# Non-horsey people



## Horsef (May 1, 2014)

Me, showing up for my very first lesson with a bagful of carrots, neatly scrubbed clean with tips and those little notches cut off - as you would for cooking. My instructor just asked me: “ You’re a city girl, aren’t you?”. I didn’t quite think of horses eating grass off actual dirt...


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## SteadyOn (Mar 5, 2017)

My favourite of these moments:

I asked my fiance to help blanket the horses one morning. (Don't worry, I had planned to check his work!!) While he actually nailed the blanketing part -- wow!! -- he came up to me after doing one of the horses, looking very concerned.

"That one has a big bump on his underside. Is that supposed to be there? Do we need to call anybody?"

"A big bump... like, at the back, not quite between his legs, right in the middle?"

"...Yes."

"Well, I think *HE* might just always have that."

"Oh... Right..."


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## knightrider (Jun 27, 2014)

My nephew came to visit and we called the horses up. They each went into their stalls to eat. My nephew said, "Wow, they all go into their cages."

My daughter knows all about horses and I think she says this to be cute . . . but I think it is cute. She asks her friends if they have de-puffed their horses before they mount.


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

SteadyOn said:


> My favourite of these moments:
> 
> I asked my fiance to help blanket the horses one morning. (Don't worry, I had planned to check his work!!) While he actually nailed the blanketing part -- wow!! -- he came up to me after doing one of the horses, looking very concerned.
> 
> ...


:rofl:

My boyfriend also nailed blanketing on the first try too!

Today when he came to the stable, he noted that there was "a _lot_ of poop, like A LOT" in the common area in front of the hay racks, and got very concerned that no one ever picked it up. I said "Oh no, we pick that up every day. That's just how much four horses poop in 24 hours." He gave me a sideways glance in disbelief that had "I'm never owning horses" written all over it :rofl:


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

I love the kids that live along some of the places I ride. They'll run up to about 10 feet away, then stop and ask if the can touch the horse (the South still teach their kids manners!). If there are no adults around, I'll dismount and have them approach one at a time to pet the shoulder. They get so excited, and they ask such cute questions: "His bed must be really big!". " Does he fetch? " "Did you adopt him from the pound?"

If the parents also come out, I'll offer to put the kid in the saddle for a picture op. I like to think that some of these kids might grow up to be riders.

it's funny though. Sometimes the adults are more nervous about the 1000 lb animal than the kids are.


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

My son in law called a girth a horse belt. I split my side laughing so hard and now refer to girths & cinches as such. Because, really, that's what they are!:rofl::rofl:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

Non-horsey adults always seem to have so much fear! The kiddos come up, but hesitate sticking their hands near the mouth when offering a carrot...

They never stop when I say "Whoa" :rofl: 


I asked one parent to hand me a the hoof pick and he had such a blank look! So I asked him to just hand me the tack box and I would get it...still a blank look! Meanwhile, I am bent over with a hoof in my hand :smile: Finally gave up and got it myself...

Many people have come up to tell me my horse was dead when it was laying in the sun sprawled out on their sides


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## Horsef (May 1, 2014)

A friend of mine started bringing his daughter for lessons at my yard in summer. Since it was warm, all the barn doors were always open so there was never any smell. First time he came after we started closing the doors: “What’s that smell?” Me: “It must be the squirrels 🙄”. Him: “What squirrels?” Me: “It’s horses, you oaf”.

My yard is very clean. The boxes are cleaned three times a day, but such big animals produce a lot of pee. When you close the doors on eight horses it has to smell at least a little.


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

In high school I had a friend who had never seen a horse in real life. She had moved here from Uganda just a couple years before. I took her to the stable with me, and when she saw the first horse, her eyes flew wide and she audibly gasped and backed away. Imagine her shock when I told her that's the smallest pony in the whole stable :rofl: She almost fainted when I showed her the warmbloods!


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## Hondo (Sep 29, 2014)

Me, when I was a non-horsey person.



10-31-2014 a few months after Hondo came into my care and before I became his official owner, I posted a picture of an area that concerned me. (picture no longer available)


Some nice people on the forum informed me that it was Hondo's belly button which was a place that flies liked to attack.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

I once witnessed a non-horsey person saying to their kid, as they were driving past a field with a horse and a pony in it, "Oh look, it's a horse and its foal!" :rofl:


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

I had an about-10-year-old ask me from a distance if my horse was real. No, I'm riding a life-sized robot horse. It was followed by a muffled "I didn't know real horses still existed!" :rofl:


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## mslady254 (May 21, 2013)

When I first got Sonny several of my friends and family members all assumed he was a race horse.....go figure...I have no idea why they would think that,,,,I'm pretty sure that they would know that 'race horses' weren't the only kind of horse a person could own. A lot of people have never known the concept of a boarding barn, either. Also leasing a horse is a big 'What!???" reaction, even to some horsey people. I know I was already a horse person before I heard of that situation being an option.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

SueC said:


> I once witnessed a non-horsey person saying to their kid, as they were driving past a field with a horse and a pony in it, "Oh look, it's a horse and its foal!" :rofl:


My father, who is a well-educated, well-read person with a wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, told me over Thanksgiving that he thought ponies were just baby horses. He was like, "I knew it was a TYPE of horse, but I didn't know WHICH type."


