Silly but sweet things you do to/with your horse......

[Tanyanoel]

Every morning I (and the other barn gals) always seem to giggle at each other and the sweet but silly things we each do to our horses. All of the praise, cuddles and such.

Every day after I ride I give my guy cookies, tell him how proud I am of him and how only the fanciest of horses get these cookies! Then we walk out of the cross ties and I tug his ear the whole way to the stall, I am a big ear tugger and he seems to love it. The girls laugh at this cause he'll just lower his head so I can get a hold of that ear and I take a hold and gently tug and rub his ear as we walk. When he's in the cross ties I have been know to grab (gently) both ears and play with them and he thinks that is just hilarious (as do my barn mates).

Ok, I gotta own up, I also toss my little (clean) tack towel up in the air so it lands on his nose (he is fearless) and then he tosses it up and down with great delight and then tilts his head forward to drop it back into my hands. We have been know do do this routine many times in a row. He is hard to resist because he is such a clown.

What silly things do you guys do that are just all about you and your horse???

[DressageGeek "Ribbon Ho"]

I kiss his muzzle.

[MistyBlue]

I sing to mine...very off key and badly and in Italian most of the time. And mostly Dean Martin songs...but some other old traditional Italian children's songs too. My horses probably know all the words to Volare or Sott'er celo de Roma.

[Vesper Sparrow]

Depends on my mood, but I generally talk to both horses non-stop (and I'm not a talkative person normally). The other day, I was imitating a Mr. Bean accent when I was talking to my gelding and calling him Mr. Bird so that it came out sounding like Mr. Bean... I'm sure some of the other people in the barn think I am completely bonkers.

[SarahandSam]

Sam-scratches. I scratch his ears, his forehead, the top of his neck, and his butt cheeks, with a curry comb, at least. d; He loves his scratches...

I also do talk to him a lot. And periodically stop him as we're walking along, to hug him. 'Cause he's so darn cute.

[Mtn trails]

I pull on his nostrils. He doesn't mind and loves the attention. Also, a good friend had a horse named True Blue and we made up a little song to sing to him. He is/was such a wonderful horse no one could resist him.

[tikihorse2]

I talk baby talk to mine. "Who's Mother's boy? Who's Mother's boy horsie? Look at that cute little baby boy horsie!"

And I administer many kisses. :)

Kim

[Tobias]

I play with my horses tongue...if I touch his lips he will stick out his tongue and hold it there and I will grab it and pull on it gently, he likes it. my friends get a kick out of it. lol

[Carrera]

I talk to mine like they are people, but then again I also talk to the cat and the dog in the same manner. At least no one is here to see me do it!

[WorthTheWait95]

I talk to mine like they are people, but then again I also talk to the cat and the dog in the same manner. At least no one is here to see me do it!

Same here. I talk to my horses and dogs the same way I talk to my (human) friends! People will sometimes laugh when they hear me but it works for us and it seems to relax them (that or I'm really boring and am putting them to sleep but they tend to keep an ear trained on me so I hope not). I also tell them jokes and just random stories from the day.

[brummelhorsefarm]

I do this with most of my animals...

I start calling them these crazy muddled nicknames that periodically change.

My last horse's name was Pilot. I just sold him and his latest 'name' was 'Snick Latey'. Sometimes I would just squeal his name -- 'LATEY!'. I'm sure people thought I spoke a different language or something!

[Huntertwo]

After I dismount after a nice long trail ride I'll usually do the mutual grooming thing and scratch her withers for a few minutes as she
mutually nuzzles my back. :)

[twobays]

I talk to mine in a variety of funny voices/accents...its silly.

[lcw579]

I talk to mine like they are people, but then again I also talk to the cat and the dog in the same manner. At least no one is here to see me do it!

Me too. I also give lots of kisses and scratches and treats of all sorts. Nothing better than a "nicely spoiled" horse. :)

Back in the day my mother would always apply fresh lipstick after putting her horse up for the night and then give him a kiss right in the middle of his big white blaze. :lol:

[Tilly]

I talk to her. I give her hugs and kisses all the time. She gets lots of treats, and I tell her she's the cutest pony in the whole world. I sing to her sometimes, and I talk to her all the time when I'm riding.
What can I say? She's my best friend :yes:

[2hsmommy]

I rub his ears. It's his favorite thing in the world.
And I'm happy to do it :)

[bit-o-honey]

Besides all the chatting :D I had one TB gelding who loved to rip open the velcro on the sleeves of my winter jacket. It had a little tab that he would carefully grab, not the sleeve, just the tab, and then RIP.....it open. I would burst into giggles and refasten the velcro, oh, about 300 times. He never got bored and I'd have to chase him off. He thought he was getting away with something and I think he liked to hear me laugh!

