You Can Lead a Horse to Water.....

This is a frolicking horse

My daughter and I love all of God's furry critters. We play hide and seek with our cats, fetch with our dogs and believe anything with a fur-like substance should be petted and cooed over. We've had all manner of critters over the years, a pet pig, rabbits, ferrets, lizards, fish, birds, cats and lots of dogs. When she moved back to Oklahoma, being around the family pets was as big a treat to her as being around the family. My brother raises horses, so she was excited to spend Thanksgiving at his place. She has been wanting to go riding, so she asked him about it a few weeks ago. He raises horses, but doesn't necessarily ride his horses and much to her dismay he doesn't "play" with his horses either (I know, it seems almost inhuman not to play with your pet), but then again, they're really not pets. See, I have a hard time understanding this too. It's the same with people who have hunting dogs but they don't play with them, they're considered tools (like a DeWalt electric drill), or insert quote from the Tom Hanks movie "Big".... Josh (Tom Hanks) is shown a new toy that his employers are working on. It's an immobile skyscraper that turns into a giant robot. "So what's so fun about playing with a building? That's not any fun!" What's fun about having horses if you can't play and frolick with them? I didn't specifically ask him about frolicking, but I will. Thanksgiving day my daughter brought two large bags of carrots and apples.... "To feed to the horses!" As we tromped through the mud to get to the horses my brother explained that his horses had never seen a carrot or an apple and probably wouldn't be too keen on eating either. We weren't deterred by his negative thinking, hey, they were horses weren't they? They came to the fence and in spite of our determination they weren't interested in our

offerings. Seriously, have they not seen "Mr. Ed?" My brother came lugging buckets of horse feed and told us to try the feed instead. Sure enough, lickety split, they nibbled it right out of our hands and headed to the trough for more as he poured it in. I guess it just goes to prove that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it eat a carrot if it doesn't want to... And apparently they also don't talk :-(