One job I had as a young farm kid, was to saddle my pony and ride the fences. In the pasture were the sheep where kept, Dad had a flock of sheep and rented a pasture from a neighbor. The pasture had a woven wire fence so a sheep would put his head through the fence and gets his head caught in a box type
woven wire fence. My job in the evening was to ride the fence line and any sheep stuck in the wire to pull their head out. It would then ride off to join the flock. It was not a big problem, but a small one that had to be handled daily.
Sometimes the mosquitos would be so thick I’d wipe the horse’s neck with my hand and it would be bloody from mosquito bites. As soon as we would get in an open area there would be a relief from a breeze. Some rides there would be no problems, but sometimes there would be two or three sheep heads stuck in the fence. The pasture area was a hundred and twenty acres plus twenty of our own. So there was a total of two and a half miles of fence to check.
The Western sheep were not a problem but native ones were dumber than hell. As I think now, it was a good experience to work with a good horse and enjoy one-on-one work duties together. What ever the job would be. The horse was always up for the job.