Ok, but did you publish a rigorously documented study that can be accessed by millions of people who never ever interact with horses?

I was trying to explain to my husband about ponies the other day. He asked “So, they’re the little cuddly-looking ones, right?” and I was like “Ye-NO NO NO. Don’t try and cuddle a pony! You’ll be lucky to get your arm back!”

YES. I think the guests thought we were making most of it up, “Oh, well, the reason for that little dust-up you just witnessed in the corral is that Diego really likes Blossom, but Blossom’s best friend is Penny and she hates Diego, and didn’t want him standing near Blossom.” And then the guests would sort of laugh…

This article reminded me of The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill and how I sobbed uncontrollably at the end when they said that the older, different Parrot had always stuck around the others, looking for a mate but he never found anyone and one day he kind of went off and died... uuuggh still makes me tear up :*(( UUGGH

…

Dude. Ditto to all.
It got out of hand when we would start looping in guests on it.
“So this is Bud. His best friend is Pilson over there, though they’ve kind of been on the outs this week.”

Reading this made me understand a lot about my marriage. I’m a friendly scaredy-horse married to a standoffish leader horse. But at least I have a good pack of like-minded mares to whinney with.

I used to work at a ranch that had ~70 horses, and we spent a weird amount of time gossiping about the horses’ social structure; i.e. “You’ll never guess who I saw Chocolate eating with today.” “WHO??” “NAVAJO.” “No way! Navajo’s such a bitch.”