Can Horses Open Doors? The Tucson Kitchen Video and the Science

Can horses open doors? Yes, and one just did it on video

Yes, horses can open doors. They do it with their mouth, their lips and a push of the head, and some get very good at it.

On November 13, 2026, ABC News shared a short video from Tucson, Arizona. In it, a rancher's horse nudges open the kitchen door of his house and peeks inside, as calm as a neighbor dropping by.

The rancher said his horse was probably looking for carrots. News sites in other countries, like Ta Nea and ERT News in Greece, shared the clip the same day.

It is a funny video. It is also a great chance to learn how smart horses are, and why horse people work so hard to keep doors and gates shut.

How do horses open doors without hands?

A horse has no fingers. But it has something almost as handy: a top lip that can move, grab and feel.

Watch a horse pick one tiny treat out of your flat hand. That soft, wiggly lip is doing the work. The same lip can hook a bolt and slide it.

Here is what horses have been seen doing:

• Sliding bolts sideways with the mouth.
• Lifting bars up and out of their holders.
• Pulling down door handles with the mouth.
• Turning twist locks with the lips and a turn of the head.
• Unhooking the handles on electric fence gates.
• Pushing the door open once it is unlocked.

That last step is what the Tucson horse seems to show in the video: a nudge, a swing, and hello, kitchen.

What the science says about why horses open gates

In 2019, three scientists published a study in a science journal called PLOS ONE. Their names are Konstanze Krueger, Laureen Esch and Richard Byrne.

They asked horse owners and caretakers to send in reports of horses that open doors and gates. They also looked for videos of it on YouTube. This is called crowdsourcing: lots of people each share a little, and the scientists study it all together.

They ended up studying 402 horses. Here is what the reports and the videos showed, added together.

Yes, you read that right. Two times, the study counted a lock with a key being opened.

Some locks are harder than others

A door handle was easy. Horses needed about 2 moves to open one.

A clip was the hardest. It took about 10 moves, because the horse has to twist it around.

But the scientists did not find a kind of fastener that was too hard for horses to learn. Even clips and electric fence handles can be opened by some horses.

Do horses learn it by watching?

This is the big question, and the answer is: maybe some do, but nobody knows for sure yet.

In the owners' survey, 74 horses had a chance to watch another horse open a door. That does not prove they learned by watching. Many more, 183 horses, had no horse to copy at all.

So those horses must have picked it up another way, on their own or maybe by watching people. The scientists say trial and error may be the main way. That means a horse fiddles and pushes until something works, and then remembers it.

Some horses may also learn from watching people open the door every day. The scientists could not be sure, and they want more studies.

Practice helps, too. Horses that opened several kinds of doors needed fewer moves on each lock.

What horses do once they are out

The owners told the scientists what happened next:

• Most horses simply walked out (87 out of every 100 in the survey).
• Some let other horses out, too (15 out of every 100).
• Some broke into other places, like feed rooms or houses (22 out of every 100).

So the Tucson horse is not the first to visit a house. Horses go where the food and the friends are.

How smart are horses, really?

Horses are good at remembering. They learn where food is kept, who feeds them and what time dinner comes.

They are also curious. A bored horse with a busy lip will play with anything near its stall door, and a latch is right at nose height.

Opening a door is not a magic trick. It is a horse solving a puzzle. The study says horses usually did it to get out, but also to reach food or friends, or just out of curiosity or for play. Some even opened the door and stayed inside.

The scientists added one fair warning. People love to share clever-animal stories, so the study mostly heard about the horses that got doors open, not the ones that tried and failed.

Want more? Read our 30 horse facts for kids or visit the behavior page.

Why a loose horse is a real danger

The video makes us smile. But a horse that can let itself out can get into big trouble.

• Too much food. A horse that gets into the grain can eat far too much. That can cause colic (a bad bellyache) and laminitis (very sore feet). Both are emergencies.
• Slippery floors. House and feed-room floors are smooth. Hooves slide on them, and a horse can fall.
• Tight spaces. A horse is big and heavy. Many weigh around 1,000 pounds (about 450 kg). If it gets scared in a small room, it can hurt itself and the people near it.
• Roads. A horse that leaves the barn may reach a road with cars.
• Dangerous things to chew. Houses and feed rooms hold things horses should never eat.

That is why a horse belongs in a barn or a field, not in a house. Please don't invite a horse indoors, even if it asks nicely.

Barn-safety checklist: keeping clever horses in

This list is for you and a grown-up to walk through together. Kids can be great latch checkers.

1. Pick latches that need fingers. Horse-care experts say the best latch is one that takes a hand to open. This is what people mean by a horse-proof stall latch.
2. Clip every bolt. A sliding bolt alone is easy for lips. Horse-care experts suggest a grown-up screw an eyebolt (a screw with a ring on the end) into the door, so the bolt's handle fits over the ring when the bolt is locked. Then snap a clip onto the ring. Now the handle can't lift and the bolt can't slide.
3. Put a clip on gates, out of reach. A chain looped around a gate is not much of a puzzle for a nosy horse. Add a clip, and put it where lips can't get to it.
4. Add a low latch. A second latch near the bottom of a stall door is too low for a horse's mouth.
5. Keep the feed room shut. Feed belongs in a room with a solid door that is closed and locked every time.
6. Check twice. Before you leave the barn, look at each stall, each gate and the feed room door.
7. Tell an adult about a fiddler. If you see a horse playing with its latch, say so. That horse is practicing.

One more thing for the grown-ups: people must still be able to open every stall quickly in an emergency. A good latch stops lips, not hands.

What to do if you see a loose horse

• Stay calm and stay back. Do not run, shout or chase.
• Get an adult right away. Catching a loose horse is a grown-up job.
• Close what you safely can. If an adult asks, shut the gate to the road or the feed room door.
• If the horse got into the feed, tell an adult even if it looks fine. The adult should call the vet right away and not wait for the horse to look sick.

You can learn more in horse safety for kids and how to catch a loose horse.

What to watch next

The Tucson clip was still being shared around the world on November 13. We only know what ABC News posted and what the rancher said about it, so we are not guessing at the rest.

Next time you are at a barn, look at the latches. Which ones would stop a pair of clever lips? Which ones would not?

If you liked this story, try Can horses go on a bus? and explore more in Kids and Safety.