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

Aprilswissmiss said:


> I had an about-10-year-old ask me from a distance if my horse was real. No, I'm riding a life-sized robot horse. It was followed by a muffled "I didn't know real horses still existed!" :rofl:


This makes me really sad for some reason. I often think about the fact that, as unprepared as I was, I'm glad I'm doing my "horse thing" now, because I am acutely aware that there may come a time, within my lifetime even, that it will be even harder for the average person with a middle-class income to afford horse keeping. I know that's kind of a downer but it makes me sad for these kids.



mslady254 said:


> When I first got Sonny several of my friends and family members all assumed he was a race horse.....go figure...I have no idea why they would think that, I'm pretty sure that they would know that 'race horses' weren't the only kind of horse a person could own. A lot of people have never known the concept of a boarding barn, either. Also leasing a horse is a big 'What!???" reaction, even to some horsey people. I know I was already a horse person before I heard of that situation being an option.


I thought this was pretty interesting. I guess because we're in Kentucky, a lot of people (at least, even the non-horse people in my area, might be different if I were in a bigger city in the state) recognize the basic difference between a racehorse and "other" horses. But what does happen is that everyone who finds out I own a horse immediately asks "what kind is she?" because just about everyone somehow distantly knows someone who owned a Tennessee Walker or Rocky Mountain... and as soon as they find out she's gaited but I don't actually know or even care what kind of horse she is they look at me really funny as if that's strange? :shrug: A horse that literally came from the local pound isn't going to come with papers, don't know what to tell you. :rofl:

I also was unaware that leasing a horse was an option before I was already an owner. Although, we are in a fairly rural area so I don't think a lot of that happens here, unless you're someone who is leasing or being paid to ride someone's horse for shows.


I'm thinking about starting to take my bf to the barn with me, at least when we're both available at the same time. He's not been doing so great dealing with some things and I am vaguely hoping that learning the smallest bit of something new might have the potential to help... show him how to groom her, how to lead her in case I ever need help, etc. We plan on doing a touristy type trail ride in the Spring at a state park (because their trails are nice and easy and the horses will probably be easy too since that's their every-day job, I've known multiple people who've gone there and had good experiences) because I think he'd enjoy it, and he says he's nervous but looking forward to it.

The first time I took him out to visit with my horse after I'd moved her and she was settled in, we were looking out in the pasture before I went to bring her in and he says "Which one is she?"

... She's the ONLY one with a big white blaze down her face and a blue halter on. Even if the markings didn't give it away, she's had a blue halter on since you met her!

I switched to a better halter which she doesn't wear when she's turned out anymore now that she is adjusted and easy to catch. I wonder if he'd recognize her at all without the old halter. :lol:


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## Thundering Hooves (Dec 16, 2019)

When I first went to the barn and my brother said thats the mommy horse, Daddy horse and the mean sister, and the baby!!!

Then I had to explain to him what a min was


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## Dragoon (Nov 25, 2013)

Me, when I was non-horsey.

My riding instructor would be always talking about the different horses in the paddock, and I was so perplexed at how she could tell them all apart...I was like, wow, how can you tell them apart??

There was one chestnut, a bay, a palomino, a leopard appy, and a (sun faded) black. There was a paint and another chestnut in the other pen, but that had a flaxen mane....another pen had a blood bay and a dark bay. 

I thought of them all as brown horses of varying heights...


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## phantomhorse13 (Feb 18, 2011)

My favorite comment was from a non-horsey friend who met my grey mare for the first time. He was very proud that he knew she was 'grey' and not 'white.' He asked me what was the name for a grey horse with an orange tail and I replied "filthy" without really thinking about it. He looked so confused at first that I couldn't help bursting into laughter.


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

I have an example of the opposite - life seen through the eyes of a horsey child. 

One day my daughter asked me how many hands high her grandmother is (she's quite short). I laughed and said that we don't measure people in hands, but in feet. My daughter looked at me perplexed and said "So you're telling me we measure horses in hands and people in feet? That makes no sense" LOL

Another day, the roads were very icy and I was gently pumping the brakes as I was driving along the highway. Drivers in cold places know what I'm talking about. My daughter asked why I was doing half-halts to the car... :rofl::rofl::rofl:


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## knightrider (Jun 27, 2014)

@Acadianartist, here's another one like that. My son was 4 and we were driving past a soccer field. My son said, "Wow, that's sure a nice pasture!"


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

knightrider said:


> @Acadianartist, here's another one like that. My son was 4 and we were driving past a soccer field. My son said, "Wow, that's sure a nice pasture!"


Any green space is potential pasture for a horse person! You raised him right


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

Oh, I forgot in addition to the above, there was the one older lady at my knitting group who asked if I was going to jump with my horse. :lol: I'm in my mid-twenties and just started off riding with a horse I could barely control at the time, and she thought I was going to go straight to hunter-jumper. (She WAS very sweet and enthusiastic about it.)

I also hear, "You mean you own a REAL horse?" sometimes. By that, they mean a "big" horse and not a pony.


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

When i was an instructor, the non-horsey husband of a horsey volunteer, offered to deliver tack to the line of horses waiting in the barn. 

When i walked in, I could see that he'd gone a step further and tried to saddle an extremely patient horse called Brandy. I watched him walk from one side of Brandy to the other, closely studying the saddle. He lifted the flaps, wiggled it a bit, replaced it, looked underneath, wiggled it a bit more and, every so often, tried to fasten the girth. 

He was never going to get it to fit as he'd put the saddle on backwards.

I couldn't believe what i was seeing. Once everyone had stopped laughing, he was taught how to saddle. He said that he'd looked at it and thought 'how hard can it be'; apparently, a lot harder than he'd thought.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

Seems like every time I am fueling up at a gas station, I get at least one person that asks if it is a Race horse! 

