Below is a comment he left on a pro-slaughter facebook group wall.
“Dave Duquette The animal rights movement has hit some extremely hard frontier justice, please go to http://www.unitedhorsemensfront.com to see the truth and the deception by animal rights activists. All horse people need to come together and bring processing back to the U.S.
The predictions by the people who started this page in ‘06 hav…e all come true in much worse fashion than we thought it would. Now as a community of horse owners we need to rectify what we allowed the animal rights groups to do to our livelyhoods and the horses, the short sided thoughts they had have put us in this situation with no plan to or forethought on how to deal with this crisis.”

What I do support is animal WELFARE. Humans have a responsibility to treat animals humanely, and we’re the ones who are supposed to know better.

There are well documented cases of the ridiculous injunctions filed all over the USA to impede humans & animal sports/exhibitions. At one time the fanatics managed to get Rodeo banned from the state of Ohio. The fanatical groups do have the funds & attorneys to make it mighty miserable on horsemen if they get the idea to target any one group.

Personally I am not one that thinks to humanely euthanize an animal is as cruel as having an animal starve to death or be subjected to suffering with out any care. I also don’t believe our US Constitution gives Americans the right to tell others what they can or cannot eat. I do believe the laws we already have on the books should be followed; I think the perpetrator of the cruelty to the horses, subject of this blog, should have been prosecuted.

I said they straddle the line. They do a lot of good work, but they also have a tendency to drift into the arms of the extremists, sufficiently that I would prefer to donate my money to a local shelter than to them.

Fugly, I have never considered you animal rights. Your attitude is perfectly sane.

In fact, a horse or dog that works for a living often seems to be happier and healthier than one which does not. Some of the fittest, clearly happiest dogs with the shiniest coats I have ever seen are service dogs. (And hey, they get to go everywhere with their pack alpha…in dog terms that’s a pretty sweet deal).

I don’t anthropomorphize, but I do accept that animals have personalities (how could anyone ride and NOT get that) and feelings. They are not the same as us. Horses have different instincts, their minds work differently, they don’t even see the world the same way we do, based off of studies of the way equine vision works…the reason a horse can walk past an object on one rein fine and then spook when they go the other way is that they literally see differently in each eye.

I will grant an animal equal rights with a human if it is demonstrated to my satisfaction that that animal, individual or species, is capable of taking on the same responsibilities. There are certain species of animal I would definitely not consume, deliberately kill, and would go out of my way not to harm. Specifically: Smaller cetaceans demonstrate language ability not far behind ours and distinct cultural variance. Great apes are capable of language, albeit not to nearly the same level as us. Behavioral experiments with elephants have indicated that they probably have a highly developed sense of self. Specifically, a female Indian elephant showed the ability to recognize that the reflection of her in a mirror was a reflection, not another elephant mimicking her (Cats do not have this capacity). Birds in the crow family show behavior patterns that may be indicative of abstract thought. I consider these specific animals to be closer to human sentience than the majority of species and treat them with higher respect.

Horses, sorry, are simply not there. They are not non-sentient…that’s stupid…they are *less* sentient than we are. They definitely feel pain, they have good days and bad days. However, it’s clear to me that when I am ‘anxious’ it is a different thing from when I turn to my riding buddy and say ‘Clay is anxious today’. I mean that Clay is demonstrating a pattern of behavior…physical tension, head tossing, ear pinning…that indicate that *something is bothering him*. It pays to work out what, but I don’t have to say that Clay is feeling the same thing I am when I’m dreading dealing with the in-laws.

Which brings me to another thing. The modern, domestic horse has been bred for generations and (unless bred by some stupid BYB) carefully raised not just to tolerate being ridden, but to embrace it. We all, of course, know the horse that, either through personality or poor training does just ‘tolerate’ his rider. But I bet there’s not a person here who hasn’t met at least one horse in their life who pricks his ears up and holds his head out when approached with a bridle, or gives the ‘aww. mom’ look when the person goes to the horse in the next stall instead. Would I say they ‘enjoy’ being ridden? That’s an anthropomorphism again, I suppose. But these horses, the ones that stick their head into the bridle and perk their ears when led out of their stall, in my experience, not only do well at their discipline, whatever it may be, but stay sounder longer. I mean, one of the horses I know that does this is easily thirty, had a career as a barrel racer and is now a schoolie…ridden by the most ham-handed beginners most of the time. And he STILL puts his nose in the noseband with his mouth open…quite the horse.

Maybe part of the problem with the show world, these days, is that people think you can compete at the highest levels with just any horse…not one that *wants* to do it.

Did unborn-week old puppies deserve to be euthanized without so much as an evaluation (over 150 dogs killed without an evaluation in two separate cases)?
Did Vick’s dogs deserve to be euthed without an evaluation (note that they took in over 10k to “care” for the dogs-all while none were in their care and they were lobbying for their destruction)
Is Prop 2 really going to help animal welfare or is it just feel-good legislation written by people with no agricultural knowledge?
Don’t you think they could do a hell of a lot more with well over $50 million a year?

My question is-what’s so wrong with the CCF? Their info is valid for the most part (most of the time it’s with citations) and while the group itself is less than praise-worthy, they do speak the truth.

While your views are admirable (though quite different from mine), they are not in any way for animal rights. THIS is the key difference-animal rights is not a grey area. It’s very plain. No animals being used for any reason, period. The grey area comes in with groups like HSUS, who love to pretend they’re AW, all while pushing AR (with BSL, MSN, and other similar anti-pet laws) as well as the proper method for achieving total animal liberation. This is the only area in which there is conflict. What AR is is quite clear to those who spend the time to read carefully into it.
http://homepages.sover.net/~lsudlow/ARvsAW.htm

Now, as for HSUS (rollkursucks, this isn’t aimed at you):

Don’t you find it odd that they would be so similarly named to your local humane society? Isn’t it also odd that HSUS can afford to shell out big bucks for advertising and legislation, but those same local humane societies end up underfunded every year? Isn’t it also odd that HSUS doesn’t run a single animal shelter anywhere in the US (or Canada, or Europe, where they have affiliated groups like HSC)?

How much does HSUS make? -The HSUS and its family of organizations now has more than 11 million members and constituents, annual revenues of $130 million, and assets of $200 million. (many higher-ups get well over $200,000 as an annual salary) (hsus.org)

Are they affiliated with any shelter in the US? -Despite the words “humane society” on its letterhead, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is not affiliated with your local animal shelter. (activistcash.com)

Note: Yeah, a lot of stuff I get about HSUS is from the CCF-question is, can you disprove ANY of what they say (it’s a matter of disprove the message, and not the messenger)? HSUS says they do so much to help animals. I see evidence that they don’t. I also see evidence that they are indeed animal rights, and if you haven’t figured it out by now, that’s an automatic turn-off for me.