Horses sure have a talent for getting into places they shouldn’t. When I went to feed earlier this week, Finn came galloping up from the far pasture. That in itself was unusual, but what was more unusual was that, although it was dinner time, Curly wasn’t moving. She was standing in a pile of brush.
Closer inspection revealed that she had straddled a log. Not only that, but she was hopelessly tangled in the vines that had grown around it.
Curly is a cool character. She wasn’t struggling. In fact, she looked a bit bored. Or maybe resigned. I ran back to the barn to grab a pair of scissors and carefully cut the vines from around her legs. With a little encouragement, she clambered over the log and ambled toward the barn, seemingly without a care, and certainly without limping. A quick inspection revealed no damage but left me scratching my head. That log had been there for at least two years and none of the horses have ever gotten tangled in it before, although Finn does sometimes jump the smaller branches next to it.
What was most interesting was Finn’s reaction. It was almost like he was trying to tell me something was wrong. It’s happened before, too. About two months ago, Curly had a choke/colic episode where she was on the ground. One of the people who lives on the property where the horses live called Curly’s owner (who was away) because she was down and Finn was trying to get her up. He described it perfectly: Finn was a great friend but a terrible paramedic. He actually bit her on her crest, I think trying to get her up. Luckily real medical help came very quickly and once she was tubed and the blockage in her esophagus cleared, Curly was fine.
But who says horses don’t care about their friends?
Finn’s response and attempt to get help is no surprise to me. I’ve seen such things in wild animals, no less. I’m sure he was desperate to get her to stand up, and did the only thing he could. Perhaps depending on her to jump up only to kick his ass for biting her. These days you can find you tube videos that show wild animals coming to humans for help…a fox with a peanut butter jar on it’s head, a feral cat bringing her kitten that was stuck on a mouse sticky board trap. I remember hearing about a couple of commercial fishermen on their boat in Lake Superior (Which is HUGE and COLD). They were about an hour, maybe more, from shore. A trio of white tailed deer had attempted to swim across the Lake, and while the cervids as a whole are good swimmers, Superior is far too big. THe deer saw the boat and swam to it, allow the men to pick them up out of the water…which couldn’t have been easy, and the fishermen turned their boat around to return to the shoreline of the Upper Peninsula. They helped the deer off the boat…the little one was a fawn and they thought she might die as she was exhausted. But they stayed…and the does did, too, until the fawn got to its feet and staggered off into the woods.
You hear stories about birds blown far out to sea and landing on ships and despite the humans, imeediately going to sleep.
all of which means that animals aren’t as ‘stupid’ and ‘dumb’ as most people have been led to believe. They can think, they can plan, and they can realize that the human might just be able to help them.
Give Finn a big pat and a hug and tell him he’s a hero.