My Little Einstein

Every morning the horses are turned out. Unless the weather is horrible. However, they are not always allowed into the bigger paddock if it's too icy or mucky.

On Thursday it was too mucky so I just let them into the small 'sacrifice' area. They are not impressed with this at all. I came home Thursday to find them a mucky mess from rolling in the mud. Even Irish who tends to be more fastidious was one big ball of mud. I noticed that the top gate latch was off and pointed it out to my husband.
'That would be Steele' he said
'no' I said
'yes' He said. 'I've seen him at it.'
'hmmm' I didn't want to say I disagreed but I couldn't see it as it's the tape attached to the handle. I figured he would be getting shocked.

We headed into town to buy seeds and some feed. When we came back there was Steele playing with the handle.
'see!' says Ed.

At the moment Irish came charging up with ears pinned and chased Steele away.
'What was that about?' I asked
Ed said 'I think he was saying "not now you idiot they can see you"

I changed my clothes and headed out to tackle my little pigpens.

I decided to do it outside because of the amount of dust and dirt I was going to get. When they are really muddy I used a shedding blade to scrape the worst of it. I started with Irish. He likes this and will stand still with no halter or tie of any kind. As I'm scraping away I saw Steele amble innocently towards to gate. He did everything but whistle. I watched out of the corner of my eye as he gently nibbled the handle until it fell. He looked at me to see if I saw that. I kept grooming. All that was left was the bottom tape. He grabbed the tape with his mouth and pulled. It feel off. He sniffed it. I stopped with Irish and walked over. We both looked at the tape. I looked at Steele and he looked back at me as though to say
"I have no idea how that got there"

How on earth was he not getting shocked? I have a hefty charger and that was his mouth. I went in and grabbed the fence tester. Steele followed me and watched over my shoulder as I checked. nada. nothing. no charge was coming to the fence. ahhh.

So I finished my chores and went into the house. I told Ed what I found.

"oh good' he said. "I was worried that I would have nothing to do tomorrow'. I recognize sarcasm when I hear it. Well mostly. But you have to love a man who doesn't question that this needs to be fixed, now. When he investigated he found that the tape at the beginning had become frayed and was not getting the charge. It's now fixed.

"good" I said. "that should sort that out"
"hmm" says Ed. "What will you do if he figures out that if he grabs the handle he won't get shocked"
"shut up" I said.
I swear that he snickered.