Sometimes love just ain’t enough, that’s why we have vets!
Aug 25 2010
For those of you who think poor horse ownership is an American phenomenon, today I bring you the video evidence that there is crappy equine ownership everywhere. An alert reader sent me this string of videos.
Here is Babba the Fjord pony soon after purchase. We see a fat, happy pony in high spirits – exactly as a pony should be! And heck, it’s a nice facility and the kid seems like a totally nice kid. There’s a little bit of silly teen-with-horse stuff here but nothing hideous. Pony looks happy!
Less than a year later, pony is dead. Warning: they actually video’d dead pony.
Explanation? “Babba died on 25-09-09.
We don’t know exactly how he died, he had a cold at the time and he was old, but I don’t know how old he was. I miss him soo mutch!!”
We don’t know exactly how he died, he had a cold at the time and he was old, but I don’t know how old he was. I miss him soo mutch!!”
We don’t know exactly how he died? He had a COLD? I have had plenty of horses have colds (aka upper respiratory infections). You give them some antibiotics and they are fine in two weeks. I’ve never had one die from a cold and I doubt any of you have either, unless it was an already debilitated rescue horse. Which, actually is what this one is similar to — the video shows a pony who, in less than a year’s time, has gone from a fat happy pony to a bony, sad, neglected-looking pony. I don’t know what he died from, either, but it was not something that came out of the blue. The pony looked like death warmed over for quite some time before he did die. He looked like he was going to die. And the girl was still riding him even when he looked positively awful!
(In another video, she says he was 26. Um, did you decide later that was a good age that sounded like a normal time to die, so you added that later?)
She’s a kid, some of you will say. She obviously loved him. I’m mean to even comment or put this on the blog. But in my book, love isn’t a feeling. Love is actions – actions like paying attention to how your horse is feeling and noticing when there’s a dramatic weight change. Actions like calling a vet to find out why. Actions like refraining from riding until the vet has given the pony a clean bill of health and the pony has returned to normal weight.Â
And yes, the girl is young but I know a lot of girls as young as she is, or younger, who would notice that their horse lost 200 pounds and make sure something was done – even if they had to babysit every weekend to pay the bill. In fact, invariably, every time some teenager winds up on this blog, the harshest criticisms come from her peers, who typically do not think youth is any excuse for not noticing your horse’s condition is nosediving faster than real estate prices.  Interesting how that works.
Still, I know that because these videos are full of hugs and sad feelings, some of you will feel sorry for her – even sorrier than you do for the pony who is the dead one. This is a pet peeve of mine. We tend to put too much emphasis on intentions in our society. She didn’t mean to do it. It wasn’t his fault, he lost his job and couldn’t buy hay. She didn’t know. He never owned a horse before. And my favorite – but she’s really sorry! You know, I just don’t give a rat’s ass. To the horse, the suffering is the same whether you intended it or not. You know, CPS doesn’t give a crap if you never had a baby before, if you starve it to death, you still get in trouble.  Or try driving drunk but saying you’re sorry or you did not know it was illegal. Ignorance is no excuse in many areas of the law, and it’s time the laws protecting animals got on the same track. No one is putting a gun to your head forcing you to reproduce or own living animals. If you are not going to take the initiative to educate yourself about proper care (and if you are techie enough to put videos on youtube, you are techie enough to find information about why a horse would be skinny and what to do about it online), please stop taking on the responsibility of care. No, no one knows it all, which is why we call the vet when do-it-yourselfing fails. I had a mare get skinny about 5 years ago and I couldn’t figure out why, and normal methods did not resolve it, so we ran a blood panel and found the problem. I am not telling you that you have to call the vet for every scrape or every time the horse loses a bit of weight, but common sense should tell you that when a problem continues to escalate, it is not just going to resolve on its own like magic. That’s like saying, gee, I don’t know, I’ve had that lump on my breast for a while now, but if I ignore it maybe it will go away. Let me know how that works!
And my usual comment – WTF WAS WRONG WITH HER PARENTS? Even if the kid didn’t notice the pony morphing into a famine victim, what about her parents? Does no one have eyes? Sheesh, with as many pictures as they took, you think the pictures alone would tip them off. But some people simply don’t see it. I know someone like that – thank heavens his kid DID see it and the vet got called and the mare is now being treated. I will never, never get it. Poor pony. 
On a happier note: For all of the fans of amazing Grace, she now has a Facebook page! I absolutely love this story because this little mare has just put her hoof down and decided to live. I am still waiting on the status of a case against her owner. I do have the name but I don’t want to compromise legal action, if it’s going to happen. If they drop the ball, I will be happy to pass along the info so that 5,000 or so of you can call the local authorities with your thoughts. I’m helpful like that.Â
Casanova, the gray Arabian featured here for Cowgirl Spirit, has been adopted! So I had to make them a new ad for someone who does not yet have a home. This is Ruben, a teenaged QH gelding who would love to find a home of his own. He is east of Seattle, Washington. Just click on the banner to learn more!
On a happier note: For all of the fans of amazing Grace, she now has a Facebook page! I absolutely love this story because this little mare has just put her hoof down and decided to live. I am still waiting on the status of a case against her owner. I do have the name but I don’t want to compromise legal action, if it’s going to happen. If they drop the ball, I will be happy to pass along the info so that 5,000 or so of you can call the local authorities with your thoughts. I’m helpful like that.Â
Casanova, the gray Arabian featured here for Cowgirl Spirit, has been adopted! So I had to make them a new ad for someone who does not yet have a home. This is Ruben, a teenaged QH gelding who would love to find a home of his own. He is east of Seattle, Washington. Just click on the banner to learn more!
384 comments to “Sometimes love just ain’t enough, that’s why we have vets!”
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Even if you were too stupid to notice that your horse is looking like Skeletor, you’d think she might have noticed his incredibly bony spine digging into her asscrack when riding him bareback.
Whatever these people say to defend themselves or anyone else is total bullshit. Who rides a horse when its spine is stabbing you in the butt, oh my god they should be prosecuted. It was clear to anyone who saw this video that the little pony was going down hill fast. It breaks my heart. How could they be so cruel.
I have lost one horse in my life, and he wasn’t mine legally. But, to him he was. He shattered his pastern in his stall. I got to spend several hours with him waiting for the vet and not once did I ever think about putting flowers in his mane or anywhere else, for that matter. I was too busy feeding him every treat he loved and hoping that I would be strong enough to help him on his last journey to worry about that. When the vet got there, he inadvertently put himself between and Tellie, who was, by that time, seriously tranquilized. Despite the drugs, he lifted his head and looked for me – and I made damned sure he could see me. After it was over, I was too busy sobbing to even think about a video (even if a camera had been present).
Did not, cannot, watch the video. But that kid does not deserve a horse or pony.
At the ripe old age of 55, I finally got my own horse, a TB. I work with my trainer/barn owner to get muscle and a top line on him. If he looks one whit skinnier from the last time I was out at the barn (at least 4 times a week) I am bringing it up and we are figuring out what do do. To me, that’s part of the joy and responsibility of owning a horse.
Hey me too, 58 and got my first horse. YAHOOOO and you can be sure he will have the best of everything. I have waited so long. check out my blog. http://elainesadventurs.blogspot.com/
Elaine, CONGRATULATIONS!!!! Granite is SO handsome and you are SO lucky to have him. Thank you for giving me hope that I too, will someday have my own horse to love. I’ve waited 44 years so far so what’s another 10 or so, right?
Have a wonderful time with your boy and don’t worry, you won’t do everything right, but he’ll love you anyway. Best wishes for a long and happy relationship!
Congratulations! Hope my own TB is still in my future – been waiting all my life. Have a blast with your boy and enjoy every minute…
How people deal with their grief is indivivual and cultural. Her way of dealing with the death of her pony maybe different from how other people would do it. Maybe she spent hours crying over her pony while braiding those flowers in. Who knows? Who knows what was wrong with her pony as well? We had a pony , a welsh cross, which began to lose weight, she went from 600 pounds to 525. She also began to have laminitic episodes. We had different vets look at her, had blood drawn, and they didn’t know what was wrong with her. I brought up Cushings, but the blood tests didn’t show cushings. Finally, the last vet we took her to, (by then she was very thin and just not healthy) told us that the tests were run incorrectly and that he was willing to give us the meds for Cushings and if the pony improved on the Pergolide, then her diagnosis would be Cushings, but if she didn’t improve, that we would have to do something different. The results were fantastic. Our hairy, lethargic pony shed out and developed some attitude. We were thrilled. She took Pergolide for the rest of her life. Weight loss is not one of the normal symptoms of Cushings, but it is one that our pony portrayed. On the Pergolide, she did gain weight, not back up to 600lbs, but we were able to maintain her at 575. According to the web site, http://www.recoveryeq.com/cushings_syndrome.htm
“The most common symptoms of Cushing’s disease are:
Sudden and extreme thirst (polydipsia). An affected horse may drink as much as 80 litres of water a day (as opposed to an average 20 – 30 litres). This condition is usually accompanied by excessive urination (polyuria).
Abnormal hair growth and shedding. Affected horses may develop a growth of heavy, coarse, often curly hair, which does not shed in the summer. This may be accompanied by sweating and seborrhea (flaking of the skin).
Development of a swayback stance and a pot belly.
Filling above the eyes caused by the deposition of fat. (Normally, you can see a depression above the horse’s eye, particularly when the horse is chewing.)
A depressed, sick-looking appearance with dull eyes and drab coat.
Increased appetite (usually with no accompanying weight gain).
Chronic laminitis.
Loss of muscle over the topline.
Compromised immune system. This gives rise to a host of conditions/diseases which are often passed off as old age. These include respiratory disease, skin infections, abscesses of the foot, mouth (buccal) ulcers, and periodontal disease. ”
Notice that one of the symptoms is compromised immune system.
If taking pictures of her dead pony and making movies out of this time of her life will keep her from going crazy and committing mass murder while she is in college, who are we to say it is wrong? Some people celebrate death.
As an owner who’s pony was just “diagnosed” with Cushing’s last week when I woke up to find her in an acute laminitic episode (like she was fine when I put her to bed, and completely lame the next morning at feed time)….I can attest to the difficulty of diagnosing it. My vet did tell me that the tests were not necessarily reliable, particularly in acute clinical episodes, and that the disease comes on so gradually that most times a diagnosis is not made until there is an acute episode. I can assure you, my horses get the best care I can give them and they see a vet whenever they need to as much as they need to – this hit me out of the blue. After researching it and learning about it, looking back there were signs – all of which could and were easily attributed to other things. Pergolide was prescribed for my girl as well, and she is steadily improving with that treatment. Along with a change in diet, hoof trimming and supplements.
I have not watched all the videos – I live at the end of the internet and it takes forever to download them, but from the descriptions my first thought was – I wonder if that horse had Cushings and no one was diagnosing it correctly. My other thought was COPD – a friend of mine’s horse has been fighting with that all summer – numerous vet calls, numerous meds and treatments, and they can’t get anything to help consistently for any length of time. This mare currently looks like a rescue, she is very thin – and being fed very well, at the vet’s instruction…but she’s working so hard to breathe, she’s burning the calories faster than she can take them in. (They are trying one more round of meds, and then perhaps making a tough decision if it doesn’t help)
I am not condoning her riding him when he was ill or her choices to video whatever she did – I am not commenting on that at all, in fact. I guess my point is, there are illnesses that are difficult to treat or diagnose that may have caused this pony to pass. It’s easy to armchair quarter back – and say, she just needed to feed him. That may not have been the issue at all.
Did your pony lose weight? Our ponies Laminitis lasted a long time although we were lucky and she didn’t experience rotatation. The vet (the fourth one we went to) which treated our pony for Cushings said that as long as her Cushings went untreated, she would suffer with laminitis. That the laminitis was because of a chemical imbalance. So, if Babba suffered with laminitis for a month, it could have been because of a chemical imbalance that was not being discovered by the vet.
If the pony was going to die I think it is better that this pony died loved and with a job rather than forgotten in a field, obese and foundered.
Cathy, could you dig up some info on EPSM and make a post? Its not widely heard of, apparently even alot of vets dont even know what to look for. Owning an EPSM horse myself makes me think thats what this poor guy died from… the lameness, muscle wasting, her claiming no matter how much they fed him he lost weight. Maybe you and your super sluething abilities can find more info than I have… we are still experimenting with my girls diet. Before I new about it she was on sweet feed and lost almost her entire topline. On her current diet we have gotten her hip and most of her neck muscles where they should be (for her level of fitness anyways) thanks!
I will do that!
Maybe like a disease of the day with your featured rescues…. a few symptoms and good links?
I think there are a lot of different equine illnesses that not all vets are up to date on.
Headshaking is at the top of the list. I know more about it than most vets do (so if you have a headshaker and want to get into some of my research contact me)
I agree, I think Insulin Resistence is another one. People think they have “easy keepers” and they really have horses with a health issue. Here is a good website about both IR and Cushing’s….
http://www.ecirhorse.com/
I am angry about this situation but I did not post a comment on youtube because I don’t think it would do any good.I wish I could just send a comment to her parents. I still wonder whether or not she has any psychological problems. I knew a model once who was anorexic. She starved her dog almost to death before my dad took him from her. Skippy, as we called him, was a great dog that went on to live a long happy life with us.
These people are smart enough to edit video and add music and load it on you tube (something I havn’t worked out yet?lol). They have video cameras, computer and interenet connection! They have google at their fingertips. There’s no way you wouldn’t notice how skinney that pony was. Even if it was skinney as it was reaching the end……….don’t ride the poor thing! Young age is not an excuse….sorry
Gives new meaning to death rides a pale horse.
I agree with the poster above. This was done as a Youtube stunt. Not as a loving tribute.
If the kid would have spent more time learning about geriatric (sp) horse care rather than playing “my little pony” that horse would propbably still be alive, or at least had a better retirement.
Reminds me of when I was a kid. God I hate teenagers.
although I’m no longer a teenager, I still have to say that not all of them are spoiled rotten kids. I do admit that the ones you usually see are spoiled, but there are good ones out there.
I didn’t see if anyone already posted this, but… I was looking at her OTHER videos…
And after seeing this one, I am thoroughly disgusted with this girl, her little friends, and ESPECIALLY their parents! UGH.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2Cc3_YW4o
Pony Bloopers x3 – OMG – its abuse! Jumping out from behind trees to deliberately spook a horse being ridden by your friend? Staging falling from your horses mane again and again?
Those poor horses and ponies! What spoiled, spoiled undeserving owners!
