National Geographic Kids Chapters: Horse Escape Artist: And More True Stories of Animals Behaving Badly

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Mrs. Bonem planned to take a picture of Mariska wearing the antlers. She headed to the barn with her camera. She laid the antlers on the windowsill and began brushing Mariska’s coat. Mariska eyed the antlers. She inched toward the window. Then she snatched the antlers. Ching, ching!

“Mariska, NO!” Mrs. Bonem said. She tugged on the antlers. Mariska let go. But one of the jingle bells was missing.

Mrs. Bonem pried open Mariska’s mouth and felt around with her hand. It’s got to be in here somewhere, she thought. GULP. Mariska swallowed the jingle bell. Mrs. Bonem quickly called the doctor. Could a tiny jingle bell hurt Mariska? Luckily, the answer was no. Phew!

Mariska’s minor pranks continued for a few more years. She zipped and unzipped coats. She snatched lots of hair ties. She even learned to nudge open the grain bin and sneak extra meals. With each new trick Mariska learned, she got better at using her teeth. But as Mariska grew older, she got bored with zippers and hair ties. She was ready for a bigger challenge.

It looks like something has caught Mariska’s eye. Watch out—she might be dreaming up her next prank!

When Mariska was three years old, Trienke gave birth to another foal, or baby horse. The Bonems named the little male Wietse. Not long afterward, Mariska had a foal of her own—a male named Arie.

Mariska played with Arie. She looked after him. For nearly a year, the foal even distracted Mariska from her silly games. Then a loving family from Florida adopted Arie. Soon after that, Mariska returned to making mischief.

One spring day in March 2009, Mrs. Bonem walked out to the barn. She threw some hay into each stall and flipped open the stall-door windows. As soon as Mrs. Bonem was out of sight, Mariska leaned out her window. She eyed the silver bolt that locked her door shut.

Did You Know?

Horses have the largest eyes of any land mammal.

Mariska had seen Mrs. Bonem unlock this latch hundreds of times. Now, the horse grabbed the bolt with her teeth. She flipped it up and down. Finally, she slid the bolt over. CLICK! The door opened. Mariska escaped into the small paddock (sounds like PAD-ock), or fenced-in area, outside her stall.

A short while later, Mrs. Bonem walked past. That’s strange, she thought. Did I forget to lock the door? She led Mariska into her stall and slid the bolt into place. Mariska slid it back. CLICK! The door opened again.

“You clever horse!” Mrs. Bonem gasped.

The next day, Mr. Bonem attached a second bolt to the bottom of Mariska’s door. There’s no way Mariska can reach this bolt, he thought. Mariska tried another tactic. She unlocked the top bolt. Then she leaned hard against the door.

Mariska knew that if she pushed hard enough, things might break. She had learned this a few years ago, when she and the other Friesians wanted to eat the grass on the other side of their paddock. They craned their necks over the fence. They leaned hard against the wood, trying to reach the grass. Then, SNAP! The fence board broke.

Now one bolt stood between Mariska and the paddock. She leaned hard against the door. Finally, the bottom bolt snapped. Mariska stepped into the paddock. Then she unlocked Trienke and Wietse’s stall doors. Now, all the Friesians were out.

Mr. and Mrs. Bonem’s jaws dropped. They threw their hands in the air. Finally they decided to leave Mariska’s outside stall door unlocked. It was better she escape to the paddock than break another door, they agreed.

What do you do if faced with a problem? Probably you think about how to solve it. That’s what humans do. Not horses, says horse behavior expert Dr. Cindy McCall. Horses learn through trial and error. Dr. McCall thinks Mariska probably first opened her stall door by accident. She was playing with the latch, and it flipped open. “But that doesn’t mean horses aren’t smart,” Dr. McCall says. Horses have good memories. Once Mariska learned to open her door, doing it again was a breeze.

But Mariska had other plans. She shifted her attention to her inside stall door. Instead of leading outside into the paddock, this door led into the main aisle of the barn. That’s where the Bonems kept the grain.

Mariska wrapped her teeth around the thin bar that locked this door in place. The bar was slippery. But Mariska kept trying. Finally, she lifted the bar toward the ceiling. CLICK! The door slid open.

Mariska made a beeline to the grain bin. She flipped open the lid. Chomp, chomp.

Now Mr. and Mrs. Bonem started to worry. Inside the barn, Mariska could make real trouble. She could cross the aisle and open the quarter horses’ stall doors, too. But how could they stop her from escaping? They thought and thought.

Meanwhile, they tried to horse-proof the barn. First, they chained the grain bin under the counter. But Mariska broke the chain. Next, they poured the grain into an empty freezer chest in another room. Mariska quickly sniffed it out. For every move the Bonems made, Mariska had an answer.

That’s enough! thought Mr. Bonem. He slung a heavy chain around the grain-room door and locked it with a padlock. Take that, Mariska!

But Mariska just moved on to another prank. She escaped her stall again. This time she nudged open the large sliding barn door that leads to the Bonems’ backyard. That’s when Mrs. Bonem found Mariska, Trienke, and Wietse looming outside her kitchen window that sunny spring morning.