HowTo:Make it drink
The old wives tale that "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" has persisted for centuries, and has expertly clawed its way directly to the front of popular horse-sayings by stepping on the backs of "...by a nose" and "doo da, doo da". Yet very few people know it is a lying myth, a scandalous fabricated fable fostered on us by frustrated slobbering fanatical idiots intent on poisoning young putty-like minds. There are, of course, numerous ways to make it drink. Heck, if you spend more than a few seconds thinking about it you can come up with a dozen, each of them better than anything I can teach you. But someone has to start the ball rolling. So let's get this show on the road, pull the train out of the station, put this baby to sleep, and give LuLu her roll in the hay.
Who am I to give you advice?[edit]
They call me The Horse Whisperer. Well, no, actually, that's someone else, and nobody calls me that. But it could just as well be me. Why not? How hard is it to whisper when you're next to a horse for crying-out-loud Christ's sake! Who I really am is a guy like any other guy, someone you'd see while meandering the streets or working behind the deli counter if you'd get off your bloated behind and walk around a little. Only when you see me don't talk to me, 'cause I'm usually naturally involved in deep thoughts that, thinking like my friend Dr. Who, go far beyond the limited inner-working-mind of the average man. I think about stuff, OK? I'm not gonna apologize for that. And from all my thinking and re-thinking about the state of the world, what I discovered I really don't like are the myths and lies blowing soap bubbles right into our potentially utopian-state society. They fizz and roll in the wind, and even though they are sometimes real pretty, before you know it they pop at the most inconvenient moments and BAM, WHAMO, SQUIRMP, there goes another 9/11 or Bosnia or some other nonsense.
You know, I got this way because my sainted mother raised me to question everything. When I was a newborn she'd tempt me with her nipple, just swaying it there in front of my mouth. She somehow held in her laughter until I'd go in for a good long thirst quenching lickkkkk and she'd pull her nip away, slap her knee, and laugh like the dickens at my surprise, anger and profound grief. My parents even made a video of it, and you can see my eyes go all popeye-wide just before I scream and roll up up into a fetal position. They still show it at Christmas, on Mother's Day, and what passes for their anniversary parties, so I know whereof I speak. And whereof I speak leads me to call a spade a spade and get these ancient myths debunked and deneutered.
Which brings us to the question at hand. It's actually a two-parter. The first part is unopposed because yes, you can lead a horse to water. That's a given, nobody ever argues that part of the equation. But yeah, surprise surprise mofo, you can make it drink.
Lead a horse to water, shoot it in the leg...[edit]
...and while it's lying there face deep in the pond or lake or river, wherever, Victoria Falls for all I care, just closely watch that damn equine thrash around like an elk with a few sporting arrows stuck shaft into it, eyes going all wide like that drowning tiger/piddling dragon in "Life of Pi", and it's bound to open its mouth sooner or later. Then water will flow into the horse's mouth, and it will swallow or absorb some of that water. How easy do you want me to make it for you?
Lead a horse to water, then just stand there[edit]
Keep the horse standing there for a few hours or days. Weeks if need be - there ain't a time-limit on the question. At some point the beast of burden will get thirsty enough to put down its triangle-shaped head and drink. I guarantee you, this is foolproof. It's like betting on Ali or Tyson in the good years.
Lead a horse to water and keep putting water on its lips[edit]
You don't think the horse is going to lick some of the water off its lips eventually? Jeez, you're stupid.
Lead a horse to water, then soak a carrot or an apple or some other horse food in the water...[edit]
... and hold it in the palm of your hand like they do at the racetrack. If you want to combine this with the last proven technique, rub water on the horse's lips and your own hand and then hold out the carrot or the apple. When it gobbles or inhales the stuff from out of your palm - slobbering horse juice all over your arm and shirt by the way - it'll drink some of the water too.
If you want to speed up the process...[edit]
... get about six guys, strong guys, and when you've led the horse to water wrestle it down, hold it's head in there, and have some of the guys kneel on its neck and put their hands over its nostrils so it can't breathe and has to open its damn mouth.
That's it[edit]
And that's all there is to it. We've knocked this myth on its ass six ways to Sunday, better than those MythBusters on the tube but with a lot less ads and fooling around. And you've even learned a valuable lesson here, one that I learned at my mother's bony knee when she pushed me off her lap just as I went seepy: Don't trust anybody or anything.
Summary[edit]
So "... you can't make it drink"? Really? Come on, really? Who did you think you were kidding! Now go live your life on your own terms, and to just nudge you in the wrong direction so you stray far from the pack and wander off the straight and narrow, keep this lying canard in mind: "Where there's smoke there's fire."
Wanna bet?