Posts Tagged ‘responsible ownership’
What’s in a word?
Great article and very thought-provoking!
The article contains a quote from pro-slaughter veterinarian Dr. Tom Lenz: “Unwanted horses are defined as those no longer wanted by their current owner because they are old; injured; sick; unmanageable; fail to meet their owner’s expectations; or the owner can no longer afford to keep them”.
Using Dr. Lenz’s logic, everyone who is single or in the middle of a breakup is an “unwanted person.” Are you unemployed? You must be an “unwanted employee.” I can see you all rolling your eyes at those comparisons because, as we all know, having one person or one company not want us is, well, part of life and something we all experience, and those unwanted statuses can change in the blink of an eye – the next thing we know, we’re in love with someone else or going off to start a great new job.
It’s the same thing for horses, of course. Owner A cannot wait to get Horseykins out of the barn whereas the next owner acquires it and thinks Horseykins is their dream that they have been searching for all of their life. My favorite horse of all time – my 30 year old who I still own – was literally thrown at us in 1985 because she’d just broken someone’s collarbone and had become equus non grata in that barn! I loooooved that mare – played arena polo on her, jumped her, even ran barrels and poles on her. To label a horse as unwanted because one single individual, the current owner doesn’t want it, is ludicrous. But as John Holland observes in the article – it’s all semantics. It’s all to avoid the word I would use, surplus horses, which is about the same thing John says with “excess” horses.
That pretty buckskin pictured is a classic example of an “unwanted” horse. She was a broodmare, got dumped to kill, “rescued” by CBER, off to a hoarder haven (remember that picture I posted a long time ago of the trashy chick’s myspace pic with all the guns? … that one), wound up back on the lot, re-rescued by Save A Forgotten Equine, who finally after a couple of tries found the right trainer for her and now here she is with her owner, who loves her. Happy ending. No longer “unwanted” but a happy, contributing member of equine society who now has a good home because of it. The difference was simple. Training.
As I’ve noted hundreds of times before, the reason we have a problem is that our supply of horses exceeds the demand for horses, and a contributing factor is that the demand is for trained horses, whereas much of the oversupply is untrained horses. It is like unemployment – it’s not that all of you who are without a job suck, it’s that the supply of employees currently vastly exceeds the demand for employees in many fields. As a result, some of you are going to have to go back to school and retrain for a field there’s more demand in. I know many people doing this already. Sometimes you gotta adapt. Horse breeders, you gotta adapt. STOP OVER-PRODUCING IN A DOWN ECONOMY. Instead of having 10 foals, have 2 that you train. Or buy back some of your previously produced horses that are in trouble somewhere, put training on them and take them to the shows so that people want to buy more horses from you.
Do you know who can drive your horses’ value up to pre-recession prices? YOU! Do you know how people who are still getting awesome prices for horses get it? Well, they show up at a horseshow or other competition with a good looking horse that kicks ass. It’s like magic – people clamor around trying to find out where they can get one just like it. Stop sitting around pouting and talking about “snobby horse show people.” The show horse people aren’t snobby, they’re using common sense, proven tactics to drive up the value of their horses. If you think western pleasure is stupid, you don’t have to do it. There are a lot of other events. There’s a vast variety of equine competitions out there – something for everybody. All of them, short of crazy shit like horse tripping, drive your horse’s value UP.
Now, are there some horses I would classify as unwanted? No, but there are some horses I would classify as difficult to place. These include unsound horses, older unbroke horses, and horses with some kind of major mental issue/vice. I do not think there is anything wrong with euthanasia, as most of you know, as a solution here. That said, I have seen everything from 35 year old toothless Appaloosas to bat-shit panel-jumping BLM mustangs find fabulous homes and be very much wanted. I myself have a particular liking for old ex-broodmares and have supported quite a few for the last few years of their lives. There is a not-so-small element of the horse world that truly enjoys having old coot horses to pet and spoil, and it’s a good thing because there’s also a not-so-small element of the horse world that likes to dump those horses.
All in all, I agree with John. Unwanted is a meaningless term and a way of putting a spin on the situation without having to admit that it’s time that everybody drastically reduced the number of horses they’re creating and put more emphasis on training the ones that are already here. But fewer horses means less work for the registries and, oh yeah, the veterinarians – so that does explain some of the very self-serving opinions here! Sheesh people, we can all follow the money and see what’s driving your remarks. Not a single one of you can or has effectively argued with my logic that fewer, higher quality and better trained horses would almost completely solve the problem here. There is no reason for not supporting that solution that is not self-serving and related to your own greed. When I hear that some of these ding-dongs with the registries are still encouraging people to breed, breed, breed, or some of these pro-slaughter state Horse Councils having incentive programs to breed, breed, breed, I want to fire up that Bitchslap World Tour Bus and get it on the road. And we’ll stop at the home of any breeder who wants to simply sit on her butt and pimp out her completely unaccomplished stallion(s) and put no training on the foals she creates. Ridiculous. And that’s a word that does apply!
