Turn your butt around and I'll smack it for you

I swear my horse can understand human speech. Of course he chooses when he wants to understand you, but when it benefits him, he is quite willing to do what you say.

The other day...(Actually it was over a month ago, but I just now thought to write a post about it. I wanted to write something more upbeat than just going on and on about the flood.) Anyway, I was in the backyard feeding the chickens and I noticed Shadowfax, who was in the pasture just the other side of the fence, behaving a little strangely. He kept twisting his neck around and biting at his butt. I looked closer and there was this beetle (not a fly, a beetle, weird) that kept landing on his butt just where he couldn't reach it. Shadowfax is actually very flexible and there aren't many parts of his body that he can't reach, but the area just above the base of his tail is one of them. I walked up to the fence and said,"Turn your butt around and I'll smack it for you." I really didn't expect him to do what I said, but he did. He turned so that his butt was facing the fence.

I tried to reach over the fence to smack the bug, but it was just out of reach. So I said,"I can't reach it from here, I'm going to have to go out the gate" and turned to walk to the west garden gate. He turned and trotted over to gate, getting there before I could. (Of course, he probably saw me turn and walk toward the gate, so it's not too surprising that he knew to go to the gate, but still...) I opened the gate and stepped out into the pasture. The flying beetle was still hovering around Shadowfax's butt. I said,"Hold still, I'll get it". And even when the beetle landed and started crawling around on his butt, he didn't move. I smacked the bug, and he still didn't move even though I had just smacked his butt. I flicked the remains of the bug off of his butt, stepped back, and said,"All done. It's dead." He turned his head and whiffled at me. I rubbed his face and said,"You're welcome." then went back into the backyard since I was wearing my gardening clogs and don't hang around with the horses unless I'm wearing boots. He whiffled at me again, then wandered off to graze.

I love my horse.