Blessi and the Zipper

A friend returned my saddle that she had borrowed to evaluate fit for another horse.  We went into Blessi's pasture to socialize since he was hanging his head over the gate.  Note Blessi's stall is open to a large run out pasture. There is a gate in his pasture about 10 feet from the back door to his stall.

Zippers--from Wikipedia

As my friend Pam and I (yes there are two Pams in this story) are petting and talking to Blessi, Blessi gently grabs the zipper tab on Pam's jacket and starts tugging it up.  Blessi has developed this fascination with zipper tabs in the past week.  It is the third time that he has explored zippers on visitors' jackets. He ignores the zippers on my clothing.  He does beg for treats but he has developed fascinations with other aspects of human attire in the past.  Last summer, he was interested in women's bras.  If a woman had a low cut shirt on, he would gently put his nose down the shirt of a willing woman and explore the bra.  He seemed to know which women would be amused by the behavior. Several summers ago, he spent a few weeks checking out toes, especially toes with red nail polish.  He was just fascinated the first time I took my boots and socks off in front of him and he found out that I had toes rather than hooves.

Tugging on zippers is not a good habit so I correct verbally by uttering a loud, sharp, "Ay", the sound I use to discourage grass diving when he is on a lead line.  Well, Blessi's head goes up a few inches and he slowly turns around and goes into his stall.  He puts his head in a corner, with his butt angled towards us, and his ears back a bit. His body is angled slightly so that he can keep one eye on us.

Pam and I laugh and start making a fuss over the 8-month old filly in the pasture next to Blessi.  About five minutes later, we finish our conversation and start to go out the gate.  As soon as Blessi hears the chain on the gate rattle, he comes trotting out of his stall towards the gate, ears forward, head up a bit. He very politely tries to accompany us out of the gate.  This starts off another round of laughter. 

So I guess the way to keep Blessi engaged is to get him his own zipper to play with and his own set of horse-sized building blocks that he can pull down. I refuse to get him a bra.