However, it requires the Misdirection (for weapons) and Perfect Touch (for armor) perks to achieve this. It can also allow you to do this with NPCs who will not trade their equipped items with you.
Pickpocketing the items you wish them to replace with the improved items can help fix this. Sometimes, they will refuse to equip the items you give them. You can trade items with some of your followers to equip them with better items or store excess loot.
If your follower is left to wait for 72 hours, a message will appear that the follower has grown tired of waiting and will start walking to their original location. Temporary, quest-specific followers usually do not take orders if they do, they will only take limited orders, like the "wait" command.
Horses are non-hostile creatures found in Skyrim.