Most Commented Animals Blogs (472)

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I have been a horse lover all my life. I feel an affinity and closeness with horses. Whenever I’m around them, I feel a sense of peace and calm, like I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I don’t have a horse myself, sad to say, but I love being around them.

Growing up, from age 10 to 18, I went to horse riding camp every year. The bunk house was built right off the barn! It was glorious! After everybody was asleep, I’d go in the barn and visit with the horses. This was a working farm, and we as campers, were the farm hands. We handled 50lb bags of horse feed, 65lb square bales of hay and we mucked out the stalls every day.

The horses of course, got fed before we did. There were horseback riding lessons as well. We mostly learned western, but were also taught bareback and how to guide with leg pressure. We also did some barrel racing. We did very little English Dressage and fence jumping. I wish we could have spent more time on that. I really enjoyed it. From sun up to sun down, we were working. It was exhausting, but the best time of my life. At the end of the week my clothes would be hanging off me as I would usually lose between 15 to 20lbs.

We were taught to respect a horse and get him to work with us, not use brute force to command him. We were taught to guide the horses with our legs. We were also taught that a horse’s mouth is sensitive and to exercise restraint in using the reins. Anyone seen unnecessarily pulling or jerking on the reins was severely reprimanded. We never used a whip or riding crop as our instructors didn’t believe in negative reinforcement.

Since I was usually the more skilled rider they gave me the “problem” horse. One year I got Goliath. He was huge and thought he could go wherever he pleased. I stopped that nonsense right away. The next year I got Widow Maker. He was a handful! When I was 18, and at my last year at camp, I got my favorite horse, her name was Lady. And she was anything but a lady. She was a beautiful black Quarter Horse. And I loved her at first sight when I saw her rearing up in the stall. She was a beauty. She had a bad habit of rearing up and bucking until the rider was on the ground. After a few demonstrations of her skill, nobody wanted to ride her.

One of the instructors turned to me and said, “She’s your horse for the week.” I was so excited I nearly screamed. I knew she was just misunderstood. She had developed bad habits because of inexperienced riders. I knew I could work with her and turn her around. As I walked her out to the practice ring, she tried to rear up, but I had a hold of the halter, pulled firmly, soothed her with my voice and patted her neck. I figured we had an understanding.

As I tried to mount up, I realized I was wrong. She began bucking and twisting trying to throw me off. I’m halfway on, but still hanging on. I finally get seated and she starts rearing up. My feet were seated heavy in the stirrups and I leaned forward toward her neck. She didn’t unseat me. She then tried to buck me off. I leaned back as far as I could without hitting her hindquarters. I remained seated. This display continues for about five minutes until she calmed. Her sides were heaving and she was a bit winded. I patted her neck and told her everything was alright now.

I thought, great, all that nonsense is behind me. I thought wrong. If I let my guard down or got lazy with my signals, Lady would try something. If I relaxed the reins too much, she’d unseat the bit by pushing it forward with her tongue. Then she had complete control of her head and would take off at a gallop. I’d lean forward to remain seated. I had to take a rein in each had and firmly pull down to properly seat the bit and gain control of her head. Then we would go back to our practice lessons.

For a long time, an abandoned old bicycle leant against the wall under our apartment building. Early this month, came an unkown small cat ( male, I checked ) who settled in this old bike as his cradle.

At first the cries of this little fellow inspired sympathy and love of some our neighbours. Then the first one offers him food every day. The second one gives him cooked fish sometimes, and the third one ( me ) have nothing to offer but spending time to rub and talk to him when I saw him as well as took some photos. Now he is familar with me and even follow me upstairs for severals times...

This kitten makes my day and I am crazy clicked more than hundred pics for him so far, here are the some of them ...
I sent him a strawberry .

Someone ran down and killed my imaginary dog, "Snatters". He was such a good dog too--never caused any trouble, easy to take care of. The bastard who hit him never even slowed down. People...

I tried very hard not to condemn people for their beliefs, and if I think they're bonkers but will try to keep my thoughts to myself . But today took my breath away.
Watching a programme this morning with a discussion between a farmer, his wife and a vegan. The farmer had posted a nice picture of his cow on a social media site with her calf triplets, apparently quite a rarity. All was well for 24 hours, then a group of vegans started trolling. This mornings discussion left me speechless with the vegan saying that farmers were committing rape on their cows when having them artificially inseminated, why because the cows had not given their permission.

On the 9th of January Moderator wrote a blog "Posting of political Blogs and Forums" in it he stated "So we've decided it would be best to concentrate on more positive categories for discussion, and to no longer allow posting of threads and blogs about Politics and Covid issues.
This is to let you know that, for now, we will be removing any that are posted."

The Moderator profile hasn't been online since and the direction of the blogs have actually taken a turn.

....to put defective huperson criminals, VERY criminal, to sleep, as we do with hopeless cases in other lower animals. As with the latter, using medications, humanely.
Not familiar with the case, except that he was found guilty of cruelly murdering a little girl and her ? Mom, back in the 90's. Something about White supremacy.
The PHUCKING 90's ! Humanely! Puleeze!
The cost of stays on death row, including appeals, etc, can easily come to 100 large yearly. While innocent families suffer awaiting justice.
I'm for more timely justice. And Old Sparky would be my choice for these hupersons, who have voluntarily given up their right to go on belonging to the species. Anyone else?
May the many other similar acts of justice happen forthwith. Buzz buzz buzz. Twitch twitch twitch. Sparkle and pop.

To start happy New year to all.
My new year morning started exactly the same as every other morning, half asleep kettle on, feed the cats to shut them up and testing bloods, nothing different. With my first cup of tea I plonk my Arse on the sofa and before the cup can touch my lips all hell breaks loose. I feel a slight movement on my shoulder and hair and flicked my hair of my shoulder and heard a delicate thump and scratching omg a mouse somehow it had slipped onto my shoulder when I sat down. Now the fun and games began trying to catch it, round and round the sofas and chairs until it leapt into a slightly open drawer. Gotcha. No it then starts running between the drawers as everything is tossed out of them. I will not be beaten so the front door is flung open and the chest of drawers put out on the step, yes its cold what does the mouse do, it plays peeppo with me. I'm pleased so say after about an hour it decided to live ourside and not in the drawers.

If you live in South Florida, at some point, you can expect any wood structure to be infested with termites. Statistically, after extermination, termites return every 6 to 8 years. I noticed infestation about 2 years ago and spot treated the area with success. It's been on my list to have the house tented again. Delayed with all the moving and construction projects, I finally got around setting an appointment with 'bug man' and this month being the 8th anniversary since I had my house tented, my place is on his scheduled this week.

I met with the supervisor and did a walk through going around the perimeter of the house to see if anything needed to be removed that would prevent the tent from making a proper seal. Some shrubs, loose stones on the walkway and wires leading to my radio antennas. We spent a good part of yesterday clearing out lumber that was left over from a patio slab project and filled the garbage bin, recycle bin and 2 contractor-size garbage bags.

Anything of value that hasn't already been relocated to my condo was moved last night, including guitars, drones and model helicopters! The lock box with spare key is on the doorknob so I don't have to be around (like the last time) when they come to tent the place.

After tenting, I'm told to drop ant killing granules around the perimeter of the structure as ants usually find a way in to feed on dead termites.

If it's not one bug... it's another!