Horse Illustrated Magazine

Sometimes if you spend enough time with someone, you start behaving like them. That’s exactly what Emu – an appropriately named emu – has done. A few years ago the emu found itself at the Alice Springs Mounted Police station in Australia, where he decided to hang out with the horses. He apparently enjoyed their company so much that he hasn’t left.

ABC.net.au reports that Emu, a flightless bird, enjoys eating with the horses, running with them and even acts like them. Can you picture a bird acting like a horse? Even though he’s free to roam, he just won’t leave the police station.

“Emu stays whether we want him here or not. Emu is just called Emu and certainly by his behavior we get the impression that he thinks he is a horse,” Senior Sergeant Melinda Edwards told ABC.net.au. “He has taken on the equine lifestyle. He follows the horses in and out of the paddock. As the horses gallop away, he gallops off with them.”

Not all of the five horses are happy to be friends with the bird. “We’ve got five horses out here and there are two he is friendly with and the other three are not so keen on him,” Edwards said. “But Emu has made his choice and decided to make the mounted police unit his home for now at least.”

While some have suggested Emu be repatriated, he has lived with the mounted police for so long that he’s become domesticated. Domesticated like a horse.

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