How Stupid Do We Get To Be?
Sep 03 2011
The comments on the last post took me off course from my next planned foray into Fuglyville.
I kept thinking, Who can really define a deserving horse owner?
Who should and shouldn’t be allowed to own a horse?
How many mistakes does a person get to make as a horse owner before they are no longer allowed to have one?
How stupid do we get to be?
When I got my first horse, the only people I knew less knowledgeable were my parents.
I had a few years of riding lessons under my belt, some friends who owned their own horses and a burning desire to be able to ride like the boys on Bonanza.
I found myself incredibly over-horsed, boarding at a run down, barb-wire loaded, self-care facility.
My “facility” consisted of a couple of leaky, rotting sheds and 10 acres of over-grazed ground. Nobody oversaw me and my equally green barn-mate in any way, we were probably the worst case scenario of new horse owners imaginable.
My first few years were spent chasing down my escape artist horse, doctoring various wounds from wire, rotted wooden corrals, poorly fitted saddles and learning the hard way, if you didn’t recognize a thin horse before all his ribs were showing, you had a lot of work ahead of you getting him to the right weight.
My poor horse was sore-footed from being shod only when his shoes wore off and being ridden until he barely had any foot left in the winter because I only shoed him in the summer months.
This all came from ignorance, not malice, but that didn’t help my horse much.
He survived being fed grass clippings, random changes in hay quality and then being given up to 10 pounds of sweet feed a day in an attempt to fatten him up.
Should I have owned a horse?
Probably not.
The thing is, we survived my initial idiocy and I ended up growing up with my best friend. We made it well into my adulthood.
I learned how to properly care for him, as I learned to ride him and train him. He was the basis of who I became not only as a horseperson and trainer, but as an individual as well.
My next train of thought comes from the homeless community here in my area.
I am a fairly avid volunteer with homeless youth and have recently become involved with a program called “Street Pets.”
So many of these people have dogs, some have cats, and a few have birds, ferrets, etc. The Street Pet program helps provide food and veterinary care for their animals.
There is no judgement involved in this program, just assistance as needed and kind, supportive conversation.
Do these people deserve their pets? By many standards, no they don’t.
But I see dogs which are with their best friends 24/7, not locked in a kennel while their owners are out working every day.
I see (for the most part) healthy, happy, well-socialized animals.Their human companions think of them as equals, they won’t go to a shelter because they won’t leave their dogs. They share whatever they have, from their beds to their food.
These people line up for spay and neuter certificates because a pregnant/whelping dog will slow them down and a fighting male will be taken by the local ASPCA.
Often the animals offer the only consistant love and devotion these people have in a barren and brutal exhistance.
The down side of the homeless and their pets is also enormous.Dog are often obtained by stealing them from yards, and many are abandoned, tied under bridges or to fences, to fend for themselves or quietly die, waiting for a person who never returns.We see sickly dogs, starving and diseased dog, dogs wounded in accidents and fights.
Does this mean no homeless person should have the comfort of a dog? If you could see how eagerly they line up to learn about nutrition, vaccinations, and spay and neuter opportunuities you might, like me, find yourself unable to judge.
So back to horse ownership. I want to go back even farther than whether proper estate planning has taken place to secure the future of your horse if you die or find yourself unable to care for it.
What if a person just goes out and buys one? Or adopts an OTTB because it looks like Secretariat, the horse in the movie they watched on Netflix last week?
How about horses living in garages, or backyards filled with swingsets, wading pools and toddlers? Maybe a random pitt bull mix or two?
Where would these horses be if they weren’t living with these dumb, naive people? They could be at an auction, on a truck or abandoned in a field.
We see horses with upside down halters, saddles too small, too big or just too crappy to safely be used. We see barefoot kids, bad fencing, and cobbled together shelters.
Often I also see many of the horses in these circumstances with a look of resigned good humor in their eyes. No fear, just patience.The horses are often as Fugly as a horse can get, but those six little kids crawling all over old Tessie think she’s the most beautiful horse they’ve ever seen.
