On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 07:37:09AM -0500, Janice McDonald wrote:
> I feel like gaited breed horses are smarter than non-gaited. but I
> also know my smartest horse is my most dangerous and my dumbest horse
> the sweetest.
stjarni likes people, and i think is the most trustworthy horse at our
barn in addition to being the smartest. he doesn't have a mean bone in
his chunky little body. we have two horses (one mine, one my barn
owner's) that we teach beginners on, and stjarni goes right from being a
demanding little bugger with me ("oh, you shifted your butt, you must
mean SIDEPASS!!") to a steady, easy, voice-controlled stop-and-start
horse. the other beginner-safe horse becomes, well, a steady, easy
horse to stop ;)
our dumbest (a former student's who has since left with her mom and mare
for a more "show" barn) i think was the most dangerous, since the mare
could feel the mom's insecurity and it made her even sillier -- she did
things like get startled when tied once and broke THROUGH A METAL GRATE
to break a glass windowpane (and cut up her face, naturally).
our current "most dangerous" imho is "tweedledumb" who will do things
like decide to roll in the seawater at the beach without warning (he's
the devious one; he's good on cows). and our current "dumbest" imho is
almost never ridden, and isn't particularly dangerous on the ground,
just has to be frequently re-shown the things that the other horses
seem to understand (like, "at feeding time we go from turnout up into
our stalls") and remember.
my dog is a rehoming and she is secretly smarter and far more devious
than she lets on, and has become the more so as she's come out of her
shell of being "bottom dog" to being just "the dog". she tricks me and
sneaks things behind my back, but i admit i secretly rejoice to see her
personality coming through, even as i clean up the wreckage ;)
--vicka