[mvp]

Along with the standard "You guys should really get a room" behavior other posters have mentioned, I play along with my horse's idea of a joke.

He thinks it's way funny to bite and hold any part of his halter as I'm slipping it on. Over and over. I also likes it when I try to wiggle it out of his teeth. If he bites it and I don't play he lets go and sighs. So I buy him cheap halters and purposely play "good cop" before I become demanding "bad cop" under saddle.

[00Jumper]

Muzzle kisses, repeatedly treating her like she's done something worthy of a Nobel Prize . . . :rolleyes: I don't talk much, though. But she has a little snip on her nose that is just perfect for kisses! I also like to drum my fingers on her top lip and she wiggles her lips and tongue around trying to catch them. :D And of course, after we ride, I take her bridle off and she waits patiently for me to hold out my hands before rubbing her face up and down to get all the after-ride itches off. :) My trainer mildly disapproves.

[FatDinah]

I hold apples so my gelding can take bites. He will not eat whole apples nor will he eat cut-up ones. He also insists on this with the barn owner when she gives him apples.

[unbridledoaks]

I have a pony who loves pears. When he has a good day, I get him a pear, slice it up and feed it to him. He is just way too special :)

[Simbalism]

I talk to my mare( and my dog) like she is a person. I often call her Beauty or Beauty girl (she is a chestnut TB mare after all). Her barn name is Marty, but it is often morphed into other names like Mar-mars or Marts. When she is really itchy I rub her face with a towel or sometimes just hold my hands so she can scrub her face up and down with my finger nails itching her face. Can we say really spoiled??? hehe

[Anawazor]

I gave him my old helmet so he can demolish it.
(he always tried to steal it from me anyway, so when I bought the new one he got the old helmet)
On his angel days, he gets a few minutes in a small paddock to beat the crap out of my helmet.
We play fetch(ish).

That and he carries my jacket/sweater up from the large outdoor ring. It's very cute, just creates more laundry due to the dragging, dunking, saliva, etc. I think he likes having a job like that, so I make a big deal about how HEAVY that sweater is and I could never EVER survive without my strong horse to help me out.

[amdfarm]

Also one of those that talks to them like they're human, same goes for the dogs, cats, guinea pig and hamster. W/ some baby talk thrown in there, as well. (Baby talk used to drive my friend and old time breeder nuts, until he actually saw how well they respond to it.... there's a time and place and when nobody is around or it's just family and friends, I go all out. :D)

I'd rather talk to my animals more than people most days so it works for us. They are great listeners.

The aforementioned friend has a 4yo Percheron mare that is very, very sweet. After she's turned out after being in from eating, she'll wait until the other girls pass her and she'll come back and stand by the doorway so she can get her head hugged, petted and told how good she is and then she walks away. Granted, his wife and I are the only ones that give her what she wants. It's very cute and she's the only one that does it and she figured this out on her own. She's a great enabler and taught us well. She started doing it as a 2yo.

[Saidapal]

Every morning when I go out to feed my 3 I greet them with "good morning sunshines!" I love it when they greet me back. After they eat they all get kisses as I let them out of their stalls for the day. Always go off to work in a good mood after being with them, and always look forward to going home in the afternoon.

[twofatponies]

My older mare has a huge range of bizarre facial expressions she makes in the cross ties, particularly. My husband thinks it is hilarious (she is "his" horse now) and he puts his hands up against his head to make "ears" and then waves his head back and forth and rolls his eyes and tosses his head, and she imitates him. It's truly comical.

A couple of weeks ago he went into the tack room and left his gloves laying nearby. I put one of his gloves on each of her ears, to see if he'd notice. It was hilarious, because as she moved her ears around it looked like two hands were growing out of her head, with all the fingers sticking out.

She's so excessively expressive that we get a big kick out of making gentle fun of her like that.

She also loves to push things. I will sometimes stand her by a door - say the tack room door, and open it. She pushes it shut. I open it. She pushes it shut. She gets this really gleeful look, as if she's accomplishing something really important and praise-worthy.