Should there be a law against this type of ownership? How many of these gomers could end up becoming the next great horse advocate if they are given the chance to really learn about the world they accidentally just stepped in?
I have a favorite saying, “God looks after fools and new horse owners.” I use it often and am amazed how often it applies. It certainly did to me.
This video shows how horses fit into situations and places some of us could never fathom. I have a feeling there were mistakes made along the way while this group found its place in the world. I am glad they were allowed to get there.
136 comments to “How Stupid Do We Get To Be?”
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The answer to the dumb and naive owner is not judgment, it is education. The stupidest thing I ever did was to tie my pony to a flatbed trailer in the corner of a showground and then go get a hot dog…not realizing that the trailer didn’t have proper brakes. Ahem.
But the point I’d like to make here is that all of us, if we find a horse owned by somebody who doesn’t know much about horses, should try our best to turn that bad home into a good home. Because, really, there aren’t enough good homes out there. Any opportunity to make another one should be taken.
All of that requires a non-judgmental approach. Get to know the person, then offer them tips on improving their horse’s weight (in either direction…ignorant owners are, in my experience, more likely to turn some poor pony into the founder poster child than starve a horse).
And in all honesty, ‘I know the number of a really good equine dentist, do you want it?’ is a nice, quiet, non-judgmental way of nudging the person to realize horses need dental care. A lot of people don’t know that. A lot of people don’t know how often a horse needs its hooves trimmed. I’ve had people ask me how long they live…people genuinely don’t KNOW that. Or know that grass clippings make a horse sick, or that horses are horribly prone to worms, or that there’s a West Nile vaccine for horses…
People can’t know this stuff without being told. Building a relationship and doing a bit of mentoring is the best way to go about it.
I think the video is an excellent example of how alternative style of horse keeping are not necessarily bad. I’m curious what the turn out situation is like there or if the horse’s are just ridden daily for exercise. Either way, I would not call it bad or inhumane or stupid. The horse’s look well cared for. Yes, the stables looked rather run down and old, but I imagine this group doesn’t have a whole lot of funding coming in, and what they do get is used for feed and hoof care. Living in a run down stall that atleast keeps the rain out and has a dry floor is better than being left in a field with no shelter.
hi katie. In the city, very few barns had pasture. The outskirts of the city limits may have grass but it is never a 24/7 turnout situation on the grass. Where I boarded, we had dry-lot turnout and a riding ring. I never saw laminitis at my barn. We never had round founder. One horse was put down for colic but later the autopsy showed he had cancer.
that should have read road founder, not round founder. lol
See, except in extreme climates, I’d much rather see a horse in a field with no shelter than stuck in an old, dark barn with small stalls and bad ventilation. And therein lies the problem… there is no unviersally accepted method of horsekeeping and there never will be.
When I got my dog, I was working full time. I got her from a rescue because I figured being alone for 8 hours a day would still be an improvement on where she came from. Based on the positive changes in her condition and behavior, I was right. But I know some rescues won’t give the time of day to people who work full time.
All that to say, yes, it is difficult to judge who should have pets and who should not.
Yes, but we don’t know how big those stalls are or if they have lights in them. They looked to be in a shedrow style so atleast the horses can put their heads out and look around and have light that way. Just because it’s a urban barn doesn’t mean we should assume the worst about it. Also, I imagine there’s a benefit to keeping horses stalled, especially in cold weather… warmer horses = less feed to keep them warm and in good weight. If they were put outside, especially with no shelter, I’d bet the caretakers would have much, much higher feed and hay bills.
I wasn’t talking about this barn in particular… in this case I think what they’re doing for those kids makes up for what the horses lack. In general though I am against stalls – reason being, I wouldn’t enjoy living in a space that small, no matter how much light and fresh air it got. Even if you don’t have room for turnout you still don’t need stalls. There used to be this concept called a “loafing barn” or “loose house” that more and more people are turning back to.
