What’s the cheekiest thing your horse does?

Birker2020

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My new boy Lari sticks his tongue out when he wants a cuddle. He is super cute. He especially enjoys you squeezing it gently as my partner is demonstrating in the photo.

We used to have a horse on the same yard who used to do the same, in his case he stuck his tongue out at the bottom of his mouth.
One day the horse next door was tied outside his own stable and the horse with head over door stuck his tongue out and the end of it was bitten clean off. We never did find it.

Lari also pulls gently at your clothing and will play with anything left in the vicinity whether that be a rug over the door or something on the floor of his stable. He mouths as many things as he can, I've learnt the knack of putting his headcollar on super quick before that also ends up in his mouth. Love him to bits but he's like a toddler and needs watching like a hawk bless him.

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Ratface

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Mr H is a true professional in the "gimme a treat NOW" game. Hangs over his stable half-door and refuses to back up. Gets growled at. Sneers back. Gets a gentle prod in the chest. Snake face. Raised voice "Gw'aan". Snake face plus teeth. Much more forceful prod. Murderous look, backs up, turns round and presents back end. Accept a scratch. Sweetness and light. Gets one small treat. Just one. Apart from this, is politeness personified. He's only a bit arrogant.
 

DressageCob

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My horse isn't naughty cheeky, just cute. Whenever he sees me walk across the yard he stands to attention and makes obsessive eye contact until I approach (he's aiming to get the treat dispenser lady to attend to his needs). Then once I'm on my way to him he turns his head away, as if to pretend he hadn't just summoned me and acts surprised when I give him a sweet.

I'm sure he's not deliberately play acting, but it certainly seems like it when he does it.

I also taught him carrot stretches a while ago. I don't think he entirely understood that the carrots came from my hands because now every so often he checks between his front legs to see if there is a carrot there. Just in case one grew.
 

Cowpony

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My mare will undo her leadrope, even if the end is tucked through the final loop. Sometimes I find just the end untucked, as if she's saying "You see, I could have untied myself, but chose not to" :D The gelding we go out competing with will pick up any water bucket with his teeth and empty it onto the ground. You have to watch him like a hawk and hold the bucket for him to drink out of on hot days, or he'll waste all the water we have with us.
 

Green Bean

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When I take my girl out for some grass, I have to warn her each time it is time to go back to her stable not to bite me and hold her head away from me. This started when she was on box rest when I took her out twice a day but it is now a habit she has stuck to
 

Unicorn

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My lad is, in a lot of ways, an angel. He has free access to his stable... I can leave rugs hanging up, lotions and potions on the side and he wouldn't dream of touching them. But when I was in there putting up some new tie rings I discovered he has a thing for power tools. And hammers. I wish I'd got a picture of him as he strolled off with the drill, but I was more concerned about getting it back!

He gets shut out now if I'm doing anything fun, so stands there looking in and kicking the door. Wierdo.
 

smolmaus

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The gelding we go out competing with will pick up any water bucket with his teeth and empty it onto the ground. You have to watch him like a hawk and hold the bucket for him to drink out of on hot days, or he'll waste all the water we have with us.
Oh we also have a foal who will tip over the huge buckets we have for the barn paddocks and flood the place for fun. The number of large rocks we have to weigh it down with to stop her you wouldn't believe ? Her older brother is an absolute menace, especially for grabbing your coat and pulling hard, very uncomfortable when it is the hood and you get strangled (I don't turn my back on him anymore!) but I think the baby might outshine him.
 

Antw23uk

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My old man is too polite to be cheeky but another member wrote this and it sticks so true with the old man sadly "It's like he should have been a really cheeky, boundary pushing little beggar, but he's suppressed it beneath mistrust, anxiety and some level of contempt for humans" .... he breaks my heart daily!

The new baby is obsessed with going in my tack room at the moment and at nearly 16h he really shouldn't fit but as i have found out he can actually stand lock stock inside it. Thankfully he quietly backed himself out of the awkward space because if he panicked we'd be in serious trouble! I'm usually one to take a pic of a 'funny' situation but i was literally frozen with fear because i couldn't fit in the tackroom to back him out and its such an awkward space walking in let alone backing out blind! Lesson learnt, the area is now roped off!

 

TheOldTrout

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Mine, when you're picking her hooves out, will try to help by lifting up the wrong hindleg, the one you've just done.
She once told me off with a very loud cross whinny - I'd turned her out in her field and she'd gone off ignoring me as soon as I'd taken her headcollar off (she normally does this) and seen a horse had got out of the adjacent field, so went to put him back in his field. She did not like seeing me with another horse at all!
 

