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By Sara Santora
Writer, Trends
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A viral video that shows a police horse's sweet interaction with a puppet horse has delighted viewers.
The video was posted in Reddit's "Interesting as F**k" forum on Monday by u/KaarDanaV. So far, the post has amassed more than 30,000 upvotes and over 1,000 comments from Redditors who were impressed by the police horse's calm disposition.
The origins of the video are not entirely clear; however, it appears it was first uploaded to YouTube in 2014 by Cliff Simon. The video's description purports that the interaction was filmed outside of the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex (BJCC) in Birmingham, Alabama. The puppet horse, said one Redditor, was created for the U.K National Theatre's production of War Horse, which reportedly toured in the U.S. between 2012 and 2014.
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In the video, a few of the show's cast members walk the puppet horse, "Joey," outside to meet the police horse that is already waiting in front of the BJCC. Once Joey is standing mere inches from the police horse, the two bump muzzles.
The police horse rubs its muzzle against Joey's several more times throughout the interaction and remains perfectly calm as the show's cast members walk Joey around and move its head back and forth.
"Jesus Christ that horse is so calm haha," wrote u/lukasbraucht.
"I feel the average, non-trained horse, would not react so calmly," added u/B1gD0gDaddy, noting that the real horse's police training is what undoubtedly contributed to the calm disposition it maintained when meeting Joey.
Speaking to ABC Australia, Senior Sergeant Potter of Western Australia's mounted police division said that police horses are forced to mingle with cattle during training as a way to desensitize them to the more "provocative" aspects of the job.
"The horse realizes, 'OK, I haven't seen a cow before, it's got big horns, what's it going to do to me?'" Potter said.
"Then they realize 'I can do something which will cause that animal to move away from me and make me feel more comfortable,'" he continued. "We allow them to feel confident in their environment, that they're not under threat. So then from cattle, we build to people."
He further explained that horses are "flight animals," so it's important to work with a horse that is "curious" but not "reactionary."
In addition to being amazed by the police horse's response to Joey, commenters were blown away by Joey's lifelike features.
"Those puppeteers are masters, the way the three of them can create such realistic movement with all the nuisance without speaking is amazing," said u/MikeyBoyT.
u/gitsgrl added: "The puppetry is masterful, the ear flicking and tail movement... this team is amazing."
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