It’s really a hard line to draw sometimes. On one hand, I do take a hard line “rescuer” stance on animals: if you can’t provide food, shelter, and veterinary care (including having pet insurance or keeping a nest egg for emergencies) then keep on walking and don’t ask to adopt this dog. On the other hand, I do get a lot of the “well the dog is getting put down next week, what would be so bad about me taking it in for a while and then putting it down when I can’t afford vet care?”. I never really have a good answer to that one. My experience with a no-kill shelter was simpler: we don’t want you taking a dog, “using” it for a year, then when it gets to expensive you drop it back off (usually worse for wear, and always older and less adoptable) and making us fix it up again. When you’re talking about homeless who obviously don’t meet my prior requirements without social assistance it kinda goes in the first category. Assuming these pets weren’t stolen, I can’t see why we should rip healthy animals (assuming they are getting food and basic vet care) away from owners just to put them down (because even if one of their dogs gets adopted, statistically that’s just another dog that got put down in its place).
I don’t think I could, in my right mind anyway, GIVE the dog/cat/etc to a homeless person based on my analysis of not handing out pets to people when they are just going to end up back in the system. BUT I really can’t find the logic in tearing them away from someone who is providing for their basic needs. In situations where there isn’t the social assistance like in your area to provide their animals with the care they can’t give them, I think it’s better to put a dog down then have it continuously skinny or living with painful injuries or wounds. Of course then the question is, do you take the dog away before it gets to that point? I’m sympathetic to the humans that love them, but no animal should have to suffer because the human is too.
As far as horses go… I think I have a higher “standard of care” for horses in general, because you just CANNOT take care of a horse without enough money. There just aren’t free horse vet care programs for poor people, and instead of ending up in shelters and being “re-homed” or humanely euthanized, when people can’t afford horses they tend to go to Mexico if they’re not extrinsically “valuable.”
My first horse “owning” (free lease) experience was very well watched over! My family knew nothing about horses, but I had ridden since a little girl, and been volunteering with a therapeutic riding program since age 12 (which included taking dressage lessons on the therapy horses to improve their balance and quality of movement). At 15, one of the riding instructors talked my dad into taking on a free lease for a kinda crazy Arab (but not “too” crazy, just a bit of a challenge) that the owners didn’t want but were afraid of selling (and having the horse leave the safety of their control). I had a plethora of horse “moms” that watched my every move – so even though 15 may not have been the peek of my responsibility and horse-sense I had a good security net.
What do you consider affordable or reasonable vet care though?
For a dog I’d say shots, spay or neuter, maybe the odd set of stitches, round of antibiotics or other minor treatment is a reasonable thing to hold up as a minimal standard. However, if someone can’t afford to do a stifle surgery, have a broken leg either “fixed” or amputated or spend thousands on some other random issue, I wouldn’t be classing them as bad pet owners or someone who shouldn’t have pets if they put them down.
I’ve been watching a dog at work go through surgery after bloody surgery, treatment after treatment and more drugs than a fricken pharmacy so this is bothering me today. This dog use to be a therapy dog and was one of our happiest customer and now she’s a bitter, sullen shell of what she was, but mommy has money and won’t let her go and the vets just keep coming up with new tricks… ugh… anyway I’m sure thats not what you had in mind.
Yikes- that is a tough call. I know I did the green horse, green rider thing originally. No major harm came out of it, though I’m amazed in retrospect. My poor horse. Nine years later I treat her like a queen, but I feel guilty about the original poorly-made, poorly fitted tack, and my general lack of experience. Should I not have gotten her because it wasn’t the ideal situation? I would disagree, but I’d say a major factor is my favor is willingness to learn. I read everything I could get my hands on about all horse subjects (for free too, as I used the local library to get my info), I overcame my shyness to start talking to more knowledgeable people, and I always had a sincere desire to do my best by my horse.