Pretty…dangerous!
It’s a good time of year to make this list!
I don’t have time today to write up the story I was planning on, so instead let’s see if we can make a list. Today’s list:
LOW COST OR FREE GELDING ASSISTANCE
1. First, I want to make a list of rescues offering these programs, with contact information.
2. Second, I want to know if anyone has any experience taking advantage of the services and how it went?
Here’s a newer group in Northern California that just offered a gelding clinic. Hooray!
http://thebackinthesaddleproject.blogspot.com/2010/02/gelding-clinic-success.html
Here are some others that I know of:
http://www.frontrangeequinerescue.org/whatwedo.html – Front Range in Colorado has been offering partial reimbursement for gelding for a long time!
http://stalliontogeldingsupport.org/ — In North Carolina but I don’t think they are location-specific.
http://www.norcalequinerescue.com/gelding.php — NorCal Rescue continues to offer this service.
http://www.equus.org/hoofcentral.html — Equus Sanctuary in Ravensdale, CA also says they will help with gelding costs.
Let’s also mention vets who geld for a reasonable cost! If you are in the Pierce County, Washington area, I recommend Dr. Briskey. He normally does them for under $100. (360) 893-6587. If you have a vet that will geld at a low cost like this, please sing their praises in this thread, with location and contact information!
I know there are people who have coming two year olds that aren’t cut yet reading this. If you aren’t going to keep them a stallion prospect and if you don’t have a plan for training and showing them, just get the job done. Make the call today. They CAN get mares pregnant as yearlings and you do NOT want an oops. An oops makes you look unprofessional no matter how nice your facility or horses are.
As always, if you prefer to be anonymous, I have no problem with anyone making a second account. There are places that get all uptight about that and go, OMG, matching IP’s, it’s a secret conspiracy! All I ask is, don’t be a jerk on any of your accounts, and don’t defend/support your own posts because that’s lame. Other than that, you are welcome to your anonymity here, especially when it serves to help others because you can discuss your mistakes and what you learned from them.
Speaking of geldings, this is Tango and doesn’t he look like a wonderful ride? He looks super smooth and quiet! To me this guy, even though he’s just started his post-track training, screams “nice amateur horse.” He’s available for adoption from Angel Acres. Just click here!
Who needs coffee this morning?
I am sending out a $25 Starbucks gift card to whoever can solve this mystery!
I am absolutely positive that some reader of this blog knows who this horse is. Here is what we know.
– He was rescued from the December 2009 Enumclaw Auction, so he probably came from Washington or Oregon.
– He is a true 17 hands (we sticked him) and is a tattooed Thoroughbred gelding. We are having trouble reading it. He is in his 20’s.
– He has had white line disease and his right front hoof has been resected. The farrier did an excellent job.
– No sign whatsoever of any abuse or neglect. A bit thin but we believe this horse has been living in a barn.
– We are positive he is an old show horse. You can clip his ears without a twitch and he loves being bathed and fussed over.
– He has not, however, been shown in a long time as his bridle path has been allowed to grow out fully and his whiskers were very long.
– When he arrived, he was aggressive and it seemed to be pain related/defensiveness. He bit Ron the kill buyer in the shoulder at the auction. What a good pony! 
Now, he is a SNUGGLE BUNNY. Someone has taught this horse to give hugs – if you hug him, he wraps his neck and head around you and squeezes. He is particularly affectionate with petite women and children.
– He has some pushy behaviors on the ground and will try to whap you around with his head if he doesn’t want to stand still.
– Even lame, he is an AMAZING mover. AMAZING. If he wasn’t an A circuit horse, it was not for lack of talent.
– Ringbone (obvious) in hind right.
– VERY playful. When you turn him out, he pulls stuff off the walls to play with, knocks over my trainer’s stuff, anything he can reach is fair game.
I want to know who this horse is. If not for Second Chance Ranch, he would have gone to kill. Ron marked him as “kill only” thanks to the bite.
I also suspect that he has an old owner who loves him. I just have a feeling about it. I also have a feeling that the other people at the barn he came from have NO idea that he went to auction.
So get your week’s worth of coffee and out the asshat(s) – extra credit for proof, i.e. pictures of him at his previous location or with whoever dumped him! Who the hell sent this awesome horse to die in a slaughterhouse? They KNEW where he was going with that hoof. And why? Sick of paying the vet? What? This is a Ferrari that was nearly crushed into a cube, and I want to know why and who was responsible.