Children need to be supervised with animals, and when posting anything on the internet.
I can’t figure out where the parents are. Too bad they spent more time dressing up in costume and playing around than actually riding.
Those horses are saints. Fortunately it’s teenage stupidity and nothing really dangerous for the horses.
They’re behind the camera, probably. Someone is doing the filming, and it is not the girl.
Unless mum or dad is a raging yet functional alcoholic I don’t see a parent hanging around taking video of their kid acting like an idiot in a dangerous manner. She has friends – I’d think it would be one of the friends. Most kids wouldn’t be that uninhibited in front of their parents either.
I fully agree with how can she not notice the spine when bareback. Around 1:30 mark she is riding across a field left to right. The pony’s back legs do not look right compared to other shots. Seem to be dragging. More than starvation would cause that. Neurological issue would though and could account for the thinness. Pony definitely needed some serious medical attention by a qualified horse vet.
“But in my book, love isn’t a feeling. Love is actions”
I stopped reading right there and I will continue to read and watch the video after I post this comment but I just HAD to get this out. Truer words have never been spoken, Cathy. If I could buy you a beer and send every rescue you endorse a ton of hay right now, I would; you really struck home for me.
I’m a 19 yo college student who’s 6 yo mare is navicular (long story) and I could have taken the “easy” route and put her down or pull the “but MOM, I’m taking 19 credit hours and I need to maintain my 3.6 GPA AND I need money to go party/gamble/shop with” card and con my mum into paying for my mare’s treatment… but I’m not. I chose to give my mare a chance; I’m working with a vet who has all but worked a damn miracle with her and my checkbook hates me for it but I have FEELINGS of love for my mare and I’m ACTING on those feelings by working 20-25 hours a week at a local diner to at least pay for half of my mare’s treatment. Why? Because I love her. She brought me back to life after my event horse passed away due to complications from colic and now it’s my turn to do the same for her. I don’t make very much money (about $20-50 a night, depending on how many servers and how busy we are) and it’s a burden to work when I’m taking 19 credit hours and I’m trying to maintain a 3.6 GPA but I do it anyway. Sometimes I miss dinner on campus because I’m at work and I just go hungry that night because I could either spend $8 on dinner or I could put that $8 toward treatment? Guess which one I choose EVERY. SINGLE. TIME? School just started for me but I’m already anticipating many, many, MANY sleepless nights because I’ll have to do homework and study when I get off of work at 11.
If you own horses then you must make sacrifices. There simply isn’t a way around it.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I’ll actually post something relevant to the topic at hand soon.
PS- if anyone has experience with navicular horses, what different types of pads did you use? What pads gave you the most success?
My horse had cystic navicular and my farrier put 2 degree wedge pads on, full pads and high impact putty. The putty went onto the sole, then I think the full pads went on top of the putty, then the wedge pads, then the shoes. Cost me about $175 every 8 weeks for just the front. This was five years ago.
You say euthanizing is the “easy” way out. My horse was 15 when I finally had him x-rayed. I was an idiot, inexperienced and ignorant when I bought my first horse. I trusted my trainer which is on the top of my list of mistakes, hindsight being 20-20 and all. When I moved away from her I spent more time driving to the new place to FEED my horse than I spent riding him and when I did ride him he was lame, and that’s when I started the corrective shoeing I mentioned above. We moved to another new place (where I am now) and I still wasn’t riding often. He came up lame (remember, this is with corrective shoes) and we blew it off, the second time when the vet came out we had him x-rayed after he turned out to be lame in both front feet. The vet said the hole in his navicular bone was the size of his (the vet’s) pinky finger. Then he told me that the coffin bone in the other foot was fractured. These were injuries he’d had for at LEAST the last 7 years.
I asked the vet what can we do. The vet told me to put 2 degree wedge pads and high impact putty into his soles, get him into corrective shoes. Pain therapy. That was it. My trainer tried to be objective and not tell me what to do but I finally flat out asked her – he’s out of commission, isn’t he? She told me yes. The navicular bone could snap anytime. Could be in a week, could be never. Could be while I was riding or when he was turned out. If it broke I’d have to sit with my broken horse (17.2H, 1600#) and hope the vet got there right quick and in a hurry. I made an appointment to have him euthanized two weeks later and for two weeks I second guessed and questioned and doubted and wondered if there was ANYTHING I could do – anything at all, what could I do that was anything other than what I was going to do. Then I watched him one day hobbling around in the paddock, so sore on his front feet (with super corrective shoes and pain meds) that he was barely shuffling along and I knew I made the right choice for HIM.
Was it EASY for me to stand there while the vet gave him the shots? Absolutely not. I was bawling my eyes out from before we even left the boarding barn – pleading with him to get onto the trailer because I didn’t want to fight with him. I lost my freaking mind when he hit the ground and just in case you’ve never had the “easy” experience of having to have a horse euthed even after the horse is technically dead their body is still struggling to be alive and still BREATHING. It killed me. Euthanizing a horse you love because they are broken and in pain is not an “easy” choice. Sacrifice is a wonderful thing – I’ve done it for my kids, my dogs, my horses, my cats and my husband. But at some point that sacrifice has to be your feelings and what you want for the best interest of whoever you’re sacrificing for.
He might have lived to be an old man, doped up on pain medication existing in a field. Then again he might have stepped down wrong, snapped that bone and been lying in pain waiting for the vet to do him in. Instead he died peaceful and happy with a mouthful of grass and clover in a sunny spot in the woods, which is what he deserved.
Sorry about my wording, perhaps I should have said the “least expensive” or “financially responsible” route rather than easy. I know losing a horse is never easy- my big event horse passed away in January of 2009 from complications from colic. I’m sorry to hear about your boy, though. :[
Thank you for the input! I’ll run these ideas by my mare’s podiatrist and see what he has to say.
She went 100% sound for the second day in a row today!
It’s amazing when you can get sound days from them! Love every moment you have.
amanda: Are you kidding me???? How long have you been watching the neighbor’s horses starve??? They are skeletons??? WTF is wrong with you? You are no better then the people starving the animals by putting your head in the sand.
Sorry, but stop your whining and do something about those animals. I wish there was a law that punished people that refuse to make a complaint to law enforcement when they see someone obviously breaking the law.
In an answer to the question, do people comply once contacted by law enforcement? Usually they do not.
Since everyone has pretty much covered everything on this topic, I thought you might be interested in this lovely little gem I found on YT…
Horse vs. Pit Bull part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX6TIkrpmBM&feature=related
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JlflMKvWp8&feature=related
It’s shit like this that makes me wish people were made to take a basic intelligence test before owning ANY animal.
So what’s the problem? Is it because *GASP* It’s a VICIOUS PIT BULL?! Sorry to disappoint you sweetheart but the dog is in more danger than the horse. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not but the horse had no issues *chasing the pit bull* and the dog was *playing* with the horse and the horse wasn’t upset about the dog. That’s a well socialized dog that is familiar with horses and the horse is familiar with dogs and everyone’s happy. What’s the problem?
When my OTTB lived at my house he’d chase my Golden Retriever every opportunity he had but he’d play with my American Staffordshire Terrier (read “Pit Bull”) whenever he went into the paddock, or just didn’t care when the Amstaff was in there with him.
Dogs and horses can peacefull coexist. I think it’s a beautiful thing!
I am just going to sit and shake my head some more.
Ooookkkayyy…. The issue here isnt that theres a pit bull in the video…. And the poster never even states that so get off that high horse now… in fact, the dog being the most annoying in that video is the Aussie, he’s the one yapping his face off.
I dont care if horses and dogs can coexist and this particular horse in this particular time doesnt mind having a big dog jumping in his face. The problem here is – the owners are going to cry BOO HOO HOO WE LUVED OUR WITTLE DOGGIE SO MUCH!!!1!! When he gets a missaimed foot in the head. At least it will probably be a quick death.
Our animals are like children in the sense that they dont always know whats safe for them. And if youre of the mind of, “aww dang, that there dog done got run over again,” and you go buy a new one, as long as it’s fed and watered and vetted then I dont care if you let your dog get kicked in the head because horses and dogs “coexist” so well. But I’m still going to think it’s STUPID if you care at all for the wellfare of your dog.
Little kids shouldnt crawl underneith horses’ legs, and dogs should be jumping all around them and barreling into their chests. It just seems sort of reasonable.
I have two dogs that coexist with horses. Rule #1: No dogs in the horse paddock. Rule#2: If the dog goes into the horse paddock we have trained the horses to chase the dogs and trained the dogs to run away from the horses. Rule#3: As much as we love our dogs, we do have a price limit on how much we’ll spend on emergency treatment from crush/kick injuries, see Rule#1.
It’s amazing how fast a dog will learn to leave the horse alone after the first close call. And I’ve found that once a horse has learned that chasing the dog makes the dog run away that the chances of there being a dangerous situation is actually lower than if you have a frightened horse with a dog having a great time intimidating him.
You DO realize what pit bulls were bred for, right? And that pit is trying to do exactly what it was bred for. It’s all fun and games until he grabs the horse, and his instinct kicks in (right along with the horse’s) and you end up with a dead dog, dead horse, or dead person. People who swear up and down that pits are the sweetest dogs (as if there are good qualities in a pit bull that you can’t find in every other breed) while ignoring the serious risks are the people who make me want to vomit.
“You DO realize what pit bulls were bred for, right?” -Sometime during the nineteenth century, dog fanciers in England, Ireland and Scotland began to experiment with crosses between Bulldogs and Terriers, looking for a dog that combined the gameness of the terrier with the strength and athleticism of the Bulldog. The result was a dog that embodied all of the virtues attributed to great warriors: strength, indomitable courage, and gentleness with loved ones. Immigrants brought these bull and terrier crosses to the United States. The American Pit Bull Terrier’s many talents did not go unnoticed by farmers and ranchers who used their APBTs as catch dogs for semi-wild cattle and hogs, to hunt, to drive livestock, and as family companions. Today, the American Pit Bull Terrier continues to demonstrate its versatility, competing successfully in Obedience, Tracking, Agility and Weight Pulls, as well as Conformation.- -> http://www.ukcdogs.com/WebSite.nsf/WebPages/Home
They were bred as family companions, livestock dogs, hunting dogs and were also used in dog fighting. Not seeing anything in their nature that makes them dangerous to a horse?
“And that pit is trying to do exactly what it was bred for.” -…Once bull baiting was banned, dog breeders who appreciated the fierceness, courage, and tenacity of the bull dogs turned their attentions to breeding dogs for dog fighting. They began with the bull dog, mixed in some terrier blood, and produced the Bull and Terrier, a dog that met all of their expectations. The Bull and Terrier was bred for aggression to other dogs, unrelenting bravery, a high pain threshold, a willingness to fight to the end, and an affection for people. Bull and Terrier dogs came to the US in the early 1800s as all-around farm dogs and frontier guardians. Samuel Clemons featured a pup of this breed in his short book The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.- -> http://www.canismajor.com/dog/amerpit.html Again, Pit Bulls were bred for DOG fighting, it was their Bulldog ancestors that were bred to attack Bulls…
“It’s all fun and games until he grabs the horse, and his instinct kicks in (right along with the horse’s) and you end up with a dead dog, dead horse, or dead person.” This is absolutely true. And it doesn’t matter if the dog is the Australian cattle dog that is actually worrying behind the horse’s heels, a golden retriever, the chihuahua that was involved in the mauling of the rescue horses (that was posted on this blog when it happened), a pit bull, a mutt or any other breed. Dogs are predators and pack animals, horses are prey animals. It doesn’t take much for instinct to kick in and the situation to turn ugly – which is what was meant to be conveyed when the video was posted in the first place.
“People who swear up and down that pits are the sweetest dogs (as if there are good qualities in a pit bull that you can’t find in every other breed) while ignoring the serious risks are the people who make me want to vomit.” How many risks do you take when you get on your horse? Or get into your car? Or on a plane? A person is more likely to be bitten by a shark than a Pit Bull. And to get all the qualities I want in one dog – I got an American Staffordshire Terrier. Loyal? Check. Intelligent? Check. Can think for himself? Check. Not up my ass 24/7? Check. Affectionate? Check. Moderately playful? Check. Low energy requirement? Minimal grooming requirement? Doesn’t slobber? Check, check, check. Can you please let me know if there is another breed of dog that has ALL of these qualities?
“Sixty years ago a delightful gang of kids romped across movie screens accompanied in their antics by their faithful dog Petey, a sturdy white pooch with a colored patch over one eye. Petey performed a remarkable array of tricks to help the kids in and out of scrapes — all in all, he was the consummate childrens’ pet. The original Petey was Lucenay’s Peter, a purebred dog registered as an American Pit Bull Terrier with the United Kennel Club and as one of the 50 original Staffordshire Terriers accepted into the American Kennel Club.” -> http://www.canismajor.com/dog/amerpit.html
Which one is the dangerous vicious dog? http://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/findpit.html
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, when that opinion (whether positive or negative) is based on second hand information (such as media accounts, and “friend of a friend” stories) and there is a staunch refusal to challenge your opinion with reality that’s just ignorant. My American Staffordshire Terrier (Amstaffs are to Pitbulls what Andalusians are to Lusitanos, they are genetically identical but they look different and were bred for a different purpose) is better with my three year olds than my golden retriever. My breeder has FOUR of these dogs – one unaltered male, one unaltered female (son and mother) and her two prior showdogs, both altered, male and female. All four go out together and it’s amazing that no one has ever been hurt on her property, she’s never been hurt, no problems. Friend of hers wound up in the hospital for 97 stitches after her Golden Retriever attacked her. But no one wants to hear about it when the world’s super bestest family dog loses his mind and attacks.
Woman I work with was pissed because she had to spend $2k on her dog at the vet. Dog went into a paddock with a pair of mules, was chasing them and one of the mules turned around and kicked him in the face, knocked a lot of teeth out and broke his jaw. Yellow Lab. Former barn owner had a dog that would aggressively chase the horses that were working in the round pen. Rottweiler. Former trainer has two dogs that incessantly chase horses during lessons and when the horses are being turned out. Rat Terriers. Breed is irrelevant, it’s the species and the owner.
Dogs are like horses, everyone gets the breed they want because it fits their lifestyle and their goals. You wouldn’t catch me on a Saddlebred or if my life depended on it and I think most of them are psycho. I’ve seen a lot of comments about modern Warmbloods – I have one. Lots of people dislike Thoroughbreds. They’re too hot for me at this point in my life but they are awesome horses for the right rider. Just because YOU disagree with someone’s choice to have a Pit Bull doesn’t mean it’s wrong for everyone.
