I find that horses, knotheads as they are, tend to be very aware of the other animals around them.
I noticed the horses over here were hanging around the barn for a bit longer than usual so I went over to investigate.
I found a sick tom cat in the end stall with the one mare standing over him. It seemed as if the cat had distemper and would not respond to my poking it with the toe of my boot. It seemed to be in pain so I went and got the .22 and put it out of its misery.
It just seems like the horses knew the cat was sick.
Animals always intrigue me. We had a female cat who spooked when we moved her kittens out of a wall, so I thought I'd have to raise baby kittens. The vet had bottles and queen's milk......but the kicker was that I would have to stimulate the babies to urinate and defecate! He asked if we had an ol bitch dog; that they oftentimes will show a matronly streak and handle such matters.
Well, we didn't.......but we had an intact male dog that while gentle as a lamb with children could be rough on adult or 'unwanted' critters.
Turns out that Bear dog became a surrogate 'Mom'......he would have those babies wet from ear to tail. He was really seriously about keeping them clean--from end to end. So long as I fed the bottles, he'd handle the rest!
A few days later Mom cat returned and took over the bottle business, but Bear kept cleaning the babies!