[AppendixQHLover]

I talk to my boy all of the time. It is a good thing they don't talk back or he could tell my hubby all my secrets.

I give him kisses on his nose where the snip is.

I blow in his nose, and he blows back.

I rub his itchy place on the neck.

We go for walks together in the evening. He grazes, and I just watch him eat.

He plays with my hair when it is in the ponytail.

[islandrider]

All the above especially kissing his little snip. I tell my horse is the "prettiest boy" and the "most handsome horse" all the time. I sing to him. I scratch his ears with his favorite hairbrush, and scratch his tailbone-he goes into contortions. Sometimes we get into a "point and scratch" game where he will point to different places on his body that he wants me to scratch. Soon as I start in, he makes faces, arches his neck, sometimes nickers, then points to some other place. I also bring him a thermos of some kind of warm water, often leftover from my steamed veggies, to mix in with his bucket. He loves it! Comes running every time.

[JollyBadger]

Lots of muzzle-kisses and muzzle-raspberries for my gelding. He's one of those "cuddle" horses that likes to lower his neck and press his head gently against my chest and just close his eyes and stand there while I scratch his ears and neck.

He's also my "listening ear" on solo trail rides, whether I'm talking to him directly or just singing along (very out-of-tune) to the music playing on my iPod.

[the_other_mother]

I make up silly songs about them and give them silly nicknames.....which they respond to when called :D After their breakfast, while I clean stalls and they are out munching their hay, they always come up to the barn and stick their heads in cuz they know they will each get 2 cookies--they will not leave until they get their 2nd cookie, then they are on their way..... Before I got to bed, I do a barn check and I always give them each a carrot for a snack. My one boy, whose stall is closest to the house, always comes to the end of the fence closest to the house around 9 o'clock because he knows I will be coming out pretty soon and when he sees me coming, he "escorts" me up the fenceline to the barn to his carrot. One of my boys is a big 800 lb teddy bear, and loves to snuggle. He will stand with his head on my shoulder or nose to nose with me for ever if I let him. I love my boys!!:D

[Laurierace]

I'm not sure this really counts as sweet but it definitely is silly. I adopted a horse from a rescue 5 years ago. He really is perfect in every sense of the word but he gets very nervous when he is loaded in the trailer. He will load willingly but he stands there and shakes and sweats and looks miserable so I started acing him before loading. The relief was instantaneous, he loaded happily and stood like a rock munching on his hay. Over the years I lowered the dose more and more until the point where I knew there was no way it was an effective dose but it still seemed to make him relaxed and happy. That is when I figured out my horse is like a junkie, he doesn't even need the drug to get happy, he just needs to feel the needle stick! So he gets stuck with a needle connected to an empty syringe before we ship and everyone is happy!

[Vesper Sparrow]

My touchy-feely gelding has figured out that, since I am always kissing him on his pink muzzle, it is OK to "kiss" me back with a single lick. The other day I gave him a peppermint and he took it and then "kissed" me immediately.

My mare isn't very cuddly but when she is in the mood, she will accept a gentle forehead rub or a scritch on the neck. She likes it when we are standing and I wiggle my toe in the stirrup and she will reach back and touch my foot with her nose.

[veebug22]

Lots of kisses and telling them each how handsome/beautiful they are. My mare hugs me with her neck and rests her head on my shoulder, in my arms, etc.

My gelding isn't into hugs and all that, but for years now, while I'm putting his bridle on and adjusting things from the front to make sure they're even, he puts his nose between my, erm, boobs and nestles down in there, nuzzling back and forth. When he was younger, it was how I kept his head still, although I realize now how unsafe that practice could have been -- blocking him with my chest while fixing his bridle. (I know it could be dangerous and I could, uh, lose something, but he's never been a biter, and I doubt he'll start at 17.) Now I don't even notice or know how it progressed to being a habit, but he now expects to be allowed to put his nose there and nestle in, nuzzling around, and I don't even think about it. He just kind of moves his nose back and forth. He's such a boy.

[Mimi La Rue]

My moms Morgan (well he is my horse too) gives kisses. Everytime you go in his stall we give him a little rub and say "give me kisses" and he will take his lips and brush them against yours or just somewhere on your face if he has bad aim that day. This is how we greet him every day.

[Hunter Mom]

Emma gives me hugs. When I bend over to put on/take off her front boots she wraps her head around me and pulls it toward her neck. She also has a perfect white kissing spot on her nose.