In a perfect world, I think people should do a couple years of lessons, figure out just what they want, get skills and knowledge under their belts, honestly assess the price of a horse, and have savings for people and animals before buying a horse. This is in a perfect world though. In this world, I just would ask that people want to do the best by their animal. If a horse is in a backyard with swingsets and junk, I’d ask that people rearrange if nothing else to keep everyone involved safe. Or if a horse is just a pasture ornament, that basic care is always maintained.
It’s funny you write this, as I was very frustrated yesterday by a boarder in our barn. She has no experience, but a lot of money, so a couple months ago she bought a cute arab at the barn and started learning horse handling and how to ride. That’s fine (again, not my ideal from up above, but she has a right to do this). She nearly lamed him permanently by letting a lunge line get wrapped around his leg and then he spooked- poor guy had rope burns deep into his leg. It was a beginners mistake, but could have been tragic for the horse. This week she bought a second horse (why someone just learning how to ride needs two horses is beyond me, but again, her right), and she was letting both of them wander loose in the fields, with lunge lines on. The horses kept stepping on the lunge lines, they kept wrapping around their legs, and I went and told her that if she wanted to put her horses loose it would be better not to have lines on them, because of the risks involved. She acted offended, and said that she was just seeing how the new one did loose, and that the older one “knew” not to get hurt anymore. I tried to politely explain all the risks again, but she didn’t want to hear it.
(Side note: Does anyone else find the horse “learning” to never get rope burns again from a previous lunge line incident funny? Because I thought that it was akin to me saying that “since my NSH has been on a diet all summer, I think I can trust her never to eat too much grass again”)
So there is a situation where I don’t think someone should have a horse yet- but is it better than the kill truck or an auction? Yes…at the same time, the woman doesn’t have a willingness to learn yet. I hope she develops one for the sake of the horses.
Interesting thread- I bet we will get a lot of different opinions on this!
I should’ve read before I replied, you’ve already spelled out my opinion for me!
I remember the few gentle nudges that I got as a new horse owner. There were a few neighbors who would poke their heads in eveny now and then to see how we were doing and maybe give me a little tid-bit of advice if they saw me doing something strange. Sometimes the best advice came after someone said “…Thats ok… Everyone starts somewhere, now next time you might want to try… ” or “Its ok everone has a bad day, maybe you should try….” The last one was about the smudge which hubby and I just couldn’t get it to stay going. We were out there messing around with it until our neighbor pulled up and told us to try poking holes in the bottom of the barrel… you know fire needs a little air to keep going… DUH… but sometimes its the smallest missed detail that gets you.
As for the new boarder…. I will use the “yuk factor” on people who seem to think they don’t need advice. My favorite was the woman who wanted to breed her little mix breed dog until I explained that; that yellow goo he was leaving on the furniture, her clothes, the floor, her bed, ect… was just his “boy juices”. I told her in a totally flat “oh thats normal” tone when she asked me what it was… She had been picking at a bit of dried goo when I told her so that took a LOT of restraint on my part not to burst out laughing like a lunatic! He went to the vet ASAP and she never mentioned breeding or goo again.
Perhaps you could get the boarder to use a short peice of lead instead of the lunge line by pointing out how it drags through the poop before she picks it up. I’d let her know about horsmanship/ridding lessons too just when they’re happening not that she needs them.
“She nearly lamed him permanently by letting a lunge line get wrapped around his leg and then he spooked- poor guy had rope burns deep into his leg.”
I bought my first horse, a TB, from my trainer now trainer/barn owner. Even after being the same barn for about 5 years and a horse owner for about 1.5, I would no more assume the sole care of my horse than I could fly. As a horse crazy teen, would I have – you bet! But I learn something new about my horse every day and your comments about the lunge line reminded me of what, at the time, was no big deal to me – just an “of course” moment.
