The old men are still living around the house (outside obviously) with free access to the whole of the stable.  They are fine – ad lib hay, a daily bucket and anything else they can get off me.  Haakon has taught Iacs how to knock on the front door like a hooman so the dogs bark and someone has to get up and answer it!

When Haakon was ill, I noticed Iacs wouldn’t leave his side.

He followed Haakon all the time.  He was there when we made Haakon walk around the school with his nose up his bum, urging him all the time to keep going. It was one of those very eerie odd moments when you can almost hear the conversation.

And this annoyed Haakon so much that in the end he stopped dead (a bit of Colonel Hathi’s elephant pile-up situation), backed up into Iacs and told him to stop. So Iacs didn’t!

He also didn’t want Haakon to give up.  He wouldn’t let him.  Very strange. I’ve never seen that before.  Mostly they leave them to die – the weak vulnerable horse in the wild herd not holding everyone up.

But these two ….. well, it’s different.  I might add that when Iacs had colic a few years’ back, it was Klaengur who stayed around and Haakon left the scene pretty quickly.

Everyone is enjoying the ad lib hay.  You can almost hear ‘Bert talk with his mouth full!

I think we will keep the old men around the house (outside, obviously!) It is nice to be able to have them close by and I think they enjoy the special attention.