The Horse’s GPS.
The horse always finds its way home! Well, that’s partially true 🙂 I have personally observed that when you’re out in the woods far from home, you just need to give the horse loose reins, and it will find its way back. There have been numerous attempts and research into this over the years, so there must be some truth to it. However, I wonder how this GPS works? Because it’s certain that if a horse has broken through a fence and you try to get it back the same way, it never finds it! I’ve experienced several times that my horses (mostly young ones) have escaped from the pasture and gone for a run. One can understand that to some extent, as there’s always greener grass on the other side. However, it never takes long before they want to come back, as it’s actually quite dangerous on the other side, and sometimes there are a couple of horses that have refused to leave the safety of the pasture and have chosen to stay. If you’re really “lucky,” they’ll run back into the pasture, but through a different spot than where they got out, and rush straight through the fence again. I’ve never experienced them going back to the spot where there was a hole and going back in there. It’s never worked for me, even though I’ve tried enticing them with various things to get them back the same way; they are completely oblivious. Horses also have a fantastic sense for freshly sown areas and beautiful flower beds! There’s nothing better than exploring such delicate places, and the owner gets lovely hoof prints to remember the best horse, who just thought it was helping 🙂 Even more fun when it’s the neighbor’s flower beds. The strange thing about this GPS is that it works very well in one direction. If there’s a gap in the fence or a moose has gone through and cleared the path, the horses always find it. I’ll never forget one time many years ago; we had spent the whole day fixing fences, everything was in tip-top shape, and we let our mares out into a wonderful pasture. There was deer fencing around most of it, so we were completely confident they’d stay in there. However, we had forgotten a small gate deep in the woods where the horses never usually went, but it didn’t take long for them to discover our mistake. We had our anniversary the next day and had planned to have a picnic in the woods and enjoy a cozy day. At 6 in the morning, the neighbor called to say the horses were passing by their yard. So, it was time to go look for them. Our cozy day had suddenly disappeared. I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences; one could probably write a whole book 🙂 I’ve never found joy in putting up or repairing fences, and we’ve always had huge pastures, so it was almost a full-time job, and if you ask the horses, they’d probably say it was unnecessary to have fences 🙂
