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Jacob the police horse in St. Petersburg, FL, does more than just help officers with crowd control in the downtown streets at night. In his spare time, he’s taken up painting – with a little help from Jason Hughes, the officer who’s trained him for the past six years.

“He really likes to grab things with his mouth and I was like, ‘You know, I bet if I gave him a paint brush and put a canvas in front of it, he’d paint on it,’” Hughes said. “And sure enough, he did. He took to it pretty easy.”

Officer Hughes feels painting helps to challenge Jacob and develop trust with him as a partner, which is an important part of the job. And Jacob seems to enjoy it, too.

People are often attracted to the police horses when they’re out and about, and Jacob has always been friendly and comfortable with the attention. Hughes says he likes to do tricks and painting, although messy, has been a pretty natural addition to his talents.

“I was kind of surprised,” exclaimed Hughes. “It doesn’t look too bad considering a horse painted it.”

Source: TODAY.com