This web site is VERY objective and VERY informative and obtains information regarding the inaccuracy of statistics, media reporting, etc. http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/
Very well said – thank you!
As a former breeder, historian and current owner of an APBT I can tell you that reputable breeders do not breed for a human aggressive dog, and historically any dog that bit a human was immediately killed. In a dog fight you need to be able to handle your dog and any dogs that bit people were shot on site. What it means is that *well bred* APBT are bred to not bite people – the trait is inherent. I had a friend who looked for years for a well bred APBT for doing schutzhund and always came away with sweet dogs who looked macho but would not bite the man in the suit. What is so sad about the APBT is that they were the nanny dog, Pete the pup from Our Gang – and relatively unheard of until a 1980′s cover story in Sports Illustrated proclaimed the ‘pitbull’ as the most dangerous dog to own. After that cover story the thugs got ahold of the breed – and the rest is history, a history that ethical breeders have been trying to repair ever since.
http://gprime.net/flash.php/thepitbullproblem
http://server.inalbum.com/show/jodipreis/Message_to_the_Media2.html?296033009
http://www.badrap.org/rescue/
She has a new pony, and he’s not as skinny as Babba, but it looks like he’s a little thinner than what he was when she got him. From what I gather in her videos on youtube, she’s not ignorant. She’s a very good rider, and seems like a decent trainer from her recent videos with her new pony, but still don’t know how to feed them properly for the amount of riding she does. She needs a lesson on horse nutrition.
that’s seriously fucking disgusting. who videos a dead pony?
This is how the time line is meant to go, this is my mare’s story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrB7gXSVAFo
It does look like he also has the classic “heave line”…which would have left him susceptible to respiratory infections and pneumonia…
Hence… needing PROACTIVE care.
My mother’s old Morab gelding had the heaves and we also had a mini stallion that also had heaves. Neither were ever emaciated, ever. (The mini looked like a hassock with hooves.)
And whenever any of them had even the slightest hint of congestion.. the vet was called to come out as soon as possible. It wasn’t anything that you would “wait and see if it went away on it’s own” because that was just asking for a horse that dies in a horrible way.
And drowning in your own mucous is a pretty fricking horrible way to go.
And I can’t even imagine riding a horse that thin and thinking it was alright. That’s just astounding…. when I was that girl’s age I was helping feed up rescues and take care of the golden oldies that my mother was fond of bringing home (along with the other horses, and various pathetic, starved critters that my father would feel sorry for at the auction and bring home as well.)
It NEVER crossed my teenage mind to get on a horse that thin and ride them.
I can’t read Baba’s comments that are not in English, but it seems no one notices how thin he is until it was talked about on here. Lots of comments on what a wonderful life she gave him (?) but no one (as far as I can tell) says anything about his being rather thin.
Kind of a reflection on the usefulness of a ‘test for owning a horse’. Maybe they could learn the right answers to pass it, but on the practical side, in ‘real life’…likely a test would make that much differencenot.
Just like in the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’, now that it has been ‘seen’ by a few, maybe others will be able to ‘notice’ it.
I’m not sure why so many people find it surprising that someone who videotapes everything would videotape a death. It reminds me of the people who jumped on the woman who twittered about her son’s death. Yeah, like she didn’t love her son – like she hadn’t noticed that a son dying was not a fun thing. It was okay for her friends to twitter to her that they were praying for her son to live, but somehow not okay for her to twitter to her friends supposedly praying that he had died. At the moment her son died, she was no longer allowed to seek comfort from her friends. In fact, how dare she have any friends, that narcissistic bitch!
It would have been okay for this girl to make a long blog post about the death of her pony – like so many of you here, many of whose posts I’ve commented on with sympathy – but for some reason doing the same with a camera is taboo.
She twittered that her son died? I see no issue with that at all…?
Oooook let me try this one more time:
I don’t have a problem with death. Animals die. It’s very unfortunate, and very sad, but it’s true. People die too, accidentally, maliciously, even naturally.
And while Twitter isn’t a method I would choose, if it’s something you use for everything else in your life I can see using it for that as well. Like I said, I wouldn’t want pictures of my dead animals, but if people do more power to them.
BUT that woman did not let her son die via her lack of care and then turn around on top of that and use him as no more than a PROP for an over-dramatic, staged, piece. She probably tweeted something like “Thank you for all the prayers and kind thoughts but Joshua has sadly gone on to a better place” not “OMG JOSHUA DIED WTH”.
This girl’s video is the equivalent of “OMG JOSHUA DIED WTH”, and adding that to the fact that she pretty much killed ‘Joshua’ through inaction, yeah, I find issue with it.
Please look a little further before you post things like this.
the pony was actually 26 when he died, and that’s a pretty normal age.
horses get skinny when they get old, and they DID call the vet, more than once.
but when horses get old (and skinny) they die. that’s what happens. And you can’t stop it by calling the vet.
If that was possible, all horses would be immortal! :p)
I don’t think Babba had a bad life, she loved him (yes that is VERY important) she rode him bitless, he had enough food, he had water to drink, he could play in a paddock with other ponies, she cared good for him and when he got sick they called a vet.
OMG YOU DID NOT ACTUALLY SAY ON THIS BLOG “horses get skinny when they get old”????
*headdesk*
Honey, keep reading – you NEED this blog. BADLY.
Horses don’t just get skinny because they are old, especially not at 26. They get skinny because there is a problem. And you know what, if her vet had told her that there is not much more to be done but to let him live as comfortably as possible for as long as he has quality of life, I would be OK with that. HOWEVER, this girl was RIDING the pony in that condition. That is not love. And it is not OK. I can assure you that no reputable vet would look at that emaciated pony and tell this girl that he just has a cold and to go ahead and ride him, so don’t even go the “They called a vet” route. I am not buying that a vet saw this pony or that she followed the vet’s advice if a vet did actually see the animal.
She did not care good for him! She rode the crap out of him when he was in terrible condition, and recovering from laminitis. She knew he was ill, and rather than seek treatment let him drown in his own mucous outside in a field. That is ** awful**, it is NOT good care!
Older horses CAN become skinny. Aged horses are harder keepers…they may require more food. If their teeth are in poor condition, they may need assistance in the form of soaking their food or buying senior feed. Old horses can also develop sway back, which in some cases and from some angles can make them LOOK thin (because it makes the top of the hip more prominent). This is more common in horses that have worked hard and/or have long backs, and in mares who have been bred (especially multiple times).
NONE of this is an excuse for an old horse being THIN. But it leads to the misconception that old horses are somehow ‘supposed’ to be thin.
We just lost a Thoroughbred where I board. He was 33 years old. He had NO TEETH left. He had mush twice a day and pretty much gummed hay for the rest of the day (leaving soaked spit wads out in the paddock – gross). And he looked WAY better than this guy. Couldn’t see his ribs, spine, hips…his topline sucked but I think that’s because he hadn’t been ridden in about 10 years.
Last year (or the year before) we lost a 37 year old appy gelding. He was the most rambunctious piece of shit – gave everyone a hard time and worked every day. He was fat and happy. He worked one morning, went out into the field and dropped dead from a stroke. He wasn’t skinny either.
I don’t want to bore everyone else but old does NOT equal skinny unless the owner is too lazy to provide the additional care that’s needed!
I think one useful thing I can take from this discussion is: if we’re ever watching a situation that looks like it’s going bad, it’s much better to get up the nerve to speak than look back later and go, “I knew that was going to happen.” Maybe this pony was under veterinary care the whole time, who knows. But there have been cases where neighbours or barn mates or whatever were just too afraid of making a fuss to speak up. And there are times when we should. If I think I am the only person in a given scenario who understands the implications, it’s my responsibility to at least try to do something.
A couple of years ago I realized a kid at my barn was having a lot of trouble with a bad-mannered lease horse, and she and her mother seemed to have no clue that there was a problem. They seemed unaware that it’s not normal for a horse to pull loose and run over you three or four times in a grooming session. It was as if they knew so little that they just accepted this as normal, and they were so sloppy in their handling that they were bound to get hurt. I immediately spoke to them, and to the barn owner, who hadn’t known the situation. The barn owner laid down the law about getting coaching and things worked out. The thing was, I didn’t want to be the one afterward who said, “I could see that accident coming but I didn’t like to say anything.”
In the case in the video, who knows? There are all sorts of possibilities. But if Babba’s owners were like the people at my barn, it’s *possible* they really didn’t get that there was something seriously wrong. And at that point, if there was anyone else around with enough knowledge to see the problem, that person really should have spoken up–to them, to the barn owner, to someone.
So–not a comment on the kid or the video as much as a reminder to myself, in case I ever need it.
Yeah.
Thank god someone spoke up to my parents and steered us to a real trainer after my fed-up, already bratty pony ran me into a tree & broke my arm.
Or else I’d probably have given up riding at some point.
OT – How do you out someone who is taking in free horses for the handicapped. We have a local sale site that this couple is offering loving home with or without coggins. Here’s the link to one of their ads supposedly a donor.
http://www.southeasttexas.com/classifieds/detail.cfm?id=617926&classified_code=horse_equestrian&zipcode=&distance=0&type=general
and her ad
http://www.southeasttexas.com/classifieds/detail.cfm?id=615539&classified_code=horse_equestrian&zipcode=&distance=0&type=general
Let’s see… run-on sentences, same words misspelled, same writing style, incorrect and arbitrary capitalization… I think the same person wrote both of these. I smell a Kill Buyer.
Interesting that she doesn’t give references or the name of the organization that she supposedly helps. Also, how many horses would be needed for a handicapped kids program? She says she trains, but “any horse� Not just any horse would be suitable for that purpose, even with training.
And no Coggins? Isn’t it true that slaughter-bound horses do not need a Coggins?
Okay. If you look at all her videos, Babba was on the thinner side when she got him. But then why was there no weight gain after that? For a little while there (assuming the video of his life 1 was chronological) he did look a bit better. But then he bounces between “thin” and “extremely thin.” And then when her friend gets the healthy fjord…couldn’t anyone tell the difference? In the video where it shows her friend working the healthy fjord, and then switches back to Lotte and Babba…OMG. What a difference. Poor pony. There was no excuse for his poor weight–and not, IMO, an excuse for his downward spiral after he got laminitus. He looked that bad beforehand (and she also should not have been riding him. At all.)
And for the people on YouTube who are defending her by saying, “SHE EXPLAINED IT IN HER VIDEO!!!” She explained crap. Her family does not know how to care for horses, period. Her new horse looks on the thin side as well. I suppose it will only be a matter of time before he passes away too.
OK… I finally got thru the video….
Even if the pony had a “mysterious disease,” HOW could she justify riding such a thin horse?? She’s an affluent horse owner from the Netherlands, a civilized EU country, NOT a poor guy trying to eke out tourist dollars running a livery on a beach in Aruba. They have, like, real vets there and stuff. I have friends who moved there with their cats & dog, and are getting better care for their animals than they got in metro Atlanta. If your “beloved” pony is declining, and your vet and grownup horse friends are unhelpful, if the Internet doesn’t give you any ideas, well, at LEAST stop riding the poor thing!! Narcissistic teens are nothing new, but this video certainly hits a new low.
It says that her video was edited in iMovie HD, which means she’s got a pretty decent newer computer. She’s upper middle class, not some farmer with plow ponies.
If you want to take final photos/video of your dead pony, instead of just collecting tail hair for a bracelet, well, OK… but… SHE DRESSED FOR THE OCCASION. That whole magenta mesh fingerless glove thing… um…. it’s tacky as well as disturbing! You’ve got plenty of footage of you and your pony dressed up and riding through the fields; why would you want video of you and pony DEAD, but still dressed up?
Victorian photo portraits of dead people (very common, to send to far-away relatives who couldn’t make the funeral in time) at least were dignified.
The whole thing reminds me of what Rick Santorum’s family did when they suffered a very premature birth:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61804-2005Apr17.html
Hi, let’s scar the rest of the children for life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Actually, I know a local family who did this, too, when I was a little kid. They buried it in their garden after.
My 13 year old daughter also has a Fjord horse, but unlike the girl that is featured in this story, if my daughter’s horse started dropping weight or had any medical issues, I think my daughter would hound me until I called the vet out. But I don’t just leave it to her to see that her horse is taken care of, as she is, after all, a minor…I personally take an active interest in Bjorn (her Fjordie) because I LOVE that horse and enjoy the fact that my daughter lets me, her mom, help out with him.
I don’t know where I saw or heard the saying, but it went something like this: “Many people ride horses and never see the horse underneath them,” which I think describes this other young girl. To her, despite her professions of loving her horse Babba and looking the part in all her You Tube videos, he was just a nameless, feeling-less entity to her. And where were this girl’s parents? Who was dropping her off at her stables to ride? Didn’t they ever look at her horse? What about the other boarders or owners of this stable, if it was a boarding situation, didn’t they notice anything? I think many, many people failed this poor horse! I’ll tell you one thing, if my daughter ever managed to SO SCREW UP her Fjord like this girl obviously did, it would be a cold day in hell before she EVER got any other horse!
If Babba’s owner, the young girl, could orchestrate and act, yes act, in all those You Tube videos and not notice her horse deteriorating before her eyes, or caring even that he was, I personally think she is one sick puppy and needs some kind of intervention.
Her current appaloosa is GORGEOUS and I hope he/she does not share a similar fate. She must have good money to afford such a nice horse.
I bet her current Appaloosa is a Knabstrupper.
It sure does look that way. Who said it was an appy, her? I forget.
It is an Appy, she says it on her youtube. So, it’s not a knabstrupper.
I found this unbelievable. As a child/teenager I had ponies – two were welsh cobs, they got Laminitis, the other was a 9hh Shetland gelding. All my friends were riding, I attended pony club – with my shetland, in hand. I didn’t ride my ponies when they were ill, in fact, years were spent not riding my ponies. They were under vet treatment, and even when they were sound, but iffy – they weren’t ridden. They were hand walked, exercised on the ground and given cuddles a plenty. They were ponies first, my hobby second. And that was never forgotten. I spent years taking my Shetland for walks, while others rode. I got some rides when people felt sorry for me, and they walked my shetland. There were times I couldn’t take my boy out, I went without a pony. I watched and I helped out. At no point did I think it would be proper to ride my pony when it was ill, or underweight. I didn’t need a vet to tell me that, I thought that was obvious.