Click below for even more pictures.
Cheap out — and you’ll pay the price!
Once upon a time, there was a young stallion. He was a perlino tobiano, so of course his owner thought that alone made him testicle-worthy, despite the fact that his pedigree was many generations of Ain’t Dun Shit crossed upon Won’t Spot Me Showing. Yes, you had to go back to the fourth generation to find a horse who had accomplished anything more than being a pretty color. But hey, pedigree be damned, Proud Owner believed Perlino Tobiano was the best thing ever and wanted the world to know it. So she registered him with the usual parade of goofy pointless shit like the International Cream Horse Registry and started advertising him everywhere as a Krazy Kolor Breeder’s dream stallion.
Proud Owner, apparently having some recognition of the fact that her horse had accomplished less in life than Kevin Federline, considered her options. She could send Perlino Tobiano out to a professional trainer with a proven record of success and references and a nice barn for $700 – $1000 per month. Ouch. Proud Owner, who claims to looooove her horse like crazy, apparently did not love him QUITE enough to part with that kind of cash, so like many people who shouldn’t be breeding horses throughout the world, she looked for a way to cheap out — and she thought she found it in her acquaintance. We’ll call her Idiot Twentysomething Bitch.
ITB had all the stereotypical hallmarks of her kind. She thought she was a trainer (but couldn’t point to a single successfully trained horse, much less a show horse). She claimed to “rescue” from the auction (and then bred damn near every mare she ever dragged home). She couldn’t be bothered to groom, treat injuries or clean stalls reliably. But HEY – she was free! She offered to take Perlino Tobiano over to her place and train and show him in exchange for keeping the stud fees. Off he went.
(Allow me to note, at this point, that ITB’s place is a whopping one-hour drive from PO’s place)
PO, though she looooooves her horsie, could not apparently be bothered to drive over and check on his welfare, so he sat at ITB’s for 8 months while ITB proceeded to:
(a) brag about him a lot on the Internet;
(b) advertise him like crazy;
(c) breed him to every shitter mare she dragged home from the Enumclaw auction; and
(d) otherwise, do nothing with him.
ITB also tried to promote herself on various local message boards, like the SAFE one, where she wound up getting her ass handed to her for standing a stallion at stud that hadn’t done shit and therefore backyard breeding while claiming to rescue. But when the auctionhorses board arrived, hey, now she had a playground! A wonderful place where snarky posts were deleted and no one was allowed to question her good intentions! This further emboldened the ITB and, despite the fact that she had NO FREAKING PLAN for how to support the horses she already had, she “adopted” a cheap Arabian stallion called Exxtra Perception off of Craigslist and dragged him home too. Then she whined to the board for gelding money and I’m pretty sure she got it.
Alas, cheapy Arab stallion (who was actually a cute little sucker for an unbroke 14 year old and I admit my friend and I thought really hard about rescuing him ourselves – unfortunately for him, we didn’t go for it) didn’t live long enough to have his brain surgery. At ITB’s shithole farm, Perlino Tobiano got loose one night and the stallions fought. Cheapy Arab broke a leg and had to be put to sleep. Perlino Tobiano was injured. ITB ran around the auctionhorses board making excuses for being a shitty excuse for a human being and a pathetic excuse for a horse caretaker. I have problems, I’m on Prozac, I have family drama, I don’t have any money, wah, wah, whine, whine.
Allow me to insert: HORSES DO NOT WANT TO BE OWNED OR CARED FOR BY PEOPLE WITH MAJOR PROBLEMS WHO CANNOT EVEN TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES! If you are f’ed up, and many people are at some point in their life for a variety of reasons, RESCUE YOURSELF FIRST! I have nothing but respect for people who admit, hey, I have X issue and I need to get help. I have zero respect for people who self-medicate their emotional black hole by rescuing animals they cannot care for.
Anyway…so NOW, finally, Proud Owner figures out that it might be time to go check on her horse. And – shocker of all shockers! – he looks like shit. He’s crusty and muddy, he’s infested with lice, his eyelid is gone from the fight with the other stud and he’s got an oozing infected abscess on his tail. So now Proud Owner is running all over the Internet outing the ITB, which of course I fully support because god knows nobody else needs to give her a horse…
“The top part of his eye lid was gone .. so there was nothing to stitch .. but why wasnt a known vicious stallion not in a better secure stall?? What about the condition of the rest on him?? The months its going to take to get him healthy again and back to proper weight and condition and worming him and getting rid of the lice?? NOT ONCE HAS SHE SAID SHE WAS EVEN SORRY!! Just excuses!”