SEL

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The Appy only gets treats for doing "something" & I once gave her a bit of my cereal bar. Now if she spots me eating she literally flutters her eyelashes, flirts and tries to do her stretching exercises to get some. Always works!

The feral pony has the cutest nose wobble. I've no idea why he does it but it generally means he's in a soppy mood and can have a cuddle. Just don't get the headcollar out ?

Big boy was trained to push clowns over with his nose. Haven't encouraged that after I nearly face planted in the early days but just occasionally you get a big shove from behind and turn around to see him looking away. Wasn't me!
 

BBP

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BBP is a master thief. I spent weeks wondering why the horse on small paddock rest never had any water (as in the entire large trug was on the wrong side of the fence) then I spotted him grabbing a full trig of water under the fence and hauling it to the other side, then wandering off…didn’t even want it, just wanted to steal it.

He also has a thing for going in to water jumps/big puddles and refusing to come out again. He starts splashing and the harder you urge him out the faster and harder he batters the water with his front legs. I usually end up soaked to the skin.
 

PurBee

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I've only had Sadie a week and a half but she has already learned that carrot stretches are the only reliable way to get treats off me, she had herself tied in a pretzel last night when I was actually asking for her to move her quarters. "I'm doing the thing so good, GIVE TREAT"

There is a very cheeky boy at the rescue who has a special scratchy spot on the inside of his hind leg and he WILL swing his ass right into you and knock you over to ask for scratches please. I have to explain to all the new volunteers that he is NOT swinging his bum at you to be aggressive-rude, he is just being idiot-rude. He also has the attention span of a challenged gnat and if you tie him anywhere he will grab anything within stretching distance and throw it (or just pretend he is going to bite you). I love him very much, he is my favourite.

My mare does this too - she loves a scratch of her inner hind legs and belly crease so will come in from the field, i approach her and she swings her butt round in my face to say ‘scratch please!’ - thankfully she only does it to me as she knows i know what she means.
If im doing the feet of one horse, i will see out the corner of my eye her butt slowly backing towards me for a scratch, i say ‘not at the moment love, im busy’, - she thinks she’ll change my mind by backing right up to me to the point im bent over rasping and her hind legs touch me, then she knows i cant ignore her. So i give a little scratch, discuss with her im busy and to wait at the side for a while. She complies, but its really sweet how she tries it on when im doing another horse, as if im an octopus with 8 arms!
 

AandK

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My 24yo isn't cheeky at all, but the 8yo makes up for it! Cheeky Charlie, he has bags of character, very good to handle in all ways but likes to try and grab your coat/jumper/t-shirt, usually when I am picking out his front feet.

My new boy Lari sticks his tongue out when he wants a cuddle. He is super cute. He especially enjoys you squeezing it gently as my partner is demonstrating in the photo.

We used to have a horse on the same yard who used to do the same, in his case he stuck his tongue out at the bottom of his mouth.
One day the horse next door was tied outside his own stable and the horse with head over door stuck his tongue out and the end of it was bitten clean off. We never did find it.

Lari also pulls gently at your clothing and will play with anything left in the vicinity whether that be a rug over the door or something on the floor of his stable. He mouths as many things as he can, I've learnt the knack of putting his headcollar on super quick before that also ends up in his mouth. Love him to bits but he's like a toddler and needs watching like a hawk bless him.

View attachment 82551

Charlie also sticks his tongue out, straight out the front! When he was recovering from his keratoma op, he went out in the school for 30/40mins each morning while I mucked out etc. There was often another horse turned out in the small paddock and he used to lick Charlie's tongue!
 

ILuvCowparsely

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After a conversation I had today I thought this would be a good thread topic. So what cheeky bordering on naughty things do your horses do?

My boy is TERRIBLE for biting pockets - whatever is in there he will bite it (phone etc!) and he takes treats out himself whilst saying please with a front leg. ? ? Putting rugs on is a nightmare - he is not biting him nastily, just because he wants food.

I’ve had him for 16 years and unfortunately encouraged it as a child because I found it funny so totally my fault and at 22 I can’t really start correcting him now! I am the only one why handles him anyway so it’s not an issue really but I realise it is naughty and not to be encouraged.

What do yours do?