This girl – rides a pony who is clearly, while sound, not fit for being ridden. The fact he’s trying hard and doing as she asks is heartbreaking, regardless of age, this pony needed to be fed correctly and looked after. In essence, to be a pony first and her plaything second. I don’t understand that people can’t get that – and age doesn’t matter. I knew as a child, but then my parents accepted we were keeping horses, they were going to drain all the money we had, and well, we might not get ribbons, but we’d get love back from them for making sure they were happy. If that meant no riding, then no riding happened. And to this day, I find it more gratifying to see a happy and healthy horse being a horse, than being one that I ride. I love riding, but I love horses more than I love riding. I think that matters.
As for videoing the poor animal’s dead body, I don’t know how you could do that. When we lost our heavyweight cob in 2008, despite knowing for a few days that his chances of survival were slim, the actual putting him to sleep was more than I could cope with. I didn’t stay – I was too upset. I stayed with him till just before, then I left. My father stayed with him, but I was upset and I didn’t see it as fair on him. There were no cameras, just the blind tears of losing him after we’d fought so hard to save him, and at great cost. Not that the cost mattered, but we tried – and even the vet was distraught that we’d lost him. It wasn’t time for videos or photographs, when the vet is frustrated that his work didn’t save him and everyone is upset at the loss, you aren’t looking to share it. (The cause of death was never confirmed for our boy, as would have required an autopsy, but was felt to be grass sickness in the vet’s opinion – we’d done everything right, but sometimes, you just can’t save them).
So I don’t think the age of this girl is at question. She’s old enough to ride him – she’s old enough to sense that she’s riding a pony she shouldn’t be riding. It’s not picking on a young girl or child, it’s picking on someone who neglected this animal and then it died. The video footage shows there were problems, and age doesn’t cause that. I have a STB mare in her mid 20s, she’s fat and happy, she’s not ridden much, but is sound. This girl – and her parents should be brought to account for what happened to that Fjord. They – or she – made the decision to broadcast their neglect to the world, so yes, they should have to answer it. While the animal may have had something wrong that in the end wouldn’t have saved it – since none of us know what he died of – there was no need for him to be in the state he was, while galloping about with her on his back.
I thought about this posting all night and I just couldn’t not say my peace. Fugly – I think a lot of times you are spot on in calling out horrible cases of abuse and neglect and questioning overbreeding practices. But when you post things like this, ugh…it just makes me so sad for you and the apparently narrow-minded, uncaring, rabid-at-the-mouth sort of horse owners that you are grooming via your blog.
I would ask, what change would you hope to affect with this posting? By “exposing” a young girl who, in every other regard, and certainly in attitudes, seems to the be the kind of owner every pony would dream of? We can only surmise as to what her parent’s roles (or lack of it) were in the decline and death of her pony, and what her vet told her. Yes, she shouldn’t have been riding him and she should have had the vet come out when he caught a cold. But, we don’t know what sort of advice she had in others regarding this.
But it is certainly obvious this is NOT a dirty, skinny pony tied up in a backyard filled with broken down cars and emaciated dogs sorta owner that is just as likely to go shot the pony in the head for dog food as they are to worry about it being to skinny when they ride it. This pony was loved on. Nice facilities, great pasture. Heck, she even wears a helmet at least part of the time!
This is a girl that, I would take a wild guess, would be more than receptive to learning more about what she could have done better for her pony, even if it made her realize she made mistakes. Why not a personal email? Praising her obvious love for her ponies but pointing out the areas where her knowledge was lacking? Would that NOT have the affect of making her think about what happened with Babba? In a manner that she might be able to wrap her mind around her mistakes, acknowledge and own them, and then change her behavior and knowledge in the future?
But by exposing her in this manner and “flaming” her, I fear that the “lessons learned” will certainly not be the ones that will be for the good of horses. The comments here, and on her video, by some of your followers, are just shameful.
What will the affect of this experience be? Well, I would imagine by the nature of how this was presented, she is NOT going to be very receptive to the questioning of her care in the past or the future. It would be wrong of me to attack you Fugly, for the fact that when you were a young, and unknowing teen, that you kept your horse in a tie-stall. I don’t believe in stalling horses unless in injury, so the fact that a horse would ever be tied in a stall is a horrendous thought to me. I’ve heard you admit you feel bad about that now and would never do the same now. Good for you. But what would it have done to you at that point, with your age, to have had that mistake INTERNATIONALLY criticized and have a bunch of strangers saying horrible things to you about a horse you obviously loved?
I’m afraid this posting will either only turn this girl off horses altogether (which would be a shame, look how much she loves those ponies); will ruin her opinions of American’s forever (also a shame, because, like it or not, the U.S. is not the only country occupying this planet); will harden her receptiveness to “gentle criticism” or completely cut off her ability to be willing to admit she doesn’t know everything and seek out advice in the future.
Sure…maybe it will do what you hope it will and make her reassess her knowledge and abilities. But I think that ALSO could have been accomplished by simply contacting her nicely. I suppose this posting may make others think twice about their care of their horses, but apparently not any of your commenters they all “knew that.” Mostly I would think it would make people think twice about what they posted on YouTube.
I’m truly sorry you posted this. It is a shame for all involved.
I had mistakes criticized at her age, and often publicly. I got hollered at and embarrassed in front of the whole barn when I messed up.
Made me a much better horseperson.
I was corrected and embarrassed as a kid too for mistakes made at my barn. I was not, however, tarred and feathered in public.
Were you called a psychopath? Accused of having a personality disorder? Called an idiot by 50 different people in public? That’s the difference between what you say you went through and what posting here does to a kid. I’m not saying I feel bad for her or worse for her than the dead pony, but there’s probably a more effective way of educating her for the sake of her future ponies.
I think you’ll find that Fugly never let a horse die for something that could have been prevented either. I think you’ll also find that she never rode a rack of bones.
If you can’t stand the heat, you shouldn’t post such stuff on the internet. It’s happening on a second-to-second basis. Who, in their right mind, posts pictures of a dead animal? Or bad behavior, or their breasts or booty, if they weren’t looking for an audience! And if there are consequences, such as this blog, then so be it! Some people need to keep their personal lives a little more personal! This blog is just a window into some really bad behavior, IMHO.
So then…in response to your comment and all those that echo the sentiment “she posted those videos, she got what she deserved…”
For the sake of arguments, lets all agree that she was riding pony way too skinny and should have done more when he came down with a cold as far as contacting vet.
Okay. She screwed up.
Then…she posted a video about it. Nothing mentioned on said video about mistakes she made with pony’s care.
She video pony when it died. Some people find this offensive.
Okay…
After all that…WHEN does girl actions SOMEHOW bridge the gap between decent human interactions and make it okay for complete strangers to post comments (and most likely send personal email messages, perhaps even phone calls, as the Fugly mob has often been known to do) attacking her in an incredibly venomous manner. When did it make it okay for somebody to state they would like to “punch her in the face” or accuse her of being a psychopath? I didn’t get through all the comments on the videos (too disgusted) but I would have been SHOCKED if there was somebody wishing she had died rather than the pony.
My mother taught me one person’s bad behavior doesn’t mean I get to be bad back. Apparently now, in the age of YouTube, it is okay? Not in my book.
I don’t think Fugly should have featured this girl on this blog because I think her sins were far outweighed by other factors. But what I REALLY HATE is that Fugly just threw this girl to the wolves. And not just any wolves – the Fugly Wolves. And I’m sure Fugs will state “she doesn’t control her followers” but guess what, Cathy sure as hell knows how they behave because this is their reaction time and time again. So pretending she is “not accountable” for the actions and nastiness of the Fugly follwers may legally be true, but it sure as hell isn’t morally true.
Cathy – whether some people like it or not YOU ARE a leadership voice in the horse world. As part of being a leader you have a moral and ethical responsibility to think very careful about how you “guide” your flock. I would hope you would think more carefully in the future about who and why you post. Because you can ruin lives. And the thing is, “Humane” treatment of horses doesn’t happen without the “human” part of the equation. Don’t forget the humans.
OK, one more time:
Please show me where I have instructed my so-called followers to harass people. Blaming me for the actions of other people is ludicrous. By merely sharing my opinion, and allowing people to comment, I’m responsible for ANY outcome and comments that do not happen on my site or involve me in any way? Try to sell that to a jury or a judge. It’s ridiculous, and similar attempts to attack other entertainers who share controversial opinions have failed.
Oh yes, I totally agree that it is not legally your responsibility what your followers do. Pretty sure I said that. As a matter of fact, I have a journalism degree, so I’m pretty familiar with all those arguments and certainly do defend them.
But MORALLY…that is a DIFFERENT matter. And pretty sure nobody is holding your feet to the fire as far as what you decide to post, or not post, about.
So I guess what I’m asking is for you to look into your heart and ask yourself…Is subjecting this young girl to this sort of attack the RIGHT thing for you to have done? Because while sure you don’t “legally” have any responsibility for the comments made to and about her…I think you are smart enough to know that if you had NOT posted about her that those attacks would have had a minuscule chance of happening. As you well know the law and the right thing to do are not always on the same page.
I am extremely amused you think the girl wouldn’t have gotten negative feedback if I had’n't talked about her videos. You might want to visit Youtube more. There are a lot of nasty comments posted about things I’ve NEVER talked about!
I did not subject her to any sort of attack. She did it to herself by posting those videos publicly. Who do you think sent them to me? It sure as heck wasn’t someone who thought they were a great thing.
There is no way on earth for me to control what readers of this blog also read and also post to, or their behavior elsewhere. I am not about to let you or anyone else put that silly idea into my head. It doesn’t make any logical sense, period. I do not encourage people to harrass others and I have said before that if someone feels they have been illegally harrassed, they SHOULD report it. I would always cooperate with law enforcement to identify anyone actually breaking the law who is a poster here. But having an opinion and sharing it, particularly when someone is asking for feedback by leaving their video open for comments is not the LEAST bit illegal OR immoral.
You are just miffed that I commented on something having to do with someone under the age of 18, who you believe is supposed to be protected from any criticism. I think that kind of overprotection creates adults who are terrible horse owners. We clearly do not agree on this topic, but you do not get to control this blog, and I assure you that nothing anyone has ever said about this blog has swayed my decisions about its content one bit, so ultimately, you’re wasting your typing.
Yeah, but at this point you know pretty well what’s going to happen when you post a story like this. I do think it deserves to be taken into consideration, especially in a situation like this one where we really don’t know much about what happened and the reaction will be pretty extreme.
But as we all know, it’s not me writing this blog, so you can happily ignore this.
“Look how much she loves her ponies” – did you see Pony Bloopers x3, where she and friends jump out from behind trees trying to spook their own horses? This is love? Oh yeah, what did Cathy say? Love is in the actions…
My friends and me used to have `chicken wars’ on horseback when I was about that age. We would ride double bareback, gallop flat out at one another and try to knock the other pair off the horse. Not exactly a brilliant or smart thing to do on horseback, but we sure had fun. As an adult, I realize what a bone-headed thing to do that was (kinda like jumping out from behind a tree and spooking a horse for the camera), but it didn’t mean that as a child I didn’t love my horse more than anything else in the world. You cannot apply adult reasoning and wisdom to a child. Nor will bullying and chastising some kid on the internet teach them to be a better horseperson.
That pony was way underweight when he died. However, due to the fact she decided to film his dead body, we know he wasn’t dull coated or exhibiting many of the other signs of a sick and undernourished animal. Maybe the vets really didn’t realize what was wrong and told her to go ahead and ride him lightly. Maybe to her, riding bareback with a halter and going to the river was riding lightly. Hopefully now, she knows better. By all appearances, she truly loves her horses, so a little kind guidance would help her become just the sort of horse owner there needs to more of.
Like it or not, you have a great responsibility with this blog. Maybe you just wanted to point out that this situation sucked, but you should know by now that when you publically out somebody on here, the bored and holier than thou types that read here are going to take things to the extreme and go way overboard. As the writer, you need to be aware of that and not call a bunch of bullies out on a child.
To all of you who wrote those horrible messages on her youtube, I would love to see your animals and children and if you ever make a mistake. Sometimes types like you may be great at feeding and caring for an animal, but not so great at loving them to pieces. Maybe that little pony hung on just a little bit longer because that kid loved him so much. How do any of us know?
1. Europeans think we’re ignorant scum. As far as I know of the only ones that really like us are the Irish.
2. Very first thing Fugly said? Abuse and neglect happens in other places, not just in the US.
3. Putting a horse in a tie stall is not going to kill it.
4. I can love my horse all I want but riding him when he’s ill, not taking care of him when he’s ill – and it is on one of the videos that he wasn’t eating for a WEEK and she just let it go “hoping it would go away”. Having your horse hurt himself because you did something ignorant (which I have done) is one thing. To have the horse DIE as a result of your ignorance/stupidity is a whole new ballgame.
5. You put it on YouTube for the world to see? The world will respond. Like Yahoo! Answers, not everyone is going to pat your butt and tell you what you want to hear and not everyone is going to agree with you. Don’t like criticism? Take it down and/or get over it.
I think it is totally appropriate to respond in the same medium to a video placed for the public to see. Apparently, the 285 commentors to that Youtube video had their opinions, only five of which were posted after fugly’s blog. If this little girl had her horse at your barn, it would be appropriate to criticize her privately, but she put out this video for the world to see, and world is commenting on it. Standing on that skinny horse’s spine and riding that sick horse was abuse — to fail to comment on it is to let it pass as okay. Even if she isn’t receptive to seeing that was wrong, other viewers will.
As for “ruining her opinions of American’s (sic) forever,” many commentors on this blog come from all over the world. The videos she posted on Youtube had titles in English, so I would assume she was targeting English-speaking viewers.
Your comment that this little girl was “thrown to the wolves” seems really extreme to me. If she stumbles upon this blog and doesn’t like what she reads, she doesn’t have to continue, but I think that no matter what her reactions, no matter if her feelings are hurt, no matter if she feels angry at the criticism, she will think about her care and her parents’ care of her horses in the future.
I have to agree with noctemare. This is a girl in another country. We don’t know anything about this situation except that the pony has lost a significant amount of weight in one years time and then ended up dead. How can we judge this girl when these are the only facts we know. There is a vet involved. Maybe it is the only vet within a 100 miles. Maybe the condition led to other conditions such as laminitis or vice versa. Maybe the vet wasn’t able to diagnose and made mistakes. Maybe they knew the horse was losing weight but was told to keep riding. Maybe he was euthanzied, it looks like it to me. There are way too many maybes. We are judging this girl extremely harshly from a string of videos and tidbits of information. Maybe the language barrier made her tell few details. As far as videoing, that is her way of coping. Who are we to judge this girl when we are guessing at all the facts. I don’t dare judge another horse owner when I know how fragile a horse life can be The day I judge someone without knowing all of the facts is the day my own horses come down with laminitis, colic, ulcers, cushings you name it. I agree it appears to be a sad situation. The judging on this comment board is hateful. Know all the facts before you start pointing fingers.