Imagine, my round Chivas running a race :rofl:


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

When I was a kid, we boarded the horses at a stable at the foot of the mountains where we lived and Mom would drop my sis and I there then go shopping. There was a golf course near the stable. I always thought it was a perfect waste of prime pasture. Fill in the holes and it was perfect! Never could understand why those people in carts or walking around would get so upset when we rode through it. :runninghorse2::rofl:


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## ChieTheRider (May 3, 2017)

I've taught a couple of kids the basics of riding and one thing that they all did was shake the reins to "make 'em go".

It took me a while when i was first riding to tell my grandma's two chestnut mares apart (they were full sisters and did look quite similar to 10yo me). Now, it almost baffles me that non horsey people struggle to tell a bay and a chestnut apart. 

I've also had my little cousin ask me things about my gelding's...gelding parts. That took a bit of explaining. 😂


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

CopperLove said:


> I'm thinking about starting to take my bf to the barn with me, at least when we're both available at the same time. He's not been doing so great dealing with some things and I am vaguely hoping that learning the smallest bit of something new might have the potential to help... show him how to groom her, how to lead her in case I ever need help, etc. We plan on doing a touristy type trail ride in the Spring at a state park (because their trails are nice and easy and the horses will probably be easy too since that's their every-day job, I've known multiple people who've gone there and had good experiences) because I think he'd enjoy it, and he says he's nervous but looking forward to it.


Totally worth it to get him in the saddle if you can convince him! My boyfriend said he was absolutely terrified of the idea of riding for the first time. Once I convinced him to get on (more than a year of asking) and he actually did, I couldn't get him off! I told him how to steer, walk, and stop, and sent him on his way in the arena on my mare. After five minutes of him just zigzagging all over the place, I asked "How about you try a circle?" and he went "No, I'm doing my own thing." Okay! Fifteen minutes in, I asked "Are you ready to get off?" and went "No. I'm having fun." :rofl: He's still scared of getting on, but once he is on, he has a blast!


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

ChieTheRider said:


> It took me a while when i was first riding to tell my grandma's two chestnut mares apart (they were full sisters and did look quite similar to 10yo me). Now, it almost baffles me that non horsey people struggle to tell a bay and a chestnut apart.


When I first started lessoning at 9 years old, the owner of the stable pastured horses together based off of color, running on the belief that similar colored horses get along with each other better. Imagine the confusion of 4 chestnuts in one pasture and 5 bays in the next! The photo below is of two of their geldings that I both rode very often. Same height, same color, same markings, same breed, same age. I can still tell which is which after 8 years of not seeing them. Somewhere in the depths of my photos I also have a picture of four bay OTTB mares lined up and looking at the camera.

To make it even more confusing, the owner would also constantly be selling horses and buying new ones and integrating them into their corresponding color herd. Five bays last week, five bays this week, but one of them isn't quite right...


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## ChieTheRider (May 3, 2017)

@Aprilswissmiss wow, I've never seen two horses look so alike. I'd have to spend a lot of time with them to even try to tell them apart!


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

Aprilswissmiss said:


> When I first started lessoning at 9 years old, the owner of the stable pastured horses together based off of color, running on the belief that similar colored horses get along with each other better. Imagine the confusion of 4 chestnuts in one pasture and 5 bays in the next! The photo below is of two of their geldings that I both rode very often. Same height, same color, same markings, same breed, same age. I can still tell which is which after 8 years of not seeing them. Somewhere in the depths of my photos I also have a picture of four bay OTTB mares lined up and looking at the camera.
> 
> To make it even more confusing, the owner would also constantly be selling horses and buying new ones and integrating them into their corresponding color herd. Five bays last week, five bays this week, but one of them isn't quite right...


I think that's adorable! Can imagine the confusion when she instructs someone to fetch the "bay gelding" :rofl:


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## Jolien (Aug 19, 2019)

Disclaimer: I always loved animals and already had a lot of basic knowledge about horses, but still... 



Me when I started riding 5 months ago: How do I have to brush a horse??, looking up instruction videos to see what kind of brushes you needed to use and how to use them. Also me: looking up how to pick hooves and reading books about basic horse care. holding a halstering thing and looking blankly at it, I did not get how I should convince a horse to put a bit in it's mouth. 

My family after 3 riding lessons: "show us what you can do." Erm... that would be going left, right, forward and backward? Also me: trying to mount with the wrong foot in the stirrup and having laugh attacks when my horse rythmically farts while trotting.  Almost everybody asking me: do you want to jump and do shows? when I couldn't even canter, lol. 



Me 5 months later: still don't know how to put on some things with a lot of straps and a bit attached to it. Still laughing really hard when my horse trips because he is too lazy to lift his feet or when he farts. Also I recently discovered you had to clean the gelding boy parts... I really never ever heard of this before and when I saw it on video I was grossed out...


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## mslady254 (May 21, 2013)

When I was still very much a newbie, and taking lessons at a place with 2 barns, I went to the smaller barn down the hill to get my lesson horse, a mare. I got 'her' out of the stall and began the walk up the hill to the main barn. Man, was she extra fiesty.....jigging and high headed. My very, very non-horsey sister was with me and she did ask me wasn't my horse a girl?, but then didn't say anything else all the way up the hill to the arena. Lace continued to be full of energy, I had to let 'her' prance around me in a circle several times and when we got to the grooming area of the lesson barn, I was met with shocked looks from everyone. I had brought up a Stallion. Not just a Gelding, a Stallion. Unknown to me, they had put HIM in her stall...I never did find out why. Heck, he was a Bay and I didn't look ummmmm, at the underneath part of the horse, I just looked at his head and a general overall look and I got the horse in my mare's stall....my sister had caught a glimpse of his evidence of being a boy , but then felt like I knew what I was doing and she didn't say anything else and I was so busy dealing with a feisty horse that I didn't look HIM over good enough to see my error. Learned my lesson to not assume what horse is in which stall. The farm owner stopped me from taking him back down to the small barn, insisting on doing it himself. LOL, I was a bit insulted that he didn't seem to think I should do it.


