you accidentally touch it and it sits you on your butt!
I used to have an old quarter horse/morgan gelding who would walk thorough any electric fence that you could put up. Most days he was fine. Then, once or twice a month, he would decide that the grass was greener and more delicious on the other side of the fence - namely my parent's front lawn. He would walk through the electric fence, little puffs of smoke coming off his chest and leaving little bare spots. I went through three electric fencers before I found one that would make him think twice. It was a 20 acre steer fencer on 2 1/2 acres of pasture. He would still go through it - but only about once every other month. I miss that old man. He was the sweetest horse.
When I first got him, he was adopted through a VT horse adoption group. I went 2 hours north with my three girls -then ages 5, 7 and 9 - and met Shiloh and Chris, the lady who ran the adoption group. Shiloh was a horse who was being re-homed because the husband didn't want the wife to keep him any more. (I know for sure I got the best part of that argument!) He was a horse that was raised alone, without any horses. He would lap up water like a dog. He was afraid of men. AND he would eat ALL the shavings in his stall. He wasn't young, either. When I got him he was in his mid 20's.
This was the best first horse in the world. He loved the girls and was so gentle and careful around them. Nothing would faze him. Not loud horns, sirens, screaming, nothing! The girls learned to ride on him. He did best in just a regular halter with a couple of lead ropes... he was as round as a barrel... was kinda like riding on a comfy couch. When he decided that he had enough, he would drop his head to eat and no amount of convincing, pulling or encouragement would make him lift his head from the grass.
We taught each other a lot. I taught him that all men aren't scary. It took hundreds of carrots and tons of patience on my husband's part, but Shiloh came to like men. Especially men with carrots. I learned many ways to keep a stall clean and dry in the winter. I would mix peat moss and shavings - a little heavier on the peat moss. It got to the point that I could mix it half and half. I don't know that we ever got to the point that I could used just straight shavings. He would make a regular diet of them if you left the bag out where he could reach it. He taught me what true, unselfish love was. The mother of three small children, two part-time jobs and a busy husband, he was my shoulder to cry on, someone I could tell anything to and he would just nuzzle me and nicker and understand that sometimes you don't need answers. You just need a furry, warm shoulder to snuggle in to. I just got a new book. I haven't read it all, but the title captured me - "Sometimes a woman just needs a horse." I absolutely couldn't agree more!
I had Shiloh for about 7 years. He was almost 32 when we gently laid him to rest in the pasture. The vet came out because he was collecting liquid in a pouch between his front legs and she told me he was in the last stages of congestive heart failure. So, within a couple of days, all the arrangements were made. Aba shares the resting place with him - in his favorite sleeping spot in the pasture. I miss those two horses so much some days that my heart hurts.
Anyway, that's why the fence set me on my butt today. Thanks to Shiloh, I very, very (knocking on wood here) rarely ever have to worry about the horses - even the little pony - getting out of my fence. Or anyone else getting IN!
:)
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