Maybe this kid shouldn’t have posted all the videos for the WHOLE WORLD to see. Maybe she should have disabled comments. You can’t have it both ways. If she hadn’t posted the video, no one would be discussing what facts are known or not. SHE presented the facts available as she saw fit. The web provided comments on it as they see fit. She is an attention whore riding an emaciated pony. Period. She got what she wanted – people are talking/writing about her.
Essentially what you’re saying is that only perfect people are allowed to use the internet. Looking around, I don’t see too many of you.
How old are you? There’s a big difference between a child attacking a child and an adult attacking a child. And, frankly, the sort of gang pile-on that occurs here is sometimes inappropriate even when the victim is an adult.
As far as her level of responsibility, the funny thing is, the law would agree with the girl’s defenders, and not you. There’s a reason children are allowed to make mistakes, even critical mistakes which lead to loss of life, without being penalized as an adult would be penalized in the same situation. It’s because children lack experience and judgment, and are not done developing their adult personalities. I met a guy at my class reunion who, in high school, I would have believed was a demon on earth. He’s a nice guy now as an adult. It happens. People grow up and learn. But it’s far more likely to happen if the adults around behave like responsible adults and are not self-indulgent and vicious.
Shame on you ALL for making this girl lock the comments on her videos! Something that was clearly a primary source of joy in her life has been taken from her, along with her innocent belief that most people are basically kind and decent, by a bunch of hideous cows.
I think it’s great that you’re adding this opinion, and that you’re willing to speak out in defense of someone you see as needing defending. That said, I do think it’s a problem to find “joy in life” from the empty comments and platitudes of strangers about your life on YouTube, what an “amazing bond” you have, your “beautiful pony,” “awww, he’s so cute” (in the way sick horses are cute, I guess). I did not notice this girl taking down her video when the comments were praising her, quite out of proportion. Psychologically, it doesn’t help to get an inflated head about one’s own horsemanship from the Internet, either. Again, the fault of adults in her life for not giving her a bit more of a perspective.
I read some Dutch, as I lived there for a few years when I was a teenager. There were a few, very few people at the beginning of this YouTube pity fest who pointed out the pony looked skinny. They were shot down, and the poster immediately responded with EXCUSES, not a question about whether she should have done something different. That’s sad. I have no problem with comments finally being disabled, when nobody at the beginning was willing to listen to the few who pointed out the pony didn’t look so hot (and I think those were kids as well, from the screen names).
Again, you made a good point, but I see this a little more as the yin and yang of the Internet. Over the last year, she got the rainbows and roses of strangers for her videos and ignored the few little voices of dissent. Now, for a short period of time, she got a great deal of anger — and closed comments because she didn’t want to hear it. If you play on the Internet, it’s really important to know how to either diffuse this kind of anger or let it roll of you, and someone should have taught her.
A simple response to some people, saying, “OK, sounds like I really, really messed up. What do you think happened? What could I have done differently?” would have gone a long way. My mother taught me that when I was about 12 and had to slink back to apologize publicly for my piano teacher for a lie I told at recital. It really builds character.
We know from her videos that he was sick for a week with a respiratory infection and he did not see a vet. We know he died in a field – they found him there. This is info she provided on her videos. We do NOT know ‘nothing’ here, we know enough. Far too much.
I don’t know. Conflicted on this one.
About the filming – she’s not holding the camera. Someone else is documenting all of this, likely an adult considering the good camera work and editing. It is weird that the kid doesn’t show much emotion in the final scenes. While the kid is a a bit of an exhibitionist, like many online today, the staging feels like a parent was involved.
When I was her age I was heavily involved with 4-H and won many ribbons in their Horse Bowl and Hippology events. I read everything I could get my hands on, went to lectures at the nearby vet school and rode at a decent barn. I wasn’t stupid. When I got my first horse, a respected trainer in the area stamped her with a clean bill of health and off I went.
That mare was HOT HOT HOT. Kicked through walls, ran through fences, needed a lot of time to blow off steam till I could ride her. Looking back now, it’s easy to see that she was obese and that graining her with two coffee cans of sweet feed every day was NOT appropriate. We lived in horse area. The people to the left of me competed Appaloosas, behind, Arabians and to the right, H/J. No one ever said “your horse is fat, maybe you should back off her feed,” not even a vet! It was always, “your horse sure is healthy looking.” She was a beefy quarter horse, shiny with dapples. She was eventually given away for being too hot to handle and probably went to slaughter–where she was headed when I got her. My parents did it. I woke up one morning to feed her and she was gone. Point being, today she’d have been off the grain and down to a flake or two of hay and then behavior would have been addressed. Then, I had NO IDEA what I was feeding was wrong and the adults all around fully supported it. And the mare went to feed the French as a result.
It is very possible the girl had a old-timey or farm animal vet out who told her the horse was skinny from being old. Could be the respected horse people in the area said the same thing. The girl does need education, but I’m not sure she’s got a personality disorder or is a psychopath.
I have spent the morning watching all of her videos and I think it is unfair she was even featured on your blog. She loved her pony, she and her friends take very good care of them. They are glossy, shiny, feet are trimmed. All of the little ponies are well groomed and fed. You are all taking exception to the videoing of her horses death but she videoed everything about her horse so why do you think it is odd? Plus she put it on youtube as a tribute to her love for that horse!! Now for all of you that said she should have fed the pony and called the vet, she did. She was trying everything. The vet was out when he got sick, she WAS concerned about his weight loss, and she tells us he was sick for about a month and started getting better. Since he had been under vet care she propably was told to ride him lightly and get him moving as most vets will tell you to do this. In the video she is walking him and taking him in the water, it is the middle of summer so it was hot.
You are all a bunch of jerks for attacking her. Yes her pony died. Animals do that. He was under the vets care. If he was sick for 5 weeks before he died and the vet was out 3 times during that then that means the vet was out every 2 weeks. Sounds like he was getting vet care. And I am sure if she posted he was thin, and she was concerned, that the vet was also looking at that because you couldn’t miss it. But you all put in the parts you want to fill in the missing facts. You have no idea about the things she didnt say or what the vet did and didnt do for treatment. But calling someone names because she made a tribute to her horse she loved and posting it does not make her bad at all. I have seen alot of things much worse than a little girl and her friends having fun with their ponies. You all need to find something to do with yourselves than attacking people when you have no idea of the situation. Go find some horse and get some therapy. This very well might be the thing that makes me quit reading this blog.
If you genuinely believe that riding an emaciated pony is an example of love and good care, PLEASE stop reading my blog.
I did not attack her – I’ve only posted my opinion on this blog. But letting a horse go for a week in respiratory distress is not good care by any standard and such behavior is worthy of critical comments. She posted he died and she did not know why or how. I’ve never owned a horse and even I can put two and two together to figure it out. And riding an emaciated horse is just plain cruel. Love indeed…
You spent all morning watching her videos but somehow missed that
the horse was sick and
not eating
for a week and
she found him dead in the field one day?
She was hoping it would go away on its own.
That’s in one of the videos. If she managed to have the vet out three times in a month for laminitis you’d think she wouldn’t have been shy about calling him after the second or third day of respiratory distress and not eating well.
Yes, horses can get mystery illnesses, and they can lose weight with no apparent reason. That’s the time when your true horsemanship shows, because even if all you say regarding the vet care, hugs and rainbows, etc that it’s ‘posted’ the pony was given is actually true – she RODE that ill, starving pony right up until he died. She FAILS.
Wait a minute! She lost another horse, Loka. Not even sure that one lasted a year. WTH? Is she killing them on purpose?
Where did you read that Loka died? I think Loka is her current horse. And he doesn’t look underweight to me.
One of her tribute videos. She mentions how she misses both the Fjord and Loka. He’s the leopard spotted Appy looking pony in the earlier videos. She had him less than a year. He didn’t look skinny so I don’t know what happened to him. I think her new pony is a bay, isn’t it?
I believe you misread. Loka is alive. She states that the video is for both of them, Loka who is alive and Babba who died. She does not say she misses them both.
No she shouldn’t have been riding the underweight pony, but aside from that we’ll all have to agree to disagree here.
Her videos show that her ponies are a huge part of her life. Young teenage girls goofing off, playing games with their well-groomed, loved-on ponies. The girl has got a fantastic natural seat, great hands. Rides with or without tack, but when she has tack, it’s appropriate and in great condition. She’s clearly spending hours teaching the Appy tricks and they have a great rapport.
She seems to care more for and have a better bond with her ponies than 99.9% of the hunter/jumper teens I’ve met.
We have no idea what the full situation is, but given how much joy and connection she has with her ponies, I’m betting the farm that the horse deteriorated under the watch of adults who said his condition was normal for his age.
Snark is great, but y’all are coming across as sanctimonious jerks on this one.
Make no mistake, I think its tragic that lovely pony wasted away and died, but I really think this blog was a massive misfire as far as taking the kid to task. Clearly, she loved that horse. She absolutely used poor judgement, but none of us know the back story. Kids do use poor judgement, that’s why we don’t let them vote and drive cars. What about taking the adults to task for standing by and not intervening? Obviously the pony was at a nice facility and obviously the kid has parents. Where were they? Calling out this little girl and sicking a bunch of internet bullies on her is hardly going to teach her any other lesson than she has already learned. What was written on her comments on youtube was disgusting and will do nothing to further the cause of proper care and treatment of horses. None of us know the back story or what was or wasn’t done. No, she shouldn’t have been riding him in that state and I’m quite sure she will never do it again. Lord knows I road the pants off my first horse and only because I was fortunate enough to grow up in a `horsey family’ did nothing tragic ever happen as I made plenty of mistakes. Lucky for me, my mistakes were corrected with kindness and discussion. Shame and blame rarely produces positive results.
As far as filming the dead horse. It wouldn’t be something I would think to do, but we all grieve in our own way. Roy Rogers stuffed Trigger and I wouldn’t do that either. When my childhood horse passed away from old age, I know I fixated on making sure her eyes were covered before she was buried. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me now, but I recall that being very important to me at the time.
Surely there are more worthy cases of abuse and neglect to spotlight than this one kid, who learned a very harsh lesson?
Ok, yesterday you were all tearing this little girl apart because she didnt get vet care but your all wrong, she did. If you even if out the vet was out every 2 weeks of the last days of this little pony’s life. I want to know, all of you out there that has said my older horse started losing weight so I called the vet out (big pat on the back of the great awesome horse owner here) and we (mostly the brains of the vet here) figured it out and she recovered. WELL, soppose this little girl did that as well and the vet didnt get it figured out right, but thought that he/she did and told her Babba is getting better now. You can start riding him a little and getting him back on the road to recovery. So she did, because she is a kid we can say maybe she should have been riding him less, however since we are only going by the evidence provided, she rode him 1 time after he was ill. She knew within 2 days he was feeling worse and then he died unexpectedly. Nobody knows why. Well, guys that would include the vet. So maybe we can guess the little horse was sicker than the vet first thought. I wonder if all of you (awesome god- like horse owners) under the care of your vet lost your horse despite your best efforts to save it would like to be ripped to shreds on the fugly blog. Especially when the fugly blog only knows 10% of the exact story and on top of that you dont even live in the same country and have a differant society. I am not sure what she is being accused of by all of you, but if you watched the videos of her, you would knw she and Babba were in a kids horse magazine. She did costume riding, riding with no headstall, jumping dressage and many other things with this pony(in 1 year ,no less) and we know this because she video taped his life. And I’m sure the goodbye shot of her was planned. But what does that mean? She loved him and she is going to miss him and she videoed him. How many times do we see so much worse? We see all the time dead people in videos, we saw on fugly’s blog links to a dead horse last week. But this gal is a whore and bitch and spoiled? Come on people. Last week you were making fun of a women who misspelled words in her craigslist ads but there is a whole lot of you that are calling her names that you have no idea about there meaning. whore? Really? Bitch? come on. So the last thing you can bash is she rode her horse skinny, yes she did. But her vet could have told her, he needs to get out and get moving, take him out just dont push him. And if all of the ponies were housed together as the videos indicate then maybe when they took the others out Babba didnt want to be left behind. So she rode him, she isnt making him do anything, he is doing it all willingly. She never once hits him to get him going. Which would indicate he was feeling well enough to do it. We dont see him out with a snotty nose so she wasn’t riding him when she thought he had a cold. So all of you who think that you are horse gods, and know it alls about things I think you need to know, no matter what a person does for his animal when the real God takes your horse there isnt anything we can do about it. It is sad but it happens But then to be put on a blog because you make a tribute to your horse and get ripped apart by people who are going to fill in the blanks for you, how special is that? And Cathy you suck for this one. If all you got is she rode her horse when it was thin, you’ve got nothing. Reread what people have said and the assumptions that have been made about her. Totally undeserved here. Oh yeah, and she is a child, and your adults, that is sopposed to make a difference. Or I know, we can crucify everyone who doesnt do everything the way all you perfect, god-like horse owners do things. I will bet by the time you get done, there wont be one of you left standing.
It boils down to this, we all do the things WE thing is right. Maybe when you put down your old horse because you thought it was time, the other god-like horse owners would have put more time, money or love into the decision and done it differently. You cant regulate it and you cant be down on everyone because there are differant. Go back to actual abuse and neglect and leave the children alone.
HERE HERE!
I agree with ilovegodscreatures, Redial and all the others that feel this way. I was appalled when I read that someone on here wanted to punch that girl in the face.
Yeah, I disagree with you on the issue but I also think that comment was beyond inappropriate. There were a few of them here that were overboard, as always. And as is the case in almost every corner of the Internet. Remember folks, it’s up to each of us to keep choosing words carefully.
I still don’t see her as the victim here, just as the recipient of an interesting lesson on life and Internet dynamics.
“Go back to actual abuse and neglect and leave the children alone.”
Where do you think abusers come from? Let’s hope that this blog and all the posts on her YT made her actually think about what she did to this pony. All you people who think that just because she doesn’t live in North America she can video a dead pony, post it on the internet for all to see and not have people think she’s a psychopath or just because she’s a child, makes her automatically not responsible for what happens to her pony, really need to pull your heads out of your asses. Yes she lives in the Netherlands, yes she’s a child, But I can assure you that there are YOUNGER Dutch children who are actually taking care of their ponies.
