Wednesday, March 24, 2010

A Sip


I love watching animals drink. There is a special feeling that all is well when lean over and touch their lips or tongue to water. It’s not just horses drinking, but cats, birds, chickens and even honey bees. Dogs are totally disgusting drinkers, especially when they drink from a toilet, but I do sympathize with their thirst and their act of quenching a need for hydration.

I think that people over-hydrate themselves. Some doctor proclaimed that people should drink 64 ounces a day and people often try to meet or exceed that standard, however I think they become addicted to the act of drinking, unnecessarily. A rule of thumb is drink more if you sweat. If your urine is dark in color you aren’t drinking enough.

Back to the animals; they seem to know much and when to drink. You’ve probably heard the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. It is so good to see a horse take a deep drought. I have a friend that has murky well water, and new arrivals sometimes will not drink for days.

Many city park have fountains that were created to water the horses back in the old days. There was a spot in the river back in my home town that was known as "Horse Drinks" where teamsters would take their horses to drink on their way through town. There was enough room to turn a cart around in the stream.

My horses get to drink rain water and they love it. We recently brought a new horse home. After riding in the trailer for an hour and a half, we brought him out and let him eat some lawn grass. When we put him in his corral he went right over to the water trough. First he sniffed it and then took one sip as a wine taster might evaluate the first sip. It was to his liking so he tucked in and slurped up a gallon or so of the water we have on tap.

2 Comments:

Blogger JustRex said...

One thing I really hate is having to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and finding out at the last second that the dog was just in there getting a drink. She always leaves drips all over the seat and the floor.

6:55 AM  
Blogger The Guy Who Writes This said...

Dogs are totally disgusting drinkers.

5:21 AM  

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