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## Squeaky McMurdo (Sep 19, 2017)

I had a self proclaimed “horsewoman” start screaming at my then 10 year old daughter for riding a foal...Quigley is a stocky Welsh pony that was 12 at the time. And now my daughter has lost all confidence to ride because of that woman.

I don’t know why all my pictures are upside down or sideways lately


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

By the way... Here's a photo of my boyfriend on April/any horse for the second time ever. He could probably do better with a bigger horse but I don't think 20 minutes of walking is going to hurt her any. She is such a patient babysitter!


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## george the mule (Dec 7, 2014)

Acadianartist said:


> Another day, the roads were very icy and I was gently pumping the brakes as I was driving along the highway. Drivers in cold places know what I'm talking about. My daughter asked why I was doing half-halts to the car... :rofl::rofl::rofl:


AA; "Half-Halts"! I love it!

When out on the trail with George, I frequently am asked: "Is that a (gasp) Donkey you're riding???" "Close enough, but really he's just a half-assed horse"


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

SueC said:


> I once witnessed a non-horsey person saying to their kid, as they were driving past a field with a horse and a pony in it, "Oh look, it's a horse and its foal!" :rofl:


Almost every non horsey person that I know calls foals ponies.


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

My son grew up around horses, and loves them, but he isn't a rider or a horse person. He is a dog person. He tells my horses to heel when he leads them, and stay when he walks away.


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

Used to keep my little brown Morgan mare in a field with a tall flashy sorrel overo paint. My neighbor asked me, is yours the black horse or the brown horse? 

That threw me for a minute.


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

LoriF said:


> Almost every non horsey person that I know calls foals ponies.



When my mare had a foal lots of random people would stop by to look because he was visible from the road and every non-horse person I met called him a pony! The thought that always went through my head was "He better be a horse!" I'm too big for a pony! Never fear, he ended up 16.1h, 1300lbs!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

So this is recycled, but for those who've not heard it yet: When you talk about taking a bridle off a horse in German, the expression for that is "das Gebiss herausnehmen" - to take out the "Gebiss" - a word simultaneously meaning "set of teeth / dentures / bit" and this can give rise to confusion amongst beginner riders who haven't heard that expression relating to a horse bit before.







So there was an anecdote I heard where a little girl, after a beginner lesson, was asked to take out the pony's "Gebiss" and she emerged from the stable after five minutes of confused paralysis timidly inquiring if anyone had pliers she could borrow...


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

SueC said:


> So this is recycled, but for those who've not heard it yet: When you talk about taking a bridle off a horse in German, the expression for that is "das Gebiss herausnehmen" - to take out the "Gebiss" - a word simultaneously meaning "set of teeth / dentures / bit" and this can give rise to confusion amongst beginner riders who haven't heard that expression relating to a horse bit before.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh no! I can't imagine what must have been running through that poor child's mind!


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

SueC said:


> So this is recycled, but for those who've not heard it yet: When you talk about taking a bridle off a horse in German, the expression for that is "das Gebiss herausnehmen" - to take out the "Gebiss" - a word simultaneously meaning "set of teeth / dentures / bit" and this can give rise to confusion amongst beginner riders who haven't heard that expression relating to a horse bit before.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


,

This reminds me of a story that my mother told me. 

When she was a kid, she worked for this woman babysitting her 2 year old little boy. The woman would also give her odd jobs to do around the house to keep her busy. One day the woman asked her if she would water the beds outside when she had time. So, my little girl mom went out there to water the beds and she couldn't figure out what the woman was talking about. The only thing out there that even remotely looked like a bed were the outdoor chaise loungers. She just shrugged wondering why she would want them watered but she watered them anyway.


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

Another thing your post reminded me of, @SueC

When I was a student at the stable that kept same-colored horses together, the owner hired a new trainer - she was German. She spoke English, but it was obvious it wasn't her first language. It just so happened that we had two new working students come in the same day the German trainer started. The owner asked the German trainer to give the working students things to do. The German trainer interpreted that as "This is their job now, put them to work." She ordered them around the whole day to muck stalls, clean water buckets, pick paddocks, and they were never given the chance to ride. When the owner returned at the end of the day to discover the new students had left without saying goodbye, she asked the trainer what went wrong. She said "I don't know, I put them to work like you told me to do and then they just left." The owner said "I _meant_ ask them to clean some tack or something and then let them ride! Not to make them work so hard they get up and leave!" The trainer just shrugged and said "They weren't cut out for the work anyway." Needless to say the two girls never came back :rofl:


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## Finalcanter (Apr 15, 2013)

People when they hear I ride horses they either think I jump Olympic sized fences or race at the track. Haha I can only wish. Though it warms my heart when they're so amazed at me jumping teeny cross rails or verticals!

Also back when I was 'horsey' but had no experience with them...I never knew how to position my stirrups correctly (they were always twisted) and thought 'half pad' and 'wither pad' were interchangeable terms. I also had no idea what quarter-sheets were, and thought they were just used to show off because they were pretty (the yellow,red and black rambo ones). So I sewed my own one day and used it on a school horse, and it got destroyed that same day but my trainer found it endearing. I think I'll forever be embarrassed about that, but not sure if anyone remembers which is good, lol!