I’m a long time lurker, first time poster, and I must say, this blog is awesome.
I went to the girl’s page and looked at the comments, and I found this:
I was SO shocked when i saw your vid on Fugly horse of the day, like WTF!? They should have watched Babba’s story instead of making things up. People are soo stupid these days. I’m so sorry that this happened to you. Please don’t stop making videos. What you do with your ponys is amazing. Don’t let some stupid people stop you!
Er, Fugly didn’t ‘make up’ anything. The horse was thin, and the girl was riding this poor little sack o’ bones. And how are WE stupid? We actually know how to spell big words like “ponies” and “so”. xp
I just found this video of her friends horse Diana, it looks likethe same stable…it’s a tribute so i’m guessing the horse id deceased? But this mare looks on the light side as welll not as thin as babba but do you think maybe the place they board isn’t caring for them properly or there’s an environmental factor in that area?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J58ZR1TEqyE
I’m still really bothered by this post and feel obligated to call fugly out on some hypocrisy. A couple of years ago, in your other blog, you posted about your roommates `cute’ stallion (CSS). You even gave his registered name as ~Sonny’s Grand Scribble~. Why didn’t you take her to task on here for being a crazy color breeder? I googled the horse up and not only was (and probably still is) she merrily breeding him, even though it would appear his sole accomplishment besides his color is he wore a silver halter as a baby and had his picture taken. Regardless of what he has or has not done, your very own roommate saw fit to breed him and he is fugly if I have ever seen fugly.
http://www.offourrockerranch.com/Stallions.html
It gets worse. You were training and, I think, rehoming a young pinto mare (looked to be sweet enough, but also fugly with mostly her color going for her). She’s on the same sight for sale with an offer of a free breeding to…..you guessed it….the above mentioned CSS.
Please tell me how and why this never gets mentioned on here, yet you see fit to call out the dogs to terrorize a child over losing her pony when, really, nobody has any of the details. As I mentioned, while the pony was way too thin, he died with a glossy and healthy coat. If anybody needed to be questioned it was the vet who was treating him and maybe her parents.
Let’s see if you let this comment through…..I normally love this blog, but I am very disturbed at the continued harrassment of this child.
The CSS is gelded and owned by a teenage boy and fat and happy and all is well. I own the Paint mare and she’ll never be bred again. You are stretching HARD here to find something “against” me. I have a lot of friends and yes, some of them do things I don’t agree with. Shocker. See, I really DON’T control the world or have mindless followers…everybody does what they want, even people who know me IRL!
He may be gelded now, but he was living with YOU and happily breeding mares at the age of 2 yrs old. Your roomie also seemed to think turning studs out together was just great, and yes, your rescue mare was in foal and offered back for sale a the ridiculous price of $2200 with a breeding to CSS. You were obviously aware of this going on since YOU are pictured on that website backing another of the `oops’ foals and all this was going down on the farm you lived on at the time. I’m just wondering why you didn’t feel the need to out the roommate or any of your other pals you don’t agree with on here. This stuff with the CSS is the kind of thing you normally rip to shreds if you get your hands on it. Are children just easier targets? You know damn well what posting a blog about a starved pony is going to do when you provide links. You may not `control the world’, but you certainly instigate the hazing when you do this. At least admit that you look the other way on some of this stuff when it has a benefit to you…these weren’t just friends these were the people you were LIVING with.
1. There’s nothing wrong with turning stallions out together if they get along. Why do you think there is?
2. The only thing I could have “outed” my ex-roommates for was breeding a stallion that did not have a show record. If I outed everybody who did that, there would be 100 of them a day. It takes more than that to get on this blog. Their horse care was excellent. Fat, happy, feet done, dewormed, vet called any time anyone needed it. The oops foal happened years before I met any of them (you might note that he was three at the time I put some rides on him). Are you SERIOUSLY criticizing me for being willing to HELP get a horse broke? Getting horses broke is something I campaign FOR on this blog, in case you haven’t noticed. You know, that oops pony now rides and drives and is going to show Pinto circuit next year. My what an awful outcome, I really ought to be slapped for contributing to it.
3. I out adults on this blog ALL THE TIME. The vast MAJORITY of my blog stories concern adults. Apparently it has tweaked your delicate sensibilities that I have the balls to say that a teenager ought to know better than to keep riding the crap out of a pony that has experienced a dramatic weight loss. Well, sorry, but this blog is not the place to be if you are sensitive. I suggest fucking off now.
To #2, really?
http://fuglyblog.com/?p=2207
I’m a big fan of 95% of what you write here and think this person challenging you is a nutter, but let’s keep it honest. As an aside, at what age/point will you decide if your stallion has what it takes in the show ring? If a horse hasn’t accomplished much by say, seven or eight for most disciplines, should they be cut?
I’d say two or three show seasons, not go by age. However, this assumes you AREN’T breeding them in the meantime. Who cares if it takes a while if you’re not breeding them? I don’t believe in rushing horses, and many disciplines don’t “peak” til a later age. If someone told me they were a Deb Bennett disciple and weren’t going to break their stallion til six, I’d be fine with that – as long as they weren’t standing him at stud at five.
Actually, that one you linked to got my attention on the awful Photoshop job. Only then did I find out they were standing FIVE unaccomplished, most not even broke to ride stallions.
So its ok to stand two unaccomplished and fugly stallions and breed them to some rescue mares? Good to know….I realize you won’t let my comments go through, but there are other boards all over the net. I just thought it courteous to bring these questions to YOU and allow you the opporunity to respond without the profanity and needless bashing. Unlike how you handled thins with that child.
No, it’s not okay. It’s not okay to stand ONE unaccomplished stallion. But again, they are not doing that anymore. And I do not publish comments attacking my friends, so deal with it. It’s my blog, not yours. I get to decide what gets through moderation, though I do answer questions and respond to criticism in most cases.
Actually, every stallion that lived on that property when I moved in (three separate owners) wound up getting gelded, so I may indeed have influenced things in a positive way. As I previously noted, however, I have no power to control what the people I know may do. Hell, some of them do really bad things like vote Democrat, tan too much, and smoke cigarettes and will they listen to me? Nope! Do some people who read this blog also make comments I don’t agree with? OF COURSE. Do I ever post on Youtube or email anyone privately to harass them? NEVER. But if someone else chooses to do that, that is their right. We all make our choices and suffer any associated consequences, like negative feedback.
The only reason anyone posts on Youtube and leaves comments open is for attention/feedback. Guess what, you may not get 100% positive feedback. Shocker!
Now, you’ve made your point. You think I’m a bitch for daring to criticize a teenager. Fine. I’ve criticized teenagers before, and will do so again. Don’t want to read it? Click somewhere else. What I’m REALLY laughing about is your comment about profanity. Sweetie, you’re on a blog that has FUCKING UGLY in the title. Did you think there weren’t going to be naughty words here?
“Your roomie also seemed to think turning studs out together was just great,”
The tradition with Peruvian horses is to keep all the stallions together, keep all the mares together, and keep all the geldings together. Mares are separated as to who is to breed with which stallion, and then the stallion is released into the mare herd for natural breeding. He is removed once mares are confirmed in foal and gets to go back with his other stallion buddies.
My husband’s horse was a stallion for five years, and we used to turn him out with a yearling stallion we had. They NEVER fought and loved to play together. His best friend was another stallion we know well, and we kept them at a horse show together with a mare in heat near them. Because they were both well trained and well behaved naturally, they never fought while they were there. In fact, they rode side-by-side in the warm-up arena, and when it came time for the class, the other stallion got upset because he couldn’t ride side-by-side with our stallion! That stallion was also turned out with mares in heat, as was a stallion another friend of mine had.
I have another friend who didn’t start breeding her stallion until he was 14 years old and fully trained. She would turn him out with the yearling colts and fillies, and he was a wonderful babysitter.
I’ve learned from experience that stallions need interaction with other horses, and as long as there aren’t any mares in heat in the area with them, then turning them out with other stallions is a great way to let them have fun and have a pal. Sure, they get nicks and cuts from play, but who cares? those can get covered up for the show ring. In my experience, stallions who are isolated from other horses become surly and hard to handle. They usually are about to blow their tops at shows or other large events because of the over-stimulation. They are still social animals and need physical interaction with other horses to make them good all-around horses.
I would like to know why a rescue being sold for $2200 is something that deserves criticising. My rescue is for sale for $2500 and considering that similar horses in my area are going for anywhere between $3500 and $6,000 I’d say that’s a fair price. I don’t think that simply because a horse was saved from a meat dealer it should be priced any lower than if they weren’t. I’m all for rescues being priced highly, because generally if someone can’t fork out more than $300 for a horse, they won’t be able to pay for colic surgery if the horse needs it. Obviously that’s not always the case, but I don’t see a problem with putting a decent price on a rescue. I’m in Australia, and the economy over here is still pretty good, but $2,500 for a horse isn’t exactly cheap. I know that some people will buy a horse simply because it’s cheap and that is exactly how stories like these come about. Not everyone that buys a horse knows what they are doing or is prepared for emergency surgery and I want to make sure that this pony goes to a good home, where there’s no shortage of money. I am aware that some people who buy horses for a minimal price actually do take good care of their horses, but I know that some people will see a horse for $300 and think, OOOH I will buy that horse because I have a backyard FULL of grass. If those same people see a pony for $2,500 I don’t think they will be purchasing that.
Also, I don’t know what you think her friends did that was so horrible. Yeah, the stallion didn’t have a show record, big whoop. There are people breeding unregistered and poorly conformed horses every day, just because they are coloured. So compared to them, her friends really didn’t do anything too bad did they? At least he was registered and as far as I can tell he doesn’t have the worst conformation.
And just because you are ASKING $2500 for super awesome rescue horse doesn’t mean you can’t sell her for less. I advertised my OTTB for $5500 and sold him for $3500 with most of his tack. That’s after professional training, etc. Would I have done that for just anyone? Heck no. But he went with a woman who thinks he’s God’s Gift to the jump course and she loves him to bits and she’s sent me pictures – even my non-horsey friends can look at him and see that he’s HAPPY. Sometime asking a higher price just helps weed out tire kickers and people you wouldn’t have sold to anyway!
It looks like she may do a repeat with her new pony, Loka….
What indicates that Loka is in any danger? I’ve watched all her videos. It looks like she had Babba for less than a year and has had Loka for almost a year now. She also didn’t post her tribute video for Babba for about 4 months after he died. I don’t think Lotte made the video to get attention in any way. This girl is a stellar rider. She obviously has chosen cinematography as her art form of choice. If your teenager chose to write a poem about her pony dying you would think its sweet. As for the pony being thin, he was thin when she bought him. There are clips of a trainer or other adult assisting her with training in more than one video. I would take that adult to task. Leave the kid be.
The pony was far too thin for her to be riding him, he was recovering from laminitis, and by her own admission “had a cold and wasn’t eating” a week before death. You have got to be kidding me if you think that this pony was well served!!! All signs point to pneumonia, so while this girl was playing My Little Pony and amateur film director, he was slowly drowning to death.
Not often one sees a skinny fjord, I don’t believe I ever have. This is a breed often lovingly referred to as “air ferns” because the challenge with them is usually keeping weight off! As a fjord owner I can say that my mare practically gains weight from just looking at an oat! I also just had a dental done on my near 40 year old shetland cross pony. I was concerned when he started dropping weight the last 6 weeks or so and upping his senior feed, soaking his hay and adding beet pulp weren’t helping. I feel awful for waiting as long as I did to get the dental done. Poor guy had a rotten tooth that needed to be pulled!
I just felt like I needed to comment and say I absolutely love this blog. It’s about time someone shared complete common sense about horse care/ownership, and pointed out bad ownership without any sugarcoating. I have never had the opportunity to own a horse, but have been around horses/riding horses for 10 years. I have seen many nice horses with lots of potential lost to bad riding, training, and/or ownership. It’s good to know that there is at lease one decent person in the horse world with the same opinions as me.
Keep raising your voice! I will always listen
.
I total think you are awesome. You go girl, you are on the money. Ever need help you just let me know I got your back. Good job and way to stand up to these jerks.
Man, if only I could be as all-knowing and perfect as some of you.
I know all you smarty pants have 45 year old ponies in your backyard right now that can still gallop for 20 minutes straight, leap over seven round bales strung together and win you a blue ribbon in grand prix dressage, but there’s also this thing called reality.
As an actual employed vet tech, someone telling me their animal has a “cold” and “isn’t eating” says just about nothing useful to me. A cold could mean some sneezing and watery ocular and/or nasal discharge. Or maybe a dry cough. Or it could mean a nasty URI with copious amounts of purulent discharge and wheezing. Or anywhere in between. Off his feed. OK. Is he drinking water? Urinating? Defecating? Perhaps this is a reoccurring problem and didn’t raise immediate red flags with the girl, the parents or their vet. Without more detail, you have no idea, here. None. No matter how much of a Perfect Polly Horsekeeper you think you are.
This horse was not 6, he was twentyfuckingsix years old. Horses DIE. It happens.
As for saying she deserves this because she posted to the internet… Good lord. Do girls in short skirts deserve to be raped? I mean, they’re puttin’ it out there too, right? Just because you can be as mean as the devil on the internet without repercussion, doesn’t mean you SHOULD be.
Yeah, she shouldn’t have been riding the pony so thin. Yeah, the parting shots on that memorial video were a little weird. But that’s seriously all you’ve got on this girl. Get over it.
“As for saying she deserves this because she posted to the internet… Good lord. Do girls in short skirts deserve to be raped? I mean, they’re puttin’ it out there too, right? Just because you can be as mean as the devil on the internet without repercussion, doesn’t mean you SHOULD be.”
Well said.
I think the internet self-polices very well. If you are too mean, plenty of people will tell you so. You will get shot down very effectively. I see it happen all the time on this blog.
Speaking of irrational, if you think being physically raped is comparable to having your feelings hurt…wow. Keep talking, you’re certainly revealing more about yourselves than I ever could. That is messed up.
I don’t feel that I am irrational because I understood what Barnyard Punches point was, just like I don’t think you are irrational for believing what you do. The point is that the same as the girl with the provacative clothes, the girl with the pony put her film out in cyber world. She wasn’t asking to be attacked. She shouldn’t be attacked for it anymore than anyone should be attacked for something of that nature. And neither one are asking for physical or emotional pain. That’s the point, not that one form of attack is on an even keel with the other, but that neither one wants to be hurt.