Proud Owner is justifiably upset. I’d have a shit fit if a horse I owned looked like this, However, Proud Owner needs to look in the mirror and recognize her part in this. She is the one who cheaped out and allowed herself to believe that somehow a totally unqualified individual was going to get her stallion trained and shown. Oh, and this was going to cost her nothing. That’s cute. What’s next, Robert Pattinson shows up on your doorstep and proposes out of the blue because you came to him in a dream? IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE…DUH! It’s not that the most expensive trainer is the best trainer, far from it, but talented people who can do the job just do NOT do it for free. If Proud Owner had simply spent the money, by now her horse could easily have a ROM or better on him, and she would have a reason to be proud. Instead she is paying vet bills, the horse has suffered permanent cosmetic damage, and on top of that he’s going to have a ton of fugly 2010 foals running around because of the crap mares ITB bred to him. At this point she might as well geld him, send him to a decent trainer to turn him into a riding horse for her, and be grateful she got him back alive.
What a clusterfuck, on all sides. The only one I really feel sorry for is the horse, because months of suffering could have been avoided if P.O. could have put her butt in her car and driven one lousy hour to check up on him. (Or, you know, put him in training with any of the various trainers who DO take exceptional care of their training horses) I will never in a million years understand people who send their horse off to training and don’t visit. I am typing this on the plane on the way home from just such a visit — one where I found a happy, healthy, sane horse in perfect weight and without a mark on him. Do I get it for free? Hell no. But it’s money well spent and it’s worth every damn penny.
Seriously – has ANYBODY out there ever gotten quality, breed-show level training and showing accomplished without cash up front? Does not count if the person is your spouse or significant other, ha ha. Proud Owner’s excuse is that she had two little boys and a husband in boot camp. Do you think that might not be the optimum time in your life to embark upon ownership of a young stallion that needs to be shown and promoted, perhaps? You know, if you want a stallion, there are plenty of totally finished ones that already have their show record up for grabs these days, at fabulously affordable prices. Doing it from scratch is expensive, and short-cuts and penny-pinching lead to bad results — whether you’re rushing your trainer in an attempt to save money, cheaping out on unqualified training, or using a trainer who employs illegal or unethical methods to get your horse into the show ring more quickly. Do it right, or please don’t do it at all. I’m pretty sure that’s what Blu would say right now.
Out of the frying pan into the fire, and so on…
I’d like to know more about this story. I just found out a farrier in Oklahoma, Dawn M. Hahler, has been charged with animal cruelty and the locals are telling me there are 50 or more dead horses on her property? Whoa, if that is true, that’s almost another Three Strikes. It hasn’t hit the media yet, apparently, but click on the documents and read them. Check out the part about how she burned a dog in a trash barrel… I’m not sure if it was dead or alive at the time. She’s a real winner, apparently.
Here’s the case information.
I found her myspace. My mood would be “weird” too if I had 50 dead horses lying out back! She tells us “i also have an animal rescue and i take in all animals as you can also tell by the 2 wolves who i use to educate children.” Boy, sometimes you can show the world you’re most likely a nut case with one simple sentence and that would be a good example!
She is also a farrier and has tried to portray herself as a miniature horse specialist, apparently by pretending to be employed by farms that didn’t use her. Read all about it here.
But here’s what I really want to talk about in connection with this case: How someone can get so damn many animals that 50 starve to death out back, and ultimately, where the blame lies. This was the classic faux rescuer – she acquired a great deal of animals, from a variety of surrounding states and it sounds like most were acquired in a short period of time, with of course no thought given as to how expensive they were going to be to feed and care for. I don’t think she can blame the economy – my farrier still has more business than he can keep up with, and I’m betting yours does too.
For example, she got two horses at this 2008 Arabian Auction. You know when I tell you that no auction is really safe, not even registered horse auctions? Especially when you let them go for a whopping $100 and $200? This is why. I am sure no one wanted PA High Expectations and PA Rainbeau to wind up with a person like Ms. Hahler. ‘Course, it sounds like the Passion Arabians dispersal was it’s own special kind of train wreck. Yeah, Bank of America auctioned the horses after everybody involved with PA discovered – wait for it – most people don’t make money breeding horses.
(I know that you have all fallen over in shock at this revelation)
You know when I yell at people for breeding a gazillion horses while being on shaky financial ground? This is why. From someone on that thread “A friend of mine is there right now and she said what a mess. They are kicked up , bit up , and thin. She said the yearlings look stunted and the weanlings are off their Moms and they shouldn’t be. She said mares with foals on their sides and they don’t know who the mares are let alone the sire. Very sad.” Yeah, you let things get like that, and some wind up with Hoarding Crazy Beyotch…no, really? Shocker!