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## AnnaB264 (Jan 2, 2011)

LOL, reminds me of my SO... I walked into the kitchen to find him having peeled, cored, and neatly sliced a bunch of apples for the horses, because, "I didn't know if they'd like the skin or the seeds".


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## farrieremily (Jul 8, 2018)

SueC said:


> So this is recycled, but for those who've not heard it yet: When you talk about taking a bridle off a horse in German, the expression for that is "das Gebiss herausnehmen" - to take out the "Gebiss" - a word simultaneously meaning "set of teeth / dentures / bit" and this can give rise to confusion amongst beginner riders who haven't heard that expression relating to a horse bit before.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



When my son had just turned five we were hanging out at the barn waiting for the horse dentist. 

My son didn’t really say anything about it until we’d been there a while and he asked what we were Really doing. 

We finally realized he was imagining a horse that was a dentist and thought we were joking around or trying to fool him. 

The dentist got a laugh, my son learned about equine dentistry and he got a huge molar to bring home from the dentist’s box.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Aprilswissmiss said:


> Another thing your post reminded me of, @SueC
> 
> When I was a student at the stable that kept same-colored horses together, the owner hired a new trainer - she was German. She spoke English, but it was obvious it wasn't her first language. It just so happened that we had two new working students come in the same day the German trainer started. The owner asked the German trainer to give the working students things to do. The German trainer interpreted that as "This is their job now, put them to work." She ordered them around the whole day to muck stalls, clean water buckets, pick paddocks, and they were never given the chance to ride. When the owner returned at the end of the day to discover the new students had left without saying goodbye, she asked the trainer what went wrong. She said "I don't know, I put them to work like you told me to do and then they just left." The owner said "I _meant_ ask them to clean some tack or something and then let them ride! Not to make them work so hard they get up and leave!" The trainer just shrugged and said "They weren't cut out for the work anyway." Needless to say the two girls never came back :rofl:


Dear @Aprilswissmiss, last night we had guests over for dinner and one of them brought dessert wine, and kept filling up people's glasses with it - especially the glasses of people who didn't object. So my husband got slightly tipsy. At bedtime, I read him your story about the German trainer and the students, and he laughed so much he couldn't talk for over three minutes. :rofl: I kept saying to him, "I know it's funny, but have I missed something?" while he kept snorting and turning beet red in the face with hilarity. :blueunicorn: I thought he was going to asphyxiate. :Angel:

...possible it's cultural. He is very English, and I'm part-German, part-Italian, genetically and also culturally. :Angel:


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## RegalCharm (Jul 24, 2008)

SueC said:


> I thought he was going to asphyxiate. :Angel:
> :


So is that when you thought to yourself you should remove the pillow from his face? :rofl::rofl:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Bwahahahaha, @RegalCharm! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

But if I choked him, who would do the dishes? :Angel:


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

SueC said:


> Dear @Aprilswissmiss, last night we had guests over for dinner and one of them brought dessert wine, and kept filling up people's glasses with it - especially the glasses of people who didn't object. So my husband got slightly tipsy. At bedtime, I read him your story about the German trainer and the students, and he laughed so much he couldn't talk for over three minutes. :rofl: I kept saying to him, "I know it's funny, but have I missed something?" while he kept snorting and turning beet red in the face with hilarity. :blueunicorn: I thought he was going to asphyxiate. :Angel:
> 
> ...possible it's cultural. He is very English, and I'm part-German, part-Italian, genetically and also culturally. :Angel:


This made my day! I'm glad I made someone half way across the world laugh so much! And @RegalCharm's comment just made it even better :rofl:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

The Internet does really have its up sides, for all that it's generally like a sewer - this forum is a real contrast to the general swamp of Internetness! 

Laughing across the globe, emotional support in difficult situations, practical tips, technical advice, wonderful photographs, great stories, cultural exchange, general camaraderie, etc. :thumbsup:


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

@SueC - you forgot the vicarious rides!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Usually I think my "etc" at the end of a long, open-ended list gets me out of the soup there, @Change! ;-)

But you're absolutely correct, this was an omission that simply needed to be addressed! 

:charge: :charge: :charge: :charge: :charge:

The above is a graphic approximation of a vicarious group ride.


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## RegalCharm (Jul 24, 2008)

SueC said:


> Bwahahahaha, @RegalCharm! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
> 
> But if I choked him, who would do the dishes? :Angel:


The new maid you could hire so you would have more time with the critters.



Aprilswissmiss said:


> This made my day! I'm glad I made someone half way across the world laugh so much! And @RegalCharm's comment just made it even better :rofl:


It was to tempting not to say that. The devil made me do it. LOL


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

This happened yesterday and immediately made me think of this thread, although I suppose it's less of a "non-horsey" person thing and more of a "this person doesn't spend hours outside when it's cold" thing.

Since we both had the day off I dragged my SO to the barn with me. It was 25 degrees F when we were heading out and sprinkling snow. I knew the temp would drop as the sun started to set, and it's always a little bit colder at the barn because they're tucked back in the hills where the sun gets blocked out even earlier. I don't own any fancy weather wear but I make some old layers work. I have fleece-lined tights, some old fleece leggings, and a cheap pair of thermal bottoms I can layer under jeans, and I'll use a cheap thermal top, T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt and then sweatshirt layered under my wool coat, with hand-knit wool socks pulled over some knee-high boot socks on my feet.

I realized as we were dressing and he started to just pull a sweater on over his T-shirt before coat, that he 1. Didn't have a concept of how cold 25 degrees was going to feel after standing in it for a while and 2. Didn't own any layers for the bottom half of his body, aside from regular pants and doubling up on socks.