Just because one can be mean doesn’t mean that one should be mean.
I do think that the pony was too thin and that the girl shouldn’t have been riding him, but I don’t think that grown people (or any peopel for that matter) should have been verbally attacking her. All that did was to cause her to close the door and it demeans the attacker. But, you are right this is your blog, and your opinion so it is a case of ‘the fugly way or the highway’.
It’s called an analogy, I know you’re bright enough to understand that. The whole “she asked for it” sentiment is ridiculous. I’d bet the farm that not one tenth of the people who immediately ran over to YouTube to post nastygrams would have the balls to behave that way in real life. People saying they’d like to punch a kid? Seriously ridiculous.
I’m not really sure what you mean by keep talking, we’re revealing ourselves. You and some of your readers were too mean on this one and many of us are telling you so. End of story.
She didn’t “ask for it” but she put herself into a situation where it could happen. Here’s a much, MUCH better analogy. Remember what Britney Spears was going out or whatever it was with no underwear and she flashed her cooch to the camera and that picture got smeared EVERYWHERE? Did she ask for it? No. Did she deserve it? No. She’s a public figure, she knows she’s stalked by paparazzi constantly but she wore a short skirt with no underwear and got into/out of the car in a less than lady-like manner. She put herself in the situation and it got bad fast. It’s her own fault.
Maybe she didn’t EXPECT to get flamed on YouTube for what she put on there but there is no way as a tech savvy teen (she can do stuff with her videos that I don’t know how to do) that she did not know that her video was up for public viewing and comments were enabled. She probably thinks that she didn’t do anything wrong, she’s the victim of circumstance, poor me I just lost my pony. That’s not how the world sees it and if she put it up on the internet for everyone to look at she knew she was putting it out there for everyone to comment.
Sorry, but announcing that you are a vet tech does not give you any sort of “street cred” in my book. The fact that you completed a two year course in junior college and passed your boards does not make you an expert on horses. It means that you are qualified to administer meds per doctor’s instructions, tube, and place catheters and feeding tubes. That’s about it.
I worked in a very prestigious large animal hospital where many of the techs were a mess. Some were amazing… usually those were the ones who didn’t claim to be horse experts, but actually grew up on dairy farms. They had the best feel for animal pain behavior and real life experience. The horsey techs typically were the sort who went to horse camp as a kid and wanted a career where they could work with horses, but had very little real life experience. I have seen techs try to administer 20 grams of bute because they did their calculation wrong, ICU check horses that were dying and not realize it till I told them to call a clinician, and announce that a violently painful colic was doing just fine now the he is quiet and dull. Just so you know, that means that the colic has ruptured somewhere and is dying.
To me, the fact that you seem to think that “has a cold and is off his feed” could be something minor means that you have very little real life horse experience. The first thought that comes to mind with that phrase would be pneumonia. Sure, there are a host of other diagnoses, but all of them are serious.
HA. I just knew someone would think I was searching for cred by mentioning that. And I was just as sure the “just a loser tech” would follow. Hysterical. Working at a “very prestigious large animal hospital” (doing?) and having “trainer” in your screen name makes you lots better. I bow before you and your infinite wisdom, oh Great Trainer of the Arabs One.
Call a vet–don’t talk to a lowly tech–and tell them your animal has a “cold” and hasn’t been eating. I bet they ask you the exact questions posed in the previous post. This kid, whose first language is probably not English, was being eviscerated for saying her 26 year old pony had a cold and was off its feed before it died. No one here knows the pony’s health history, whether the girl or her parents had consulted a vet or any other details of the circumstance. Yet people here felt free to call her all kinds of names, suggest physical violence and go on and on about how much people like her suck. My point was, we don’t have much info to go on. Before I accused someone of being a horrible owner, rotten human being or someone who deserved being punched in the face, I might ask a few more questions about this particular situation.
But what do I know? I’m only a tech.
I am asking this seriously (I actually asked on the first page of comments and didn’t get a reply) – is a horse not eating, or not eating well for more than a few days cause for concern in your book? I have been fortunate so far to have easy keepers that haven’t really needed more than just routine care so I haven’t needed to know this, but I’d like to. I know horses are supposed to eat a LOT and I figured if they aren’t eating for days that it would be bad.
You most certainly were searching for credibility by mentioning that you are “an actual employed tech” and you were also talking down to the people on here who are not techs. I have great respect for great techs. I do not have respect for techs who think that they are vets… or for techs who think that passing their boards makes them all-knowing and somehow more entitled to an opinion than people who may have vast real life horse experience. What did I do at the hospital? I worked in the ICU/NICU, colic barn, Isolation unit, and general clinic administering treatments, assisting with induction for and recovery from surgery, restraining for procedures, scoped horses, assisted with emergencies (mostly middle of the night colics), tube fed neonates, helped with dystocias, performed ICU checks, took care of remains post-mort, and generally kept an eye on patients post surgery. In truth, I only brought up my job in the hospital as a way of saying that I have worked extensively with techs.. good and bad. The reality is that most of my horse knowledge comes from real life experience working for large training/breeding farms where you don’t have a clinician right there telling you what to do. You have to be a horseman.
Again, I was not searching for credibility. I don’t care what you or anyone else on the grand ole internets thinks of me. But even if I were, what’s the difference between me mentioning that I’m a tech and you claiming to have worked at a fancy large animal clinic while simultaneously describing techs with contempt?
Regardless, the point was, we deal with teasing information out of people about their pet’s health and habits all day, every day. She mentioned the pony had a cold. Everyone here screams URI! Pneumonia! Stupid girl, you murdered your pony! Could have been snot nose, could have been a dry cough. We don’t know.
No, for the record, I don’t think it’s normal for animals to go days without eating. I was pointing out that we don’t know what the recent medical history is in this case, what was consistent for the horse at that time, what vet care the animal was under, what advice the girl had been given, professional or otherwise. As a lowly tech, I’d never offer a diagnosis. Glad we have “horse people” such as some of you who can go on two bullet points from an ESL teen and know all.
Oh and sorry to beat a dead youknowwhat here and I doubt anyone is reading this thread still, but CASE IN POINT from today’s thehorse.com:
http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=16858
Actually, I don’t give a FF what you claim your profession is on the internet, AFAIK, you could actually be a National Science Scholar in Veterinary Medicine, but as an anonymous expert, you don’t have much cred. You know, because in reality, I am Princess Hechinshkayapi, so I know how little respect I get online.
The reality here is that we see a video of a pony getting progressively thinner and then… oops he gets a cold and he’s dead. It’s kind of suspect and IMNSHO, the video is a bit creepy. It doesn’t matter how old you are or what language you speak. If you put yourself up on the World Wide Web, you open yourself up for criticism, period. This is a life lesson for this girl. Hopefully she won’t kill herself because criticism won’t kill her per se and maybe she’ll be more thoughtful about her husbandry and nominally, what she puts up on the internet.
As a veterinary technician, you must know that people, vary in their response to stimulus, just like animals do. Some folks respond reasonably to criticism while others get nasty and snide (as you have). It has to do with their life experiences, genetic make-up, amongst other factors. Besides, we all have a right to our opinions and luckily have a forum where we can freely express.
I thought Fugs’ original post was fine: yes, she gets stuck into the girl, but she also asks where the adults were in all of this, and she doesn’t pick on the girl’s presumed personality, fashion sense, or psychological shortcomings. It’s not unreasonable to expect a teenager who knows her way around the internet, to read up a bit more on horse care, and to give her a right telling-off if her horse starts to wobble on his perch and she is appears to have been just all sad about it rather than doing anything useful. The post assumes too much from just one video, and gets a bit hyperbolic, but we all know that’s the style that brings in the readers. All good so far. What I take exception to, is the nasty and self-righteous comments from others.
Well we can’t afford a helmet for the kid……so how do you expect us to feed the pony?
Some parents should be shot – or better yet, starved to death. I don’t care if there was a medical issue as people are saying, if that’s true then GET A VET. There is just no excuse.
http://equinemiracles.blogspot.com
How I loved watching these videos of the girls enjoying their ponies. O to be young again.
I get the impression that many of the posters here and Fugly it’s self think horsemanship is all about ‘working’ with your trainer, competing in horse shows and looking down your noses at anything ‘backyard’. (My backyard is 1,000 acres and I can visit my horses in my jammies if I feel like it).
My girlhood was filled with pony adventures and looking back 40-45 years, I realize those were the best times I’ve ever had with equines.
Not at all. I don’t think horsemanship is any of those things. I have never competed before, and both my mares are “gradeâ€. We aren’t 100% sure what breed they are, and we don’t know exactly how old one of them is. I rescue, break in and rehome horses. “Backyard†to me, stands for ignorant people owning horses, IN their backyard. Not having grade horses on an acreage.
I keep horses at my house, and I actually have it better than a lot. We have around 1,000 acres, but only 7ish gets used for our horses. We live on company land and we don’t pay for ANY land at all. We also don’t pay for water or any other bills. We have all fencing equipment supplied free from work and a family member does our horses hooves. So in total, it costs us $90 per month to keep 3 horses. If not for my mare (who costs us the majority of that money in grain as she is a hard keeper, the other two are able to be kept healthy on grass and mineral blocks) we would only have to pay for vet bills and tack expenses which only pop up every now and then, salt licks and worming paste. We also get free diesel and a work Ute if they need to be hauled anywhere. So I don’t think that horsemanship requires you to board in some ridiculously posh facility and call the vet out for a tiny scrape. But I do think that it requires you to call the vet out when your horse isn’t eating and has a cold, is underweight and not getting better. I do believe that when you’re young you have more fun with your horses, but with fun comes responsibility. I am all for having fun, but some of the things this girl did in her other videos were plain reckless. Everything should come in moderation, I’m 18 now, and I have always believed that ignorance on subjects of great importance is not acceptable. I certainly enjoy riding more than I do studying anything that could affect my horses, but it’s not all about what I want. I’m responsible for these horse’s lives, and I plan to make sure that they don’t suffer away so that I can have fun riding them when they are 200 pounds underweight.
OT, but today seems to be the day for “limping horses” on my local classifieds.
Beginner’s Horse
Date Listed 26-Aug-10
Last Edited 27-Aug-10
Price $700.00
Address Marquis, SK S0H 2X0, Canada
Lacy is my 13 year old quarter horse mare. I used her to learn to ride and gain confidence to ride my high spirited young gelding. She is well trained, neck reins, lifts her feet, loads easily and is just a really gentle horse. But now I have no use for her because I do not like to take her on long rides. Every since I bought her she has had a slight limp in one of her front legs. I’m not sure what happened to her or if she just has a sore joint but it has not gotten any worse in the three years I have had her. I just do not like to take her out to long because I do not know if it bothers her or not. But it is this that makes her a good horse for someone learning because the fastest she can go is a trot or canter so she will never take off running. Other than that she is in good physical condition.
http://saskatoon.kijiji.ca/c-ViewAd?AdId=226278588
There’s so much wrong here, I just… gah! She’s had the horse for 3 YEARS with a limp and not once did she have a vet out to check WHY the horse is limping? I wish I was rich – I’d love to buy this horse, load her up, and take her directly to a vet!
——-
Reg Quarter Horse
Date Listed 27-Aug-10
Price $400.00
Address Kindersley, SK S0L, Canada
10 yr old gelding,stands 15hh and solid. Very mild temper and friendly,loves attention. Used for ponying, cattle sorting, light trail rides. He has a limp, but still useable for light work. He still has some go to him so he would not be for beginners unless he was in a pen. Goes bareback with halter, neck reins well and not herd bound. Open to offers.
Has an unexplained limp, they’re only asking $400, and are open to offers. Anyone want to take bets on him going to a loving home that’ll get a vet out to check on his limp?
*headdesk*
Age is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for being a bad and neglecting owner. NO EXCUSE!!! I won’t EVER except that that as an excuse, because it isn’t one. I’m 15 years old, and I notice when my girl has a flie bite on her ear, and I do not possess some rare form of genious. A horse doesn’t loose 200 lbs. overnight, it takes a little bit of time to get there… Oh, you can’t afford a vet?! Well 1) you should have a horse, but more importantly, GET A JOB! Stop goofing off with your friends and riding your sick horse and maybe do some work to pay some vet bills. I don’t know, babysit, clean stalls, scrape flippen gum off the bottoms of tables, but seriously do something! Okay, okay, this girls young and probably hasn’t accepted the fact that sometimes the nicest thing we can do for the horses we love is end there suffering, but this probably went on way too long. A sick horse shouldn’t get to the point where he’s so sick that he collapses in the pasture and dies…it shouldn’t happen…Ugh, come on kid take some responsibility and grow up…You had a horse and you needed to be mature…
To me, it’s not so much the fact that she videotaped her dead pony (although that is a little weird, because if it were me, I would be too distraught to even move) it’s the fact that she dramatised it all, put it on YouTube for the world to see and was dry eyed. It’s like she planned out the video, and personally I find it disturbing. If you look at the last scene of the video, she’s walking away while someone tapes it all. Isn’t that a little odd? It wasn’t done as a tribute as far as I can tell, but more as an attention cry.
Also, if my son died, I wouldn’t be tweeting it. Wouldn’t you be a little too sad for that? It’s kind of odd, most people who have lost a friend or family member wouldn’t even think of it. I know some people do, and how you deal with grief is your own business. Broadcasting it for the whole world to see though is a little odd, but whatever. It’s not so much that she filmed it (but like I said, I think it’s odd) but HOW she did it.
That’s not what concerns me about this video, it’s the fact that the horse died a bad death and she rode it while he was so thin! I personally think that this girl has some issues, and if you watch other video’s of hers, it looks to me like she has more fun spooking the horses and pulling their mane’s as she falls off on purpose than she does actually riding them. I don’t think that it was necessary for her to make such a dramatic video of it. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she had a few screws loose if you get what I mean, I didn’t see her dress normally once, and age is no excuse for ignorance. I just think that she was more concerned with how to get the most hits on YouTube than she was with her pony’s health.
No one is attacking her because she lost her pony. Everyone has lost pets. It’s a painful time for anyone who actually does have feelings for animals.
What is being SAID is that she should have had two sticks to rub together in her head to make the connection that a horse that looks like Skeletor’s mount should NOT BE RIDDEN. The vet needs to be called out more than once every two weeks if a horse is deteriorating that quickly. It needs to do more than be “seen”, it needs to be TREATED. If she and her parents didn’t know what was wrong with it, and their vet wasn’t making any progress… they needed to find a new vet!
