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Bobby, I sincerely respect you and any thoughts you have expressed on this forum. Without belaboring the point of this particular thread, I would like to ask you to consider if the following described events and decide if they may indicate anthropomorphous actions. A little over fifty years ago I bought six acres of land that had been untouched for the previous forty years. It was was such a jungle that a person could not walk through it. I spent over a year clearing enough of it with an ax, brush hook and chainsaw to build our house. After the house was built, we moved onto the land, but only about 1/4 of it was cleared, but I continued to work to clear more. Then a nephew who had enlisted in the Navy, asked that if he helped me, could we fence part of the land so that he could leave a beautiful red mare with us until he got out of service. I agreed, we fenced about three acres, he brought the mare over and left her, and he left for boot camp. The mare was very docile, behaved well around kids and content in her new "digs". When I worked to clear more ground in the fenced area she followed me to my work area every morning and stayed so close that I continually had to slap her and make her leave when I was using the work tools. Even the chainsaw motor running would not cause her to leave. It got to the point that while I was working, she would slip up behind me and suddenly place her nose against my back and lift her head, pushing me forward. Sometimes I would loose my balance. She became so pesky, I had to cut a long switch and keep it handy. I would swat her with it when she got too close, and shout for her to "Get out'a here". She obviously did not like to be ignored or chastised for messing with me. Very soon after I started using that long mulberry switch, I was working in a small creek bed, with the switch leaning against a tree behind me. I heard the clicking of her feet on the rocks in the creek, I turned to see her ****** the long switch in her mouth, and wheeled around and ran with it at top speed. She stopped about 50 yards away, and was throwing her head up and down while nickering loudly. When I started toward her she galloped off, with the switch in her mouth. I had to laugh, and went back to work. (I found the switch later; it was chewed and broken.) While using the chain saw two days in a row, she slipped in and picked up my ax by the handle and walked off with it. Both times she dropped it in the cleared area about 20 yards away. Both days, she stood over the ax, shaking her head and nickering to get my attention. I had begun to become amused at her antics until one cold morning she really made me angry. I had just bought a new hunting coat with a game pouch and elastic shotgun shell holders. I worked in the coat in the cold morning hours, but took it off about mid day and hung it over one of the barbed wire fence's "T" posts. While I was throwing cut brush on the burn pile, she slipped in behind me, grabbed the coat's collar and pulled the coat off the "T", ripping the seam apart between the collar and one sleeve by that action. I threw a cursing fit, and chased her, throwing anything I could find at her until she dropped the coat,. About and hour later I saw her walking so slowly toward me with her head down so low that thought she was hurt or sick. I watched her as she plodded to within a few feet of me. I walked to her to check her feet and legs, raising each of the ground for inspection. After I did, and saw no injury, she raised her head and looked directly at my face, then nodded her head a few times. That was what she always did when she wanted anyone to pet her or rub her head. To me, it seemed she was - in a horse's way, apologizing. I reacted to her tearing my coat in such a angry fashion, she realized she had gone over the line. I patted her and rubbed her neck, and she became her typical perky self. Although she would follow and hang around me while I was working, she quit her "horse playing" after the "coat" incident.