These below are a pair of my fuzzy penguin pajama bottoms he's about to put jeans on over :rofl: It was the only thing I owned that would fit him. He said it worked though, which I suppose is all that matters. I kindly scribbled his face out because I don't think he'd appreciate his face out there on the internets in lady's fuzzy pajamas. :lol:


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## knightrider (Jun 27, 2014)

@CopperLove, I laughed so hard when I saw that! Thanks for the fun! I laughed at @RegalCharm's and @SueC's also. This is so great.


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

@CopperLove, I have the same. Exact. Problem. With my boyfriend. I can't count the number of times I've said "THAT'S what you're wearing? Where is your jacket?" and he says "I'm just fine in a sweatshirt." Then after 20 minutes at the stable, he goes and sits in the car to warm up. He doesn't say anything because I've made it very clear either you can bundle up or you can complain about the cold, but you can't do both. You'd think he would have learned by now...


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

@Aprilswissmiss He didn't get a choice, I prettymuch dressed him myself :rofl: I was like... "Take that sweater off. Put this long-sleeved shirt on. Now put the sweater back on. See if these pajamas fit. Now put your pants on over. Try the short socks over your long socks and see if they stay up." When he was finished I had to reach up the legs of his pants and pull the bunched-up legs of the pajamas down so they fit right under the pants. :lol:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@CopperLove, I think your SO looks really cute in those pyjamas!  And I don't know why grown men aren't allowed by the fashion police or the masculinity rules or whatever to be wearing cute things like this.

I well remember the first expedition Brett and I did to Tasmania in our early days, to go walking. When we got to Cradle Mountain we found our thermal pants weren't warm enough in the snow, so we put pyjama pants on under them! Kept us warm, but we bought heavier thermal pants after this:











@Aprilswissmiss, men's Y-chromosomes seem to have the side-effect of making some things difficult for them to learn. :Angel:


Quote:
Originally Posted by *SueC* View Post 
_Bwahahahaha, @*RegalCharm* !























But if I choked him, who would do the dishes? :Angel:_



RegalCharm said:


> The newmaid you could hire so you would have more time with the critters.





You will need to explain this to me slowly, @RegalCharm! :Angel: ...murdering my husband will allow me to hire a maid?

Mmmm. I kind of prefer my husband. I don't have to hire him, and he's far superior to a maid. inkunicorn::blueunicorn: He's also my favourite critter of them all to spend time with.  :happydance:


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

SueC said:


> @CopperLove, I think your SO looks really cute in those pyjamas!  And I don't know why grown men aren't allowed by the fashion police or the masculinity rules or whatever to be wearing cute things like this.
> 
> @Aprilswissmiss, men's Y-chromosomes seem to have the side-effect of making some things difficult for them to learn. :Angel:


My boyfriend obviously missed whatever masculinity memo that is, because his clothing of choice is red and black polar bear pajama pants. He wears that to all of his classes, AND his scheduled meetings with professors. I bet you he would wear them to work, too, if there wasn't a dress code. Nobody has complained so far :icon_rolleyes:

I believe that 100%! I actually just finished a conversation with him about the importance of (of all things) eating food. I was giving him a hard time for never eating breakfast and never packing a lunch. He said "I don't get hungry, either I feel fine or my stomach feels funny, so then I don't eat." You should have seen the :idea: go off in his head when I said "That funny feeling is HUNGER!" :| He has absolutely zero common sense, but enough scientific intelligence to share between ten people.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

AnnaB264 said:


> LOL, reminds me of my SO... I walked into the kitchen to find him having peeled, cored, and neatly sliced a bunch of apples for the horses, because, "I didn't know if they'd like the skin or the seeds".


:rofl: :rofl: 

This is such cute story! He sounds like a keeper!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

That sounds like a really cool outfit, @Aprilswissmiss, any chance of a photo? With or without head? :Angel:

...highly hilarious anecdote re food and the importance of eating. Yesterday I got my husband to actually admit he was acting contrary to all logic. I've noticed for a while that he won't use the hand towel in our bathroom to dry his face after brushing his teeth, he always uses his shower towel, and he gets really upset if I hang his towel on the line to dry before he's brushed his teeth at night. "I'm still using it!" - "Can't you use the hand towel?" - "No!!!!!" - "Why not?" ...grim silence. :evil: ...and he never would answer that question, and start sulking if I persisted.

So I asked him last night if he was willing to discuss the logic of something strange I noticed him doing - not using the hand towel for drying his face. I said, "We both scrub our hands really well, so that towel only has contact with really clean hands. So what's the problem with it?" - "It's a hand towel." - "But you dry your hands, and everything else, on your shower towel. If you're worried about bacterial contamination, that's much more likely on a shower towel, which might transfer small amounts of faecal bacteria to your mouth, depending how well you wash your undercarriage, and what technique you use to dry it." - "Well, but it's _my_ towel!" - "Are you worried about contaminating yourself from a towel that I use to dry my clean, washed hands on?" - "Harumph." - "Well, hahaha, you don't seem to have any issues contaminating yourself with me directly!" :rofl: - "Harumph!" - "OK then, are you actually admitting that you do something that isn't actually logical?" - "I suppose this is true. ...but I'm not changing it!" :rofl:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

@SueC the hand towel has your cooties on it :rofl:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

I had to look up "cooties" just then, @AnitaAnne! 

