After I exploited smithing on my last character, I've been determined not to buy any crafting ingredients from merchants-- I only use what I can hunt/mine/gather in the wild. This means I get off my horse-- a lot. When I see a deer, I dismount, kill the deer, go find it's body, loot it, then turn around-- and my horse is gone. He is always, ALWAYS walking in the OPPOSITE direction, usually pretty far off. What's up with this?

It seems that half the time they rush into combat like berserk. The other half of the time, loud noises spook them and they rush off.

In all seriousness, horses have an aversion to combat and will often run off to a safe distance (usually in the direction you came from).

Did you "find" your horse rather than buy it? If so, then it's not your horse and it will wander off.

Ah, this would be it then. Khajit don't buy horses, we "acquire" them.

Horses that belong to stables and you "earned" by becoming a friend/ stolen horses always walk back to their stable, slow paced though.

Well, that's one disadvantage of stealing horses

You don't have to "steal" them. I acquired one from a Stormcloak camp playing that questline. The damn thing would always try and run back there though. I could lose it for days in game, but the next time I fast traveled, there it was, right next to me, starting to again walk back to where I found it.

Incredibly annoying. That and the fact that they die after falls so short they wouldn't even damage my character make me not want to use them unless I'm just plain sticking to a road.

When's the last time you had a shower?

Because he doesn't like you.

Or maybe you picked him up in the field, as opposed to buying him?

so on the subject of horses... did mine die ? i can't find him he was purchased from a stable and the last time I saw him was right before I got stomped by a dragon . out of luck?

I do think that stolen horsen shouldn't magically know where you got him from, but if you happened to return to the person you stole him from, he'd call the guards and you'd get a bounty

In my opinion, any horse you acquire should be yours unless it's marked as owned by a still living character. Otherwise, it should just be yours. And not wander off. And not die after two foot drops.

:down:

Horses are pretty annoying for the most part. They get into the way during fights, they die from short falls, and the tend to randomly walk off...

No, he is running free on the plains of Whiterun, happy as a colt. At least, that is what I tell myself.

Maybe it just misses its original owner...

Same Horse for me. The trick is to spend enough time for the horse to plod it's way across the map back to it's home. If it does not reach it's home before you Fast Travel again, it will show up next to you. I finally got rid of the horse by waiting 72 hours (for another purpose).

Wow they die from a two foot drop? I've been jumping off rocks in the wild all the time. I guess I better stop. Plus my bought horse always joins in the attack so whenever I see someone down the road I get off and walk to see if they are friend or foe,

It's happened to me twice. I go to drop off a small height (maybe half the height of my character) and the horse does it's "jump" animation, floats across the ground for a distance and then lands as if it just fell of the throat of the world.

It's incredibly annoying because I like to take shortcuts and stick close to mountains for cover. (In case of dragons and so that I only have to worry about normal enemies on one side of me.)

So I just don't bother using them unless I plan on sticking to roads. (It was helpful for traveling to all the Stormcloak camps as part of that questline.) That's when I used them the most.