While healing from a strained achilles and banned from riding, I learned to lunge my horse. We did quite nicely at the walk and trot – he know how and was patient with me. Well, one day he was being very sluggish about the whole thing. Aha, says I, I will get the lunge whip to help him along from behind. So, I wind up my 30′ of lunge line and Finn and I head to the tree where the lunge whip lives. No sooner did I pick it up and he was gone. Of course I dropped the whip and went with Finn – we did about 6 circles around the tree before I get him calmed down. I never once let go of the lunge line – in fact I ran around that tree to keep it as short as possible so he couldn’t get tangled up in it.
Did I know he would freak? No. Did I think before I went with him round and round the tree? No. It just seemed like the common sense thing to do.
When I got my first horse, I had been working with horses for a few years, but I was still young. Luckily, I didn’t have the chance to make any stupid mistakes, as my horse was fed for me and the people at my barn taught me when to shoe, worm, and vaccinate. Boarding stables are nice because when something goes awry, you always have someone to ask about it and share their experience. A few years ago my old man horse was shaking his head in pain while eating, and losing most of his food. I’d always done the teeth floating every two years thing with my vet, but with the advice of my then-current barn owner, I took him to an equine dentist. With his age he had some bad teeth, and he’s old as dirt, but he’s still around. I think obviously in an ideal situation people should have a basic knowledge of horses and at the very least someone knowledgeable to turn to for advice when they get their first horse. But even if that isn’t possible (horses living in someone’s backyard in suburbia), as long as a horse is getting food, foot and veterinary care, I can’t see a reason to take horses away from new horse owners.
I’m glad you figured out your guy’s teeth, but I was interested that you were told to do teeth every two years. I had always been told to have teeth done every year, and twice a year for older horses. I’m sure it depends a bit on the horse as well.
I was taught to do teeth every two years also
I was taught to do teeth every two years also
According to my vet, who I trust with my life, teeth are overdone– they should be done only when needed, and that might be anywhere from every six months if a horse has a problem, to every few years if the horse wears its teeth evenly.
I took four horses to him this spring, and it looked something like this:
14 year old mare, never done in her life– a few sharp points, nothing much bad.
11 year old mare, history unknown– a few sharp points, nothing much bad.
10 year old gelding, done before– not great, not bad, had some build up on his canines, a couple of points.
7 year old mare, history unknown (later found out she was never done)– terrible teeth, potential future problem with her molars, appears to have lost a tooth at some point, has gaps between teeth.
All but the 7 year old are good until they need done again. The young mare is going back in six months to see if he can start some correcting on her bite and her other issues. It turns out that many horses are overfloated– the vets or dentists take off too much enamel at one time, and cause damage to the dentin which causes rather severe issues over time. In fact he suspected that the young mare had been overfloated at some point. She wasn’t, but it does tell me exactly how bad overfloating can be. I’m pretty darn sure that I’ve known people in the past who didn’t blink at knocking off a half inch on a tooth that was too long. The suggested limit is something like one or two millimeters?
Again, it goes back to education– in this case, I trust my vet, but to be an educated horse owner, what I should be doing in Googling or searching for information on the dangers of floating a horse’s teeth.
what I’ve always been told and found works pretty well is that up til 6 or 7 and once they get old the teeth should be checked ever 6 months – not necessarily floated but checked for problems. Between youngsters and oldies they need checked once a year as problems don’t come up as often. I know my mare who is 6 can through up some nasty points within that six month period as well as getting ridges.
It does also depend on the horse, I had a tb with a mild parrot mouth who had to be checked and floated every six months even at 11 because he would develop ramps at the back due to his conformation.
I just had my 29yo gelding’s teeth done and my vet mentioned that doing too many dentals or too much on an older horse can actually do more harm as the vibration can loosen teeth that would otherwise hold for several more years.
I live in an area where almost everyone has horses and about 80% of them by outward appearance probably shouldn’t. But I do think its a very fine line to toe; who made you Boss to say so-and-so should or shouldn’t own animals? Of course we are all operating off of our own experiences, feelings, and knowledge and don’t get me wrong, its pretty tough to see the two horses living a half mile down the road from me that are skin-and-bones all winter and have a bale of poor quality hay and a 50 lb bag of sweet cob sitting in front of their tiny pen. In that instance I wanted to go over to the house “looking for my dog that ran away” and offer some gentle suggestions about feeding alternatives (beet pulp–its cheap and better than cob!), but my husband said that was just plain ole’ interfering and to let it be. Happily those two horses ARE looking much better now, without my interference.
