Do your horses open gates?

Loki is a gate-opening expert. If it's a gate, and it's unlocked, he'll open it.
He can open my paddock gate (and will assist you in opening it, usually clonking some other horse in the face) without a problem.
It swings inward so if he's inside, he'll pull it open with his top lip, and when he's outside, he'll push it.

Well, I recently started using my pasture gate because my new colt is in the paddock at the moment. The pasture gate opens in the opposite way, it swings outwards instead of in. Loki, deciding he wanted to come in NOW (he was turned out at the time) tries to push it inwards...with no avail. Not to be foiled by this seemingly complex problem...he tries again. Still, it will not open!

Smarting up a bit, he tries pulling it, and it works! The gate is open! And Loki...isn't going inside...? The pasture gate crashes into the adjacent paddock gate, and Loki decides to get a little revenge. He then proceeds to smash the evil pasture gate into the paddock gate, using his nose to bounce one gate off the other.

After a minuet of this, he is finally satisfied and walks into the pasture. But alas! His grain has not yet arrived. So Loki turns around, pushes the gate...and leaves again.


Can't help but love that silly boy XD

YES they do! My paint clydesdale especially. He'll unlock ANYTHING!

Oh yes, one of my mares is famous for opening gates if you're not watching her. She actually taught my other mare how to do it too (or I should say my other mare learned from watching)!

And I have a story about this...about 2 years ago I had a farrier appointment. Now, I wasn't home but that wasn't an issue, as he had been great in the past; showing up, doing is job, leaving an invoice and I'd send him a check later. Well on this particular day I don't know what his deal was, but he left the gate to the paddock UNLOCKED. So, of course the horses got out. They were running about the neighborhood! I got a call from someone almost a mile away saying they had 2 horses in their driveway! Now, we are the only horse people in town, so everyone knew who's horses they were. Ugh, it was terrifying! Needless to say, I never called him back.

Our horse Fancy (she passed away ) could undo any knot and was great at gates. Fras is better at gates and doors. She has on many occasions opened the door to the barn where I keep the horse and chicken feed. I have put chain and snap clips on all the gates.

Loki has a habit of untying himself when I tether him for bathing/grooming/tacking. Quick-tie knots are out of the question because he will rather quickly begone xD

Not my horses but one of the fillies (Flicka) can and has done it. Other things have been added to keep her from doing that.

Ooh! XD! I've had the same farrier for 20 years and he just comes over when were not there and gives the horses peppermints lol. They're suckers for sweets.

My horses have gotten out endless times from jumping fences and braving the electric fence tapes lol. They don't anymore; only the miniature mare who runs at the fence and jumps through the crack in the split rail, braving the hot wire, to get out and visit the apple tree XD!

Our mare, Lady, is the playful, mischievious one. She opens gates, opens stall doors, unties lead ropes, turns on water faucets, and steals my tools.
Anything new gets her full attention on how she can fiddle with it.

Haha, I love this thread! Sundance can take his gate off the hinges...lol. At first he kept picking it up off the hinges. But, we changed the hinges so it couldn't be lifted off, and he still figured a way to get the gate down. LOL. He's one smart boy. He also has a tendancey to pick up whatever items you have in his reach...

Man, I would do anything to have a horse that OPENS gates. My mare just walks straight through them! It is a litany of broken fence rails, smashed wooden gates, bent pipe gates. And me ringing the neighbour to see if my girl has wandered off to visit his stallion. By sheer bloody luck the one time she was able to get IN the paddock with the stallion she wasn't in season and wouldn't stand for him!

Actually the worst of it occurred within the first two month of Phoenix arrival here at her new home. A year later and she is more settled. Infact two days ago when she found another loophle in her paddock she used it to escape so she could get on the lawn and stick her head in my bedroom window. I still wish she would open the gate though, when she wants to leave the paddock!