they see the light. Others only as they feel pain.
This was a good story.
Very neat, good grammar, and it made me laugh.

[Tai Chi Italy Take Two]

lol This was a great lesson in Horse play, Kis a guy! Oops! my fingers were doing the talking then, so I will leave it rather than call you

Just a guy? Just a great story teller. Very pleased to meet your work. I expect NY is pretty hot right now?

By the way, horses are the most noble of creatures, and I know one that catches apples and throws them back!lol

Smiling at you

Tai

[emmajoy]

Wonderful and GOOD!

What a great finishing moral to a finely written memory. You use smooth sentences that just urge the reader to read on and read .. plus, I'm smiling very broadly, picturing that end pic of a cartoon painted in words

[Tommy]

Stupid human tricks. lol. I can't say I am not guilty of a few myself. I wear a scar on my left facial cheek, from lesson learned from putting my head into the dog house to see if the dog is in there. I was only 12, but I should have known better. Although, I can say lesson learned the hard way.

Great story!
RLG,
Tommy

[An Ordinary Woman]

#1... too funny and #3... ouch!

I have a horse story too. But yours is much better than mine. lol

[Angela Mulley]

This is a great read... well done!