Anyhow, to each their own and we should all pray for those that are poorer situations than our own animal friends. I have seen a number of people pour hours, weeks, years, and thousands of dollars out of their own pocket trying to make rescues happen and unfortunately around here it rarely ends well. I tried to get involved in that part of the horse world and the he-said she-said and ego battles involved in it were WAY too much for me. At this point I choose to keep my own horses happy, healthy, well-fed, and regularly exercised. Maybe I’m not making a big difference in the larger picture but at least I know I am taking care of my own to the best of my ability with money to spare in case of emergency–as opposed to pouring myself into rescue situations and getting stretched way too thin as often happens. My respect to those that DO put themselves out there that way and try to help so many horses, its just not the path I’m on at the moment.
Definitely a thought provoking post. Wrote way more than I intended to. Mostly I just wanted to say “hey, cool video!”
This is a good and thought provoking post. I am on the fence on this one. I travel a lot and am in many big cities. I see first hand the homeless and their pets. The downtown area of San Diego has a huge homeless population with pets. I have to admit the animals look well and happy with the constant companionship. I am not sure I like the smell of human and animal urine all over and the “camps” on every corner.
This topic is a double edged sword. Nothing is ever a perfect world. Each and every situation must be looked at individually. Does the balance of humane sway one way or another? If you go to another cold climate city and see the homeless and their pets, the picture isn’t as happy. Maybe the shelters could have a section for the homeless with pets?
As far as new owners and ignorant owners….I see that at all levels. I have seen college educated owners, doctor owners, high income owners do just as many dumb things as us po folks. It is up to those of us “who know better” to try to guide these people when the chance opens, whether they are offended or not. Wherever you have animals, you have animal abuse. Sad but true.
Here is my own personal intolerance. I hate stupid people. I dislike being around them, and I am quick to condemn them. The good news is that I’m aware of my bias and prejudice, and I work hard to make sure that I don’t let my own personal problem interfere with my job or my life.
However, when I hear about people who just couldn’t be bothered to learn about horses, THESE are the people who don’t deserve horses. I’m sorry, but have you EVER met a horseperson who was unwilling to give their opinion or a piece of their expertise? We are, if anything, TOO eager to express our knowledge. So any horse owner who has owned horses for very long, and hasn’t learned, earns my deep disrespect. It’s really NOT that hard to read a book– even if it is a beginner’s book– on horse care. It’s not that hard to stop by a stables and ask the owner a couple of questions about why their horses are so shiny when Blah Blah’s horses are dull. Education is available to ALL people in the U.S., but the availability only works if people actually engage in learning.
I’m a teacher, as you can probably tell. I have a clear understanding that some people can’t read, some can’t write, and some get confused by kinesthetics, auditory learning, and other modalities and methods of gaining information. But only a truly stupid person is willing to sit around on his or her butt, and make NO effort to absorb and learn about the world. If your world includes horses, then LEARN. There are a million ways to learn.
As you noted, Mugly, frequently new horse owners make mistakes. Sometimes the mistake costs the horse its life. I know of a wonderful family of horsepeople, and I clearly remember the day we tried desperately to save a colicking mare, even though as the horsewoman I KNEW as soon as I heard the cause of her sickness that she wasn’t going to make it. The lack of capillary refill in her gums and elevated heart rate were just confirmation. She had gotten out of her pen, along with the gelding, and found a bag of grain that wasn’t solidly locked behind a closed door, or in a secure container. She was alpha, so she got to eat her fill. 40 lbs of sweet feed make for a dead horse, and our new horse owners had to watch their little girl’s 4-H mare die in the trailer as we tried to unload her at the vet’s office. A stupid mistake, but also a mistake that was never repeated. The owners went on to subscribe to Equus, take some classes, and read every single thing they could find, as well as asking frequent questions about horse care.
