September Q & A: Miniature horses

Jasmine, who is clearly hogging this week’s Q & A (seriously people, send in more questions so I can spread these out a bit better), asks, “What are your thoughts on miniature horses?”

Now, to the untrained eye this may at first seem like an incredibly frivolous question, and one that no reasonable person could write an entire page of thoughts on, this site is pretty much all I have to justify my English degree, and so I find myself taking this blog every bit as seriously as I took college (which, yes, explains why I was there for so long). Now, regarding the question, I have never personally encountered an actual miniature horse, so I’m going to have to publicly collect my thoughts on them here, and there’s really no better place to start than with regular sized horses.

I’m a pretty big fan of the idea behind horses; not only do I love westerns, but how can you not respect an animal that helped my European ancestors conquer so much of the world? Unfortunately, I have actually encountered horses within the real world, and for whatever reason they are not fans of me at all. A girl I used to know once took me to a house she was tending to while the owners were away, and decided to show me their horses. All she warned me of was that I should not let them turn so they’re facing away from me, because if they do that it means they’re going to try to kick me. Naturally, the instant I tried to get near one, it immediately started turning away from me, necessitating my turning along with it so that we were essentially just circling each other in an endless struggle. I don’t recall how this standoff (turnoff?) ended, though I like to imagine I was rescued by ninja dinosaurs.

All of this leads me to conclude that I most likely would enjoy miniature horses, as they would be incapable of seriously injuring me no matter how much hatred they have in their teeny little hearts for me. Without bothering to do actual research on this, I’m imagining that they’re somewhere around a foot tall or less, possibly even hand-held because, while it would be true that a horse the size of a Doberman would also count as a mini horse, the whole point of creating one would be lost.

That said, though, there is something to be said for having a pet that you can roughhouse with a little. I have a dachshund/beagle mix, and while he enjoys playing, whenever I roughhouse with him I have to be careful not to hurt him at all or else he’ll immediately yelp and start slinking around the house giving me sad, woeful looks like I just assaulted him. Frankly, it would be nice to have a good-sized pet so I can stop getting these annoying guilt trips. Some would say that it’s a bad idea to get a horse with the intention of roughhousing with it, but I’d argue that it’s a far worse idea to get a horse that fits in your hand with the intention of roughhousing with it. That’s the sort of thing that would get expensive pretty damn fast.