There’s a post about those horses from Passion Arabians that I think is extremely educational, so I’m going to paste it here, but it was the work of ABH member “Cassie.”
“I found a two page ad from Passion Arabians from the AHT in Dec. ‘04.
Lot #/Name/Advertised price/[Eventual]Auction Price
1 PA Nickelodeon $7500 $100
2 PA Karisma $15000 $200
3 Azah $10000 $700
4 MD Willow Bae $8000 $100
6 Aieshah $15000 $500
7 Preciousmoment PA PT $1900
9 Psonia VF $30000 $4500
12 PA Country Afire $10000 $5600
15 Kaelin Amon Khan $10000 $100
16 Mi Khismet(IFT Marwan) $15000 $5900
18 Jasmyne VF $15000 $2600
20 Alada Majic $15000 $3400
30 PA Fury $7500 $1000
32 PA Cylebrity $6500 $475
34 PA Hi-Spirit $8000 $350
35 PA Hi-Expectations $8000 $200
36 PA Hi-Chrome Finish $7500 $500
37 PA Pshahmadre $5000 $225
38 PA Hi-Fashion Bey $5500 $775
40 PA Jorhas Legacy $10000 $4500
42 WR Miss Beyhavin PT $1200
49 PA Master Khopy $10000 $300
52 PA Mark Me Famous $7500 $1500
Granted these horses are nearly four years older and the market is down, but wow! What a difference. “
OK FOLKS. ARE YOU READING THAT? ARE YOU? ARE YOU?
This isn’t about the market. This is about what happens when you overbreed and you let the current condition go to shit. I am so very tired of seeing the ads where the person wants (insert high dollar amount) for the horse and shows you the horse’s show ring pictures from five years ago. Then, when you go look at the horse it is skinny and it desperately needs remedial farrier and veterinary/dental care. So it DOES NOT MATTER that the current owner paid $10K for it or it won $200K on the track or whatever, their lack of care has rendered it a $200 horse. You know, I can buy a Mercedes and then whack it 36 times with a hammer and bang it into a couple of solid objects and throw out the alignment and break the windshield and it’s not going to be worth $60K anymore, either. The difference with the car is that I can most likely fix for sure, whereas a horse may never come back 100% from neglect and lack of normal basic care like hoof trims and dewormings.
Of course, the current owners never want to accept the responsibility for the dramatic decrease in the animal’s value. They argue that people are “trying to take advantage of them” while they’re down and out, that those eeevil buyers and rescuers are trying to “cherry pick” the good ones and pay nothing for them, and that there’s nothing wrong with the horse a $35 hoof trim won’t fix. They argue, and they stomp their feet and they stubbornly refuse to sell until the choice is taken out of their hands. They lose their property, or the animals get seized and auctioned by the sheriff, or their creditors order a sale, and then the skinny, long-footed, once-nice horses go on the block.
That was exactly the case here. They tried to have their own production sale in 2005 and then stopped it, having a hissy fit because the prices did not go high enough to suit them. Of course, they did not stop making more horses at that point! NOPE! Breed, breed, breed away, no idea who the mares were even bred to! Thank heavens for DNA or no one would ever have known.
So, once everything totally deteriorates, what kind of person buys a horse in that condition? Well, it’s a total crap shoot. Sometimes it’s a decent person who has the funds to fix them up and is willing to take the gamble, and sometimes it’s someone like Hoarder Hahler. But one thing is for sure – their odds of a good home have dramatically decreased from the days when they were worth $10,000 – or even $1500! Someone who has $1500 in hand to spend on a horse is a lot better risk in terms of coming up with $200 a month in care than someone who has $100 to spend. Don’t ever think your stock can’t sell that low. Anybody’s stock, no matter how nice, can sell that low if the condition goes downhill far enough.
So if you know things are heading south financially, and a home you can verify as a decent one makes you an offer on a horse – take it. Don’t stomp your foot and sit on the horses, letting them starve and go without care. Disperse sooner than later, and your horses will have a much better chance of a successful future. I cannot think of one single case I’ve ever seen where someone who was in financial trouble decided to hold firm on a price that ended up with them receiving that price. It’s inevitable – the animal(s) can’t be maintained and things go from bad to worse. Stop thinking you’re going to win the lottery or things will turn around and place them early, while you still have some control over where they go.
Now it’s going to bug me until I find out if those two horses are still among the living. Anybody local to Tuskahoma, Oklahoma know anything more about this case or which horses made it out alive?
