16
votes
Weekly thread for casual chat and photos of pets
This is the place for casual discussion about our pets.
Photos are welcome, show us your pet(s) and tell us about them!
This is the place for casual discussion about our pets.
Photos are welcome, show us your pet(s) and tell us about them!
It was as I was brushing burrs out of the horses' manes today that I realized I was living every little girl's dream.
Unfortunately I don't think the little girls realize how much the horses toss their heads around to get away from the comb (I'm as gentle as I can be; I have a lot of experience with teasing tangles out of long hair), constantly mouth at you for treats, and of course, stick their heads in the burr bushes in the first place. Just to make my life more difficult, of course.
Are horses pretty diva-ish in general? Or is it completely different from individual to individual? They seem pretty stoic in my mind, but I have exactly zero experience with them so that impression is based on nothing.
Also do you have to cut the manes? Or do they just grow to a certain length and that's it? I know people sometimes cut the tails a bit short but I wonder if that's purely for looks or if there's some hygienic purpose.
Not OP, but I used to live on a horse ranch. Some horses were OK. Some were mean. One was really nice. Many, perhaps most, were not animals I wanted to be in the same paddock with.
Donkeys, on the other hand, are awesome. I had a donkey friend who would hoot and holler from acres away when he saw me coming home, and he just loved to hang out when I was working on the fence or the like. I would 100% have some donkey buddies if I ever had acreage.
I’ve heard donkeys are remarkably good guardian animals. Would make sense then for them to be total bros as well.
My donkey friend's job was as a flock guardian for a bunch of emus, and he did his job well! They eventually got him a girlfriend, and she was just as nice, too. Donkeys are great.
[edit] I found some pictures! Here's my Donkey Buddy, one of the emus he protected, and two of my pups at the time, Pawsy and her grown-up puppy Miss D.
Wow, really cool! That looks like a peaceful place. As someone who grew up in very urban environments, seeing nothing but hills and animals in the background seems so nice.
It definitely varies with personality as well as training. I have two mares I take care of. One's a gentle sweetheart but a tad easy to startle, and the other is amiable but shows her affection with pushiness and demands for treats. Neither would hurt me on purpose, but I've known some horses you should stay away from unless you know what you're doing. Horses are prey animals with strong in-group mentality, and it definitely can show in their tendencies to either panic or preemptively defend themselves and their herd (even if it's a herd of two, or if the herd includes their humans). But a good-natured horse who's secure in their herd/routine/territory can be a delight to have a relationship with. You just have to learn their vocalizations and body language the same as you do with any other animal.
I'm not their owner (nor am I actually any kind of equestrian or horse sage), but they know me well. Both of them will cooperate with me to an extent, especially when I reward them liberally with apple wafers, but they certainly have Opinions. The gentle sweetheart lets me comb the burrs out of her mane and coat, but she's got some on the insides of her ears that I have to work out at the rate of a few a day, because she's super sensitive in there. The pushy beggar lets me comb the burrs from anywhere for a while, including ears, but eventually she gets fed up with it -- and the whole time she constantly thinks it's time for the next treat even if I've just given her one.
The manes can vary a lot by breed, as well. Gentle sweetheart's got a pretty thin, medium-length mane, but a decently long and thick tail. And after she accidentally whapped me in the face with the dirty end of the tail once, I can certainly see the appeal of trimming it short. (I know you have to be careful though, because they do have an actual flesh-and-bone tail in the middle of all the hair, though I don't know the exact length of it. If it's a working horse, I can especially see keeping the tail trimmed or at least braided, to keep it from getting caught on things.) Pushy beggar's a percheron cross (example pic of a percheron), and her mane and tail are thick and long. She gets her mane cut shorter, probably to deal with the heat in the summers here. Just realized I haven't actually asked the reason for it. Other than the temperature concerns, and getting burrs stuck in them at this time of year, her mane and tail don't really seem to pose a lot of problems as is. The hairs are very coarse and wiry, so they don't tangle with themselves easily. And the other mare definitely gets her share of burrs, so you'd have to give them a buzzcut to avoid that problem.
Wow, thanks for the details. That is indeed a long tail, never even knew they could get that long. And it never occurred to me that they had an actual tail stub hidden inside all that tail hair but I guess that makes sense.
Quick little aside: I work with historic buildings and keep a stash of horse hair in my office for when we work on horse-hair plaster. I’ve always wondered about the horse hair industry, like if there’s a specific breed of horse tail that’s better or if it’s a yearly shearing like with wool. It just seems like such a random and niche industry nowadays but I’m sure there are other uses besides filler/binder for old plaster.
I didn't even know horse hair was used in plaster. The only use I've known for it is old-fashioned stuffed furniture. Not that I've ever seen any myself, but I've occasionally seen it mentioned in books.
Behold our adorable cats, Floof and Roxie.
Floof is the tuxedo, Roxie is the grey shorthair.
Floof is a genius. He understands English - I swear. He understands verbally apologizing, he understands concepts like compensation for being wronged or being cuddled if he doesn't want to be (he'll grumble and complain if cuddled when he doesn't feel like it, then lead you to treats, paw at them and look at you expectantly). He understands F'ing BRINKSMANSHIP. I'll swat him on the butt for scratching the walls, so he adapted and calibrates the amount of scratching to tentatively reaching out a single paw and 'scritching' lightly with ONE CLAW while staring me in the damn eye, and pausing if I start to get up. I can tell him I'm closing my room for the night and he understands, gets up from where he's sleeping and trots out - no gesture, just language.
Roxie is... not a genius. She is very tiny and very adorable though. And also a total jealous ass to my girlfriend (we live together). If I'm speaking with my girlfriend Roxie will decide she needs to come over to me RIGHT THEN and demand attention. When we go to bed Roxie will climb on to me and sit on top of me. If my girlfriend picks her up and holds her, she'll get this comical wide-eyed horrified suffering look and if I get close enough she'll squirm and reach out as far as possible to hook claws into me and climb onto my shoulders to escape, then jump down and trot off while meowing in a clearly offended manner.
Almost sounds like a comedy pair for a cartoon or something. :') It's funny how different the personalities of animals can be.
They are hilarious and provide us with a great amount of emotional support from that.
I'm going to Best Buy today. Pray for me...
How bad is/was it? What did you need that made you go into a Best Buy? Did you manage to escape?
Wife needs her iPhone camera repaired. That was a mistake. It's not really an Apple counter but Nerd Squad with Apple branding. They were clueless.
Ironically, the store wasn't that busy though their Apple counter was.
And so we're at the Apple Store in hell^H^H^H^HBethesda, MD.