people just can’t keep their hands off of things. I hate it when people mess with my dogs or my horses, especially the young ones. I have had some serious behavioral issues to deal with in young horses from people messing with them not knowing what they are doing. Everyone is a stinking expert.
I had some dorkwad stranger on the sidewalk grab my Staffordshire Terrier by her face one day and she bout ripped his freakin head off. I was laughing so hard. I said “ well, what did you think she would do?”
I had an extremely hot Arabian horse many years ago. He was very, very sweet, but also very, very spooky (and he enjoyed purposely stepping on human feet!). I never let anyone into his stall except his trainer and those who knew him well. I switched to a barn closer to me, left explicit instructions that no one was to enter his stall. One day I came out to find a complete stranger in the stall with him, crooning into his ear, feeding him apples and carrots. I gently removed her from the stall (she kept asking what right I had to do so), took her outside, and unloaded on her. Told her if I ever caught her near my horse again, I’d have her arrested. She was lucky she wasn’t hurt. She looked at me with ENORMOUS eyes and said, “But he was calling to me! I could feel him talking to me in my spirit!” Yep...animal rights activist. She was really lucky she wasn’t hurt. My horse was a sweetheart (he later was gentle enough to be a school horse for kids!), but at that time in his life, he was too hot for many people to handle. I still marvel.
Yup. When I was young in the early 80’s I worked on an Arabian horse farm. Hard but rewarding. The horse were very, expensive and I was told NEVER ride any of those belonging to the owner (one stallion was $100K+) I NEVER EVER did and respected that. Just being around them was good enough as they were beautiful.
Some of the horses being boarded was another story. I was supposed to exercise some of them. A few were owned by spoiled little rich girls and were difficult to manage unlike the owner’s horses that were well behaved. Most days...those girls would call ahead of arriving, want their horse tacked up and ready to ride. They’d run the crap out of those poor creatures until they were soaked with sweat and then....as you can guess....handed the fully tacked animal back to me and drive off. It was very, sad to see.
Almost any time one of those girls tried to catch their own horse it was impossible and I...the one who fed and groomed it....was only one who could catch it. Normally they’d trot, or canter, right up to me thinking MEALTIME!
Honestly? I’d feel as if I betrayed the poor thing doing so just to let it get ridden into the ground again. Of course, those little girls really thought they were the most amazing horsewomen around, but I know better.
The owner also asked I keep people from giving “treats” to any of the horses. Often parents would hand sugar cubes to their children to feed the horses. I was the “evil witch” who did not allow that. Not even apples were allowed from a stranger. Of course I understood why, but most folks have no clue.
The worst is people who walk up to a pregnant woman in the store or in church and put their hand on her bump. Ew! Disgusting and invasive.