...I've never had such a thing, and how on earth would someone who did have these things transfer them to a hand towel? Is this someone with fur over the backs of their hands, to grow cooties on? ...any other method of cootie transfer from any other body parts seems impossible if you wash your hands correctly and only use the hand towel for hands and face. Unless you mean _scalp_ cooties? Nope, not had those either. And anyway, the best way to transfer any kind of cootie is by intimate body contact, which for some reason my husband is not worried about in any way, shape or form. (Do you think that's because the male cerebrum turns off completely during intimate body contact? :Angel

PS: If anyone here has cooties, a dose of Equimec ought to fix it - just use the dose for your weight. ;-)


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## knightrider (Jun 27, 2014)

Here is another dictionary definition of cooties, a slang term used in the US

a children's term for an imaginary germ or repellent quality transmitted by obnoxious or slovenly people.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Ooooh, thank you, @knightrider, that makes a lot more sense!  I was just getting definitions mentioning pubic lice etc. :dance-smiley05:


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

@SueC Oh my, I had a very similar conversation about towels with my partner but in front of 3 of my female friends we were rooming with traveling to a festival. I forget what actually started it but I said something like, "Ew no we don't share towels, they have body germs on them!"

One of my friends looked at me. Looked at him. Looked back at me. Then said:

"You mean, you don't share germs anyway?"

Instead of being his usual mortified, anxious self, he just smirked. And I had to admit... fine fine, you're right, I'm being silly.

I will share a towel occasionally if we're running low on laundry but I do much prefer my own, and I also never dry my face on the hand towel :lol:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Well, if it's used by people other than your intimate partner, or if neither of you wash your hands really well, then that makes sense. However, in our case... 

It's funny though. Kissing an intimate partner is not a problem - it's very nice, actually. But if their saliva was presented in any other way, you'd gag, right? :rofl:


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

SueC said:


> That sounds like a really cool outfit, @Aprilswissmiss, any chance of a photo? With or without head? :Angel:


I actually have multiple, he wears them so often! First is one I took when he was (as usual) asleep in my car. We carpool to and from the university together and switch off cars each time, and he _always_ falls asleep while I'm driving. Side story: we got lost in New York City once on my way to see family when my GPS lost signal. For the life of me, I was completely unable to wake him up next to me so he could help me. I didn't want to open my phone while driving, so I eventually figured out my way back onto the highway while he slept soundly amidst all the city noise!

Second is one I took while he was on his way to a meeting with his academic advisor :rofl:


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## RegalCharm (Jul 24, 2008)

SueC said:


> (Do you think that's because the male cerebrum turns off completely during intimate body contact?


Well it doesn't turn off completely. actually it is starved for oxygen because of decreased blood flow and volume due to the lower secondary brain requiring the extra flow and volume in order to function properly.


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## RegalCharm (Jul 24, 2008)

SueC said:


> You will need to explain this to me slowly, @RegalCharm! :Angel: ...murdering my husband will allow me to hire a maid?:


murder!!! who said murder. he had a little to much to drink and passed out face down on the pillow. Wives don't murder their husbands/ BF"s It was an accident, I was cleaning my gun and it went off. And I didn't know he castrated himself when he fell with the broken beer bottle before he passed out on the bed. I called for the ambulance as soon as I realized he was not breathing. 

And who said the maid had to be female.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Uggggh, @RegalCharm. They really can't compete. Not my types at all.



But I gave you a point for the old secondary brain! ;-)


Your SO really has style, @Aprilswissmiss. Not a sheep, definitely. :clap:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Aprilswissmiss said:


> I actually have multiple, he wears them so often! First is one I took when he was (as usual) asleep in my car. We carpool to and from the university together and switch off cars each time, and he _always_ falls asleep while I'm driving. Side story: we got lost in New York City once on my way to see family when my GPS lost signal. For the life of me, I was completely unable to wake him up next to me so he could help me. I didn't want to open my phone while driving, so I eventually figured out my way back onto the highway while he slept soundly amidst all the city noise!


That is such a funny story! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

A clear conscience, or chronic sleep deprivation?


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## Hondo (Sep 29, 2014)

https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/narcolepsy#1


PS: Yall making me feel so dirty and unhygienic.


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

SueC said:


> A clear conscience, or chronic sleep deprivation?


Chronic sleep deprivation, most likely. He has had night terrors for years. For those who might be unfamiliar, they're essentially nightmares but feel very, very real and will sometimes (or in my boyfriend's case, always) follow them into the waking world. So after my boyfriend wakes up, he hallucinates that what was in his nightmare is now in real life. They used to be every night, now they're just a couple times a week. He's been to week-long sleep studies multiple times and no doctor has an answer for him yet.

On top of that, he's kept up a very busy maximum-credit-hours education while working a part time job. He's not very easy on himself!


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

RegalCharm said:


> murder!!! who said murder. he had a little to much to drink and passed out face down on the pillow. Wives don't murder their husbands/ BF"s It was an accident, I was cleaning my gun and it went off. And I didn't know he castrated himself when he fell with the broken beer bottle before he passed out on the bed. I called for the ambulance as soon as I realized he was not breathing.
> 
> And who said the maid had to be female.


EYE CANDY! Is that a boxer puppy in the middle? :rofl: 

We have once again, digressed completely from the subject :rofl:


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

AnitaAnne said:


> We have once again, digressed completely from the subject :rofl:


_Technically,_ everyone's still talking about non-horsey people (just indirectly), right? So it still works :rofl:


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

@RegalCharm - There's dogs in the picture? I'll zoom in and have a good look! :wink::rofl:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

AnitaAnne said:


> We have once again, digressed completely from the subject :rofl:


Really? :Angel:

I no longer seem to notice....

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:




Aprilswissmiss said:


> _Technically,_ everyone's still talking about non-horsey people (just indirectly), right? So it still works :rofl:


Yes, I like the reasoning! 