  1. Gelding pushes the door open for you if you have feed or hay
  2. Mare like to shove her nose in the bowl as you walk in and rummage the carrots out so when you get to manger there are none left
  3. Pony likes to rear up for her dinner and pushes door for you and once she has her Haycare the looks and facials expressions are priceless, she would have your face off teeth bared full of food.
  4. other mare lifts legs while eating, but not at the same time obviously
 

Birker2020

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My mare will undo her leadrope, even if the end is tucked through the final loop. Sometimes I find just the end untucked, as if she's saying "You see, I could have untied myself, but chose not to" :D The gelding we go out competing with will pick up any water bucket with his teeth and empty it onto the ground. You have to watch him like a hawk and hold the bucket for him to drink out of on hot days, or he'll waste all the water we have with us.
Bailey used to pull one of those gardening tubs away from where I'd placed it against the side of the stable and next morning I'd find it in the middle of the stable, contents still in there. It was a great game which I stopped by tying it into place with a bit of thinned twine.

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Gloi

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We have a shallow pond in one of the fields and my mare has worked out that if she doesn't want to be caught she can stand right in the middle, and the water is just slightly too deep for for me to get her without it going over my boots.
I had a pony that did that ? pond wasn't shallow though. He liked to stand in it up to his belly eating whatever he could find and just look at me knowing there was nothing I could do.
 

Celtic Fringe

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My cob's cheekiness is all associated with his endless pursuit of food. Recently he would not allow the YOs husband into his paddock until the half slice of hay that was left on the back of the quadbike had been proffered (YOs husband hadn't noticed it but cob certainly had!). If cob is in the stable then he doesn't take his eyes off me unless he has a decent pile of hay or his favourite salt lick to keep him occupied and if he sees me talking to anyone, or god-forbid another horse, then he will kick the door and neigh until more fodder is supplied. If I continue to ignore him he will turn his bum to the door and demand a scratch - this a sign that he needs attention and reassurance. He will also start doing carrot stretches to see if a treat might arrive. He is very spoiled, but has us all trained quite well!
 

HashRouge

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My new boy Lari sticks his tongue out when he wants a cuddle. He is super cute. He especially enjoys you squeezing it gently as my partner is demonstrating in the photo.

We used to have a horse on the same yard who used to do the same, in his case he stuck his tongue out at the bottom of his mouth.
One day the horse next door was tied outside his own stable and the horse with head over door stuck his tongue out and the end of it was bitten clean off. We never did find it.

Lari also pulls gently at your clothing and will play with anything left in the vicinity whether that be a rug over the door or something on the floor of his stable. He mouths as many things as he can, I've learnt the knack of putting his headcollar on super quick before that also ends up in his mouth. Love him to bits but he's like a toddler and needs watching like a hawk bless him.

View attachment 82551
I'd forgotten this about Lari! How funny that he still does it, it used to crack us grooms up (the tongue thing, I mean)!

My old mare has this wonderfully gentle nudge that she does when she wants a treat and knows you've got them. It's definitely not a shove and very, very gentle; but it can be quite persistent if she doesn't get what she wants! Her field mate, my Welsh, has the less pleasant habit of licking. He is like a big dog, and if you stand near him he will happily lick you all over until you move away again! He's not a baby either, he's 18!
 

my bfg

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My girl def believes she should always have my sole attention, if I'm nattering to a fellow human she starts waving a front leg at me, if I don't stop chatting she starts tapping me with her toe. She also tries to load herself into any open trailer/box, if she ever got loose at a show I'd have to check all the transport lol
My old girl (in profile pic) had so many quirks, she could climb over electric fencing, she pushed her foot againts the middle of the post to bend it over, then she jumped over before it pinged back up. She would climb through strands of electric fencing the second I switched it off to move a section, she always got one back leg stuck though so would calmly stand there shouting at me to help. The best one was when I started finding the slip rails on her stable door open and her wandering around the field in the mornings, so I sat and watched one night and saw her biting the rails and sliding them accross bit by bit untill she could squeeze out!
Absolutely love horses cheeky traits :D
 

catembi

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One of mine used to grab those elastic toggle things that my coat had to tighten up the hem...OMG that hurt when he let go! There was a very small window of opportunity between noticing that he was doing it & him letting go, to prize it out of his mouth while hanging onto it to stop the rebound...
 

DressageCob

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I've just remembered. When I first got my old cob he went out with one friend on a field very close to the outdoor school. He enjoyed scratching his bum on the slip rails, then leaning on them until they popped in the middle and then him and his friend would gallop up and down the other fence line, disturbing whatever lesson was going on on the school ?
 

huskydamage

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I have a bin bag in my tackroom and my mare is obsessed with poking her head in, picking it up and throwing it round the yard, emptying it everywhere. She is convinced there is something other than rubbish in there, there isn't!
 
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