This is Tuff, a 23-year-old quarter horse I work with regularly in my animal communication and Let Animals Lead® practice. He’d been scratching his itchy back end against his metal stall door, popping the door loose at least once.

Please scratch on the post instead, his carers requested. I passed that along and got only a sigh, but for the next month or so I didn’t hear about any more door busting from the humans.   

One day I was at the other end of the barn and heard a rattling thunk, thunk, thunk. All I could see was Tuff’s door bending into the aisle with each scratch.

I hurried over and asked Tuff to stop. He did, then proceeded to take a very splashy drink of water. (You know you’re in the right line of work when getting dribbled on by a huge mammal makes you laugh.)

Tuff’s itch is being treated, of course. He also now has a nice scratchy brush in his stall, which we are trying to persuade him to use instead of the door. Will he, or will he wind up with something worthy of a medieval Scottish castle in place of his stall door? Stay tuned.