Nope, that’s what gives their proteges a little excitement in their lives. I mean, sure it’s a once and done moment of excitement but I’m sure it’s exhilarating!
\end sarcasm
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Bahahaha
Actually, I’m pretty sure you can teach horses to have traffic sense. Because it is just a cue like any other cue. You see this, you do this. Don’t see that, do the other thing. That’s all guide dogs are taught. Now, that special disobedience because there is danger in obeying, not for the dog but for the handler? THAT cannot be taught to horses. And most dogs can’t be taught it either.
When Guide Dogs were being developed originally, they did a lot of breeding and training of dogs that flunked that final test, before they found out how to produce dogs that passed. It was a problem because even if the dogs were perfect in every other way, they couldn’t be Guide Dogs without it. It is not just genetics either, they have to be raised as pups in a specific way. I read that book – old book when I read it – a long time ago and have forgotten some details. The New Knowledge of Dog Behavior by Clarence Pfaffenberger or something like that.
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I have no idea.
Anecdotally I always halt before crossing a road. There is usually one car and I must have been waiting the same amount of time to cross after the car passed.
This time we halted and it was a B- Double we had to wait for. Pep waited for the normal amount of time and without me asking went to move forward while the B-Double was still in front of us.
Kangaroos I da## w### stopped my car because of Kangaroos. The $%^&% kangaroo jumped and banged straight into my non moving car. It damaged the car.
Another kangaroo passed in front of hubby and I while we were trail riding. I have no idea if it was the same kangaroo, however 20 seconds later the kangaroo jumped out of the bush into Sim’s side. Sim went sideways and hubby half came off.
Luckily we both stayed on. We did not see any other kangaroos.
evidently some are born with a sense of self preservation. My daughter and her friend went trail riding in our town. The girl was an accomplished rider but some how fell off as they were walking on the river levee, horse was said to have looked at her fallen rider with an expression of Not MY Fault then turned trotting back the way she had come.
Mare trotted home which was about three miles away across multiple streets and a four lane divided highway. Along the way she picked up a police escort. The officer did not try to catch or stop the mare as he said she seemed to know where she was going. He said she always stopped before crossing a street looking both ways, she went to cross walk of the divided highway looked both ways crossed to the median again stopping to look both ways then trotted on home…with the police car following about 75 feet behind her. Mare trotted to the gate and waited. Behind them was daughter with her friend riding double.
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That’s a hell of a story. Your horse is not the sharpest fork in the drawer, I would say. I’m morally certain my horse would not do this – she’s very wary about motor vehicles, because we’ve been run off the road down a cliff twice. As for the kangaroos, I guess there’s a reason they get road killed a lot …
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He was a lovely horse who was smart to train. He had pizazz. We grew up riding around the State Forest and He won a One Day Event by 66 points.
Sim - not so smart training wise, however once you start listening to them the training gets a lot easier
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My gelding was the only horse I’ve owned that wouldn’t take off for home if we parted ways out hacking. We only parted company three times in 18 years, but each time he stayed right by me and waited for me to get back on.
It was quite a nice change from walking all the way home and worrying about the horse the whole time.
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I was driving my large pony one day after being up all night, dealing with a work issue. It was warm and sunny, and I dozed off, I’m ashamed to admit. He moseyed over to the ditch next to the road and just stood there snacking on grass. I never worried about him running away with me.
Rebecca
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