Panda, a palomino paint horse, spends her days being trained as a riding horse. But Panda seems to prefer horsing around instead.
If Panda had it her way, she’d visit the local dementia unit in town every day.
But for now, she’ll have to sneak out to see her friends who live there.
“How many times has my horse got loose and run into the dementia unit in town and I had to ride him home…” Panda’s owner Maija Vance asks in a TikTok video.
The answer to that question is: twice.
Panda has gotten loose twice so far, forcing Vance to chase after her and ride her back home.
You can hear Vance in her videos apologizing to others for her horse running around on the loose.
“I’m so sorry this has happened again,” she says.
But even Vance admits that Panda should have to bear all the blame.
In fact, she takes 100 percent of the responsibility. She was just trying to do something nice for other people.
But, unfortunately, it backfired a bit.
“This is 100% my fault. I took him to the dementia unit to visit the patients. They loved him and gave him carrots. Now he tries to find ways to get loose and run into town and ends up back there.”
That’s what the onscreen text reads in one of Vance’s TikTok videos as she tries to coax her house into coming back home.
Commenters on TikTok believe that Panda would much rather be a therapy horse than a riding horse.
“He really wants to be a therapy pony…let him follow his dreams!” said one commenter.
Others said he just likes being around his “friends” at the dementia unit.
“OK but this is so sweet. He wants to go back to see his friends,” said another commenter.
“As someone who works in a nursing home I can guarantee you the residents love it whenever they catch a glimpse and he is the talk of the town. Also personally my job satisfaction would be a lot higher if I had a random horse that occasionally appeared,” one person commented.
Horses are known to have excellent memories giving them the ability to remember people and faces.
But others say that he just really likes his carrots.
“Talk about ‘never forgetting.’ He only forgets what ‘woah’ means but not where he got carrots,” a TikToker said.
Apparently, horses actually “never forget.”
They especially remember friends ” and people who treated them well, according to NBC News.
In addition, they also understand words better than previously thought.
Horses have “excellent memories” so they can remember their human friends after being separated from them for a long time.
As well as intricate problem-solving strategies even after a decade or more.