Besides, what could be more fun than a good tangent?


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

SueC said:


> Really? :Angel:
> 
> I no longer seem to notice....
> 
> :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


It is hard to stay on subject isn't it? :dance-smiley05: I'm going to blame age for why I can't remember


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

People call my little palomino mare "the brown one" :confused_color:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

I'll try a vague return to the subject with a joke.

There's this back-country free-for-all race, and one year this guy enters an unraced 8-year-old horse, which astonishes everyone assembled by winning the race by 100m. After the race, a (non-horsey :Angel person asks the owner of the horse, "Why didn't you race him before this?" To which the owner replies, "Well, I just couldn't catch him..." 

:runpony:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

SueC said:


> I'll try a vague return to the subject with a joke.
> 
> There's this back-country free-for-all race, and one year this guy enters an unraced 8-year-old horse, which astonishes everyone assembled by winning the race by 100m. After the race, a (non-horsey :Angel person asks the owner of the horse, "Why didn't you race him before this?" To which the owner replies, "Well, I just couldn't catch him..."
> 
> :runpony:


*palm to face* 

:racing:


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## Poppygirl (Apr 29, 2012)

*B4 Horsey*

I did get a chuckle but thought I would share a funny about myself before I was "horsey". I turned 50 and decided I wanted a horse (really had not been around them at all). I ran into a guy by our property and he was herding cows up our road. I said to him "I want a horse...where do I start? What do I look for"? He replied...what are you wanting? Me..."a tan one with a black mane". Need I say more?


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## blue eyed pony (Jun 20, 2011)

My fiance is not very horsey. He rode a little bit as a kid, but the funniest things utterly mystify him.

I was very impressed that I didn't have to teach him not to loop a lead around his hand! And he figured out rope halters very quickly. But he is still confused by the thought of blanketing (I have to throw the blanket over the horse for him and then he can figure out the straps!).

He knows the difference between an English, Western, and Aussie stock saddle, and I recently introduced him to the idea of a halfbreed (a cross between a stock and a Western). Yet if I mention a horse's frogs, he gets this expression on his face: :|

And just today we discussed ponying, and he googled it. Needless to say he was quite alarmed by some of the pictures he saw, which had nothing at all to do with real horses and an awful lot to do with some very NSFW activities :lol:


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

I was reminded of this thread this morning, particularly of @SueC's earlier comment with the hand towel and defying logic.

My boyfriend's (big) family has recently let me live with them so that we can both save money on housing, which is absolutely amazing. There's one thing in particular that drives me absolutely crazy, though. They have a traditional suburb house/property, and we all park on the curb directly in front of the house. They have a front door that leads directly out to this curb. For some reason, however, they _insist_ on leaving through the garage door, which is off to the side of the house. What I do is: go down the stairs, through the door, lock the door behind me, and my car is right there. What _they_ do is: go down the stairs, across the whole first story of the house, through the house-to-mud-room door, through the mud-room-to-garage door, lock the door behind them, press a fancy button that opens the whole huge garage door, walk through the garage maze, step out, press another fancy button that shuts the whole huge garage door, and then walk _all the way around_ the house to get to the curb. I mean, they don't even keep their cars in their garage because it's a maze of unused furniture!!

I ask them. Every. Day. "Why do you do that?? The other way is so much easier, faster, and convenient!" And they say, "Eh, we've always done it this way." I'm the only one in the whole house that uses the front door :confused_color:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

So I bet you're feeling like you're an alien visiting another planet in that respect, @Aprilswissmiss! 

That's what happens when people develop habits, and don't revise the logic or otherwise of their habits on a regular basis. Sometimes the logic is OK for a situation in the beginning, but then the situation changes - yet people continue to perform the usual procedure, because it has become a habit and it's on autopilot.

Sometimes the logic is flawed from the outset, such as relatives of mine who collected used toilet paper for years to burn it in their wood fireplace, winter and summer, in its toxic plastic bag and all... :shock:


This is an excellent book: https://www.charlesduhigg.com/the-power-of-habit/


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

SueC said:


> So I bet you're feeling like you're an alien visiting another planet in that respect, @Aprilswissmiss!
> 
> That's what happens when people develop habits, and don't revise the logic or otherwise of their habits on a regular basis. Sometimes the logic is OK for a situation in the beginning, but then the situation changes - yet people continue to perform the usual procedure, because it has become a habit and it's on autopilot.
> 
> ...


In the beginning, I caught multiple glances from them looking at _me_ like I was an alien with three heads!

The toilet paper thing is just... :-?


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

When I got to work this morning, I still had hay on my pants legs. I brushed if off then emptied my coat pockets of the hay that always manages to climb in there while I'm feeding. Then I had to grin - I wonder what housekeeping thinks about the daily dose of hay on the floor and in the trashcan!


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## Aprilswissmiss (May 12, 2019)

@Change - My college has such a large population of equine and large animal majors that no one ever questions the kid with hay in their hair, sheep poop on their pants, or knee-high muck boots... Most everyone goes to class like this, too. In fact, the first time I visited the school, more than half of the students who were there as greeters (at what was considered a formal event!) were there in riding boots. That's when I knew this is the school I had to go to!


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

Yeah - but I'm an engineer at a major defense industry company. I'd have loved your college, though.


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## dustywyatt (Aug 19, 2019)

I love this thread! Especially after it went off-topic. :biggrin:


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## mslady254 (May 21, 2013)

This should really go under 'Horsey people'....but I was waiting in line at the post office recently and a woman a couple of people in front of me stomped her foot a few times and for a split second, I wondered if flies were bothering her. LOL !!


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