Not to mention, her weird little narcissistic need for attention and using an innocent animal to rack up sympathy… that, in my opinion, is just sick.
Now… as for the horse dying with a shiny, pretty coat. Because, every time I read this posted it makes me laugh.
As long as an animal dies with a pretty coat, that means it didn’t suffer at all and died happy and healthy? Really?
So, if I make sure my dog gets certain oils in his food every day, and then beat him to death and cry about it… it’s okay because he died with a shiny coat? COOL. I’m so glad I know this now. /morbid sarcasm.
I have seen several animals who were starved to death, or died of respiratory distress, or died of bloat, colic, slow organ failure, etc… that all died looking beautiful. If skinny, sunken-eyed, and miserable. The state of an animal’s HIDE when it dies does NOT indicate that it died in peace and happy, or even with any kind of “good” care.
Long story not any shorter, this girl mistreated this horse. Acted inappropriately with this horse. Starved this horse, apparently. (I think the issue was with the horse’s teeth. If he HAD ample food available, wasn’t wormy, and was still dropping weight, I’d want to have his teeth floated. If it hurts to eat, a horse can and will starve to death.)
Either way, appropriate care was NOT taken. The girl has chosen to believe that she did nothing wrong, and so, she will continue to mistreat horses in the future. Just because we’re not her parents doesn’t mean we can’t point this out to her. Some people do this inappropriately. Neither Fugs nor I nor anyone else can stop OTHER PEOPLE from being idiots on the internet. But we can however, voice our own opinions on it.
A smart, caring, concerned girl would take a step back and take these comments for what they are and ask, “what DID I do wrong? I don’t want to do it again!”
Instead she disabled comments so she doesn’t have to take the “negativity”.
When I was a kid, I made mistakes with my animals, of course. I did NOT have good parents. So when someone else would whap me upside the back of the head and go, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!??” I would feel embarrassed and guilty and answer honestly, “I don’t know! What am I doing wrong?” and then usually burst into tears. But have I ever made the same mistake twice with my animals? NOPE!
Oh, it’s $2,500 negotiable. I really don’t mind how much I get for her, as long as she’s at a good home. Hopefully she’s going to be living at an adult riding club. I’m not getting the $2,500 although it’s not far from it. Her new owner is taking lessons and has two young children who she EVENTUALLY wants to ride (I was kind of worried that she was going to put her five year old on a green broken 4 year old, but she’s thankfully got more sense than that). So I think she is going to a pretty good home, and I would have been happy with half the price as long as she was cared for and loved. I agree, a high asking price helps weed out people who wouldn’t be suitable sometimes anyway.
Arguing with a pit bull lover is like talking to a wall, but here goes.
Way to completely breeze over the history of bull baiting in the breed. It’s STILL IN THERE. And to copy and paste your arguments from other sources which are as blind to the reality of pits as you. Regardless of whether they are bred for bull baiting or dog fighting, the point is that they are bred to grab on and never let go. A lot of them are pretty good at it, too. Have you seen the videos of pit bulls going after people and other dogs, and a crowd of people beating and throwing things at the pit does nothing to make it stop? Have you looked at all the online documentation of attacks on horses, many of which result in the death or eventual euthanasia of the horse?
“This is absolutely true. And it doesn’t matter if the dog is the Australian cattle dog that is actually worrying behind the horse’s heels, a golden retriever, the chihuahua that was involved in the mauling of the rescue horses (that was posted on this blog when it happened), a pit bull, a mutt or any other breed. Dogs are predators and pack animals, horses are prey animals. It doesn’t take much for instinct to kick in and the situation to turn ugly – which is what was meant to be conveyed when the video was posted in the first place.â€
It DOES matter what breed the dog is. Herding dogs and pit bulls are both WAY more likely to go after horses, but the main difference is that pit bulls will go after horses alone (they don’t need packs to do it), and they’re relentless about it. I’ve seen horses attacked by both pits and herding dogs, and if I had to take my pick as to which dog to confront out on the trail, I’d rather take on the herding dog, golden retriever, or Chihuahua.
“How many risks do you take when you get on your horse? Or get into your car? Or on a plane?â€
So because life is finite, everybody should just throw caution to the wind? How ‘bout we all play with loaded guns, too?
“A person is more likely to be bitten by a shark than a Pit Bull.â€
Um, where did you pull that “fact†from? Because, despite living near shark-infested waters, I have yet to meet someone who’s been bitten by a shark. Meanwhile, a friend of a friend has lost use of her hands due to a pit bull mauling (by somebody who let their dog off-leash while hiking), a friend was severely crippled in an accident caused by a pit bull attacking her horse, and I’ve witnessed a near-attack when a pit bull escaped from a yard and ran after a random man on the street (he had to perform some serious acrobatics to get away from the dog). I have yet to see any other breed attempt to attack someone purely randomly like that. I’ve also had pit bulls approach me aggressively while riding more than once.
> Low energy requirement?
Where did you find a Staffie that ISN’T high energy? Sounds like you got lucky with an individual.
Yes, I have plenty of personal, first-hand experience with pits. I also know plenty of people who do protection work with them and agree with me that pits are not the right dog for the vast majority of dog owners (and most of the owners who think they’re the “right†ones really aren’t). They’re trendy right now (it’s especially trendy for people to act as if they’re just the sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeetest dogs) and therefore extremely overbred. They make up a huge chunk of the dogs in shelters today, and an even bigger chunk of dogs that get euthanized, which makes me want to neuter every single person who bred those dogs.
Just because they’re not the right dog for me doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to criticize other people’s decision to own them. I am also highly critical of others’ decisions to own exotic animals as pets, especially dangerous exotics. Why am I not free to criticize irresponsible ownership of dangerous domestics?
You are right: arguing with a pit bull lover is like talking to a wall. We don’t give up!
“Just because they’re not the right dog for me doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to criticize other people’s decision to own them.”
Why would you criticise my opting to own my APBT? What have I done to deserve your criticism? I can accept your criticizing stupid in action; I support critical comments to those that demonstrate they are idiots holding the end of the leash. But why lump all APBT owners into the same soup? Just like you can’t say all TB stallions are rank you can’t say all APBT owners are irresponsible. I’ve had APBT for 16 years and not once has any of my dogs been in a newspaper headline, or killed anything beyond a Big Mac.
“I am also highly critical of others’ decisions to own exotic animals as pets, especially dangerous exotics. Why am I not free to criticize irresponsible ownership of dangerous domestics?”
Because that is not what you said. You first said you feel you are entitled to criticize my choice of breeds; that is different than stating you should be free to criticize irresponsible ownership. And if you feel the breed makes it particularly dangerous, then if you take away all the pitbulls the low life thugs will still have their illegal dogs. And if you ban any dog that looks remotely like a pitbull you will soon find the other game breeds – your cute lil jack russels et al – your working terriers will be crossed into dobermans and what have you to re-create a mean dog that has no bite inhibition. The breed is not the problem – its the jerks who abuse them and fail them that are the problem. In a different day it was dobermans, another day it was rottweillers, and before that GSD. Its not the breed then nor is it now – its all about responsible ownership.
Pitbulls – bulldogs of any sort – of course were bred to HANG ON. To NOT GIVE UP. Its what makes them so easily exploited by dog fighters. But to say they are inherently dangerous like an exotic, undomesticated species of pet? Lost me there.
As stated prior, APBT were bred to have an aversion to biting people. Just as in rank TB stallions are not allowed to breed, APBT that in a midst of a fight that bit their handler were not allowed to breed either; they were culled on site. The well bred ones in Schutzund trials repeatedly fail to bite and cannot be provoked. IMHO people breeding for ringsport APBT are breeding for abberations as the breed has never before been bred for or intended for biting people.
Now, take and poorly breed any breed – pitbull or what have you – and you have a news paper headline. Breed is not the issue. How strong the breed is capable of being is not the issue. The issue is responsible ownership – including responsible breeding, which many dogs but particularly in this day and age pit bulldogs, are very sadly lacking.
And agree – like frenchie or IG’s, APBT are not a breed suited for everyone.
I in no manner condone the video where the idiot lets his pit bull interact with the horse. Its Darwin in action – just too bad the owner won’t be the one removed from the gene pool.
*snort over the Big Mac*
Do a search on Yahoo! Groups for Good Owners of Dominant Dogs. I’d like you to join!
“they are bred to grab on and never let go.” You know where that came from, right? That would be the terrier.
Ever seen a Jack Russell in action? They are just as tenacious as a Pit Bull. They were bred to hunt small animals and kill them. Of course when a JRT grabs something and shakes it and refuses to let go it’s kyoot.
Pit Bulls are not for everyone. EVERY case you cited was irresponsible ownership. If you cannot lay down firm boundaries, appropriately discipline your dog and enforce limits you cannot own a Pit Bull. My Amstaff, both his parents, his foster mother, and the other male my breeder has on site were all low energy. I haven’t ever met one that wasn’t.
“Yes, I have plenty of personal, first-hand experience with pits.” –> Please, do share. Were you attacked, mauled, bitten? You’re typing so I assume you have both your hands. Or does sharing those experiences go against your bashing of the breed? “…agree with me that pits are not the right dog for the vast majority of dog owners (and most of the owners who think they’re the “right†ones really aren’t)”…so before you were slamming the dogs, and Pit Bulls are horrible dogs, vicious, etc. Now you are saying they aren’t the right dog for every person which I’m taking to imply maybe responsible ownership discussion got through? “They’re trendy right now (it’s especially trendy for people to act as if they’re just the sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeetest dogs) and therefore extremely overbred.” Where did you pick up this statistic? A GOOD Pit Breeder is not going to breed dogs for pets. They are going to breed show/working dogs and they are going to make sure they go to the appropriate homes, not some idiot off the street that thinks they’re “sweeet”. “They make up a huge chunk of the dogs in shelters today…” http://www.petfinder.com/breeds/Dog Now, I’m going to let you know that I didn’t write down every breed to give you a full rundown, but just in case it would hurt you to follow the link let me give you some numbers of Dogs in shelters by breed (this does include mixes, the dogs are in a “breed” based on their dominant breed). Australian Shepherd: 3,657 *American Staffordshire Terrier: 4,499* Border Collie: 4,870 Black labrador retriever: 4,999 Boxer: 7,470 German Shepherd Dog: 8,003 Beagle: 9,514 Chihuahua: 13,142 *Pit Bull: 14,608* and (may I have a drumroll?) Labrador Retriever (not black labs, those are earlier): 22,980. It LOOKS to me, just by looking at the numbers that even though there are a lot of Pit Bulls in shelters that Labs are far, far more overbred. If you put ALL the labs together, Black as well as just Labrador Retrievers, they almost outnumber the Pit Bulls 2:1. Chihuahuas are way more trendy, thanks to Paris Hilton. Guess they don’t make such nice pets or there wouldn’t be 13,000 of them in shelters. That was a research FAIL.
“and an even bigger chunk of dogs that get euthanized…” Ahhh, the hypocrisy. Did you stop and think of WHY so many Pit Bulls get euthanized? Did it ever occur to you that maybe the public image, media demonizing and the willingness of people to assume that these dogs are all inherently the devil incarnate could POSSIBLY have anything to do with it? Pit Bulls aren’t the only dogs that don’t belong in the hands of every owner. German Shepherds, Dobermans, Chihuahuas, Mastiffs, any herding breed. As a matter of fact not every dog is right for just anyone.
Here’s another fun statistic for you. http://www.atts.org/statistics.html American Pit Bull Terrier: 86% pass American Staffordshire Terrier: 83.9%pass Golden Retriever: 84.6% pass Chihuahua: 71.1% pass Labrador Retriever: 92.3% (and there are STILL 27,979 in shelters). Pit Bulls have more stable temperaments than the Golden Retrievers and Chihuahuas. Of course, the ones being tested are owned and handled by responsible people who aren’t using their dogs as a status symbol to look “tough”. They have well bred dogs that are an example of the breed.
In all honesty, i’m undecided about this.
and tell her to call the stable manager to make sure the vet checks her out tomorrow. Oh, and if she coughed any more after warming up, i’d get off. Or just walk. (Yes, i’m overprotective. Shoot me.)
Maybe i’m a tad jealous because i will never be able to muck around with my horse like that. And they do look like theyre having fun in the other videos.
On the other hand, my definition of muck around is not spooking it on purpose and pulling its mane whilst ‘falling’ and screaming around it. I’ve always been taught to respect horses. Even a shetland can bite and kick. And even the calmest horse in the world can get spooked and buck you off. Hence, i believe in sticking to helmets until you’re riding medium dressage. In competitions.
Hm.
Ok. Shes not really a kid, is she? She must be somewhere between 14 and 16 maybe.
I’m 15 and if my horse coughs more than 3 times during the warm up, i go over to my mommy
I looked through the comments and one that disturbed me was “I’m just saying that it doesn’t matter if i rode him or not, he loved to go riding”
Right. So say my child likes rollerblading down the stairs, that automatically makes it safe for him? Good to know.
Hes skinny. And the first words that come to my mind when i think ‘fjord’ is fat, fluffy, happy.
No offence intended to any fjord owners =)
My horse is a teke, so i think im the last person to call a horse skinny o.o
I guess i feel bad for the girl… Like said, maybe she just had NO idea what she was doing.
But if that was the case, she shouldnt have had the horse in the first place, right?
I still feel more sorry for the horse.
And as for the filming… Thats just odd. Her horse is dead and she can still think about that? I mean… Usually my attitude is ‘As long as you’re not hurting anyone, then whatever floats your boat. If she wanted to film her dead ‘best friend’ then… Well… eh.
I was bawling my eyes out when i saw my horse being operated on (Eye infection gone really really bad) and i dont know what i’d do if my she was dead.
Atleast he’s not suffering from whatever killed him anymore…
And lets hope the girl grows a sense of responsibility for her other horse.
I agree that any kind of “playing” with a horse should be fun for the horse, too. Deliberately spooking it? Not so cute. I have no doubt you’re going to make a much more responsible adult horse owner than she is.
I don’t think the owner was good to Babba. Someone should have noticed that the horse was going downhill. I was stunned when I saw the young owner riding the pony in this condition. Why didn’t the parents notice? These girls didn’t look like serious horse owners; the ponies were “toys” for them. I thought it was really ghoulish that they photographed the dead pony and put it on the internet. I hope the new pony doesn’t suffer the same fate.