I know of another family, who still owns horses, even though they regularly seem to manage to kill a few. Moldy hay during the winter? That’s five horses dead. Barbed wire for their new fencing, but only two strands, and not stretched? That’s one horse dead. Out on the road, and hit by a truck? One more in the ground. Horses thrown from a dry lot onto lush green pasture? Two more down….
In the end, for me the answer is simple. People make mistakes, but they are expected to learn from their mistakes. Yes, mistakes can be costly, even costing a life. But mistakes DO happen. That’s not the same as learning by repeating the same mistakes that everyone else has made, because you are too lazy to education yourself. Someone who doesn’t make the effort to self educate doesn’t need to own an animal– they need to visit a petting zoo or a pony ride.
The fact that every horseperson has an opinion was/is a problem for me as a newer-ish horse owner–how do you separate the good advice from the bad? I had experienced horsepeople tell me it was ok to leave my mare out with a gelding when she was in heat and he was mounting her. Uh no, it wasn’t–she ended up with bruised hips and I ended up with a $250 vet bill. I separate them now but I would have preferred for her sake and mine that we didn’t have to learn that one the hard way.
And I agree, stupid people can be educated, it’s the blissfully ignorant who can’t.
Thank you for your post! I have very little patience for people who harm animals out of ignorance. Honestly, it is not that difficult to do a little bit of research. Most people have access to the internet, the library is free, and talking to more knowledgeable people is free. The animal does not care if you hurt him on purpose, or if you just did not know any better. The end result is still the same. Plus, the thing with a lot of these people is that when someone tries to educate them they get all defensive and do not listen.
I agree completely, I cannot bear ignorance. Lack of education does not irritate me (except of course an irritation directed towards those who should be educating the ill-educated and aren’t). People who find it difficult to learn I can be incredibly patient with. As long as they WANT to learn. Anyone who asks, anyone who wants to improve things, anyone who wants to learn I can be incredibly patient with. People who are down right ignorant and had the opportunity to learn but did not really really really get under my skin.
In this era when so much information is freely available on the internet as well – people who don’t even google something before leaping in with both feet just blow my mind.
I do appreciate that it can be difficult to work out what information is correct but the easy answer for the simple stuff, vaccinations, worming, farriery, basic feeding, ask a Vet, ask the person who is running the local boarding facility/riding school/training barn who has shiny, bouncy, healthy looking horses.
I also just meant to say COOL VIDEO….I posted it on my facebook.
Long post ahead.
I’m 20. I’ve been working with/around horses from a very young age. I grew up on a farm, had access to back-yard ponies and Western dude ranch sort of situations. I took lessons from age seven on, developed some half decent riding skills, went to work in the U.K at some very, very nice barns- with Olympian level riders, Grand Prix riders, big names. I worked with big name race trainers, exercising and caring for horses that ran in the Epsom Derby. I know a lot about horses- not to give myself a big hoorah, it’s just the truth. I know enough to know that I have more to learn every day, and to never stop asking questions. I own a 6 year old TB who came to me as ‘too crazy to tack up’ who is now teaching little kids how to ride at a lessons barn while I go to college.
I have made SO many mistakes and where I would be without the guidance of the wonderful people I’ve worked with, I have no idea. I bought my first horse at age fifteen and brought it home to live on my grandparents cow farm. He lived with two strands of electric fencing, free range access to poor quality hay, and the barn knee deep in cow-muck for shelter. I didn’t know any better. He never had his mane pulled. I did his feet myself, sporadically, when they looked like they needed done. We galloped everywhere, and I had a bit in his mouth with six inch shanks. Dental care? What’s that? Worming? Phsssh. Other horses? Nah. That horse was a saint. In the winter when the cows came home from pasture he lived in with them but started chasing them and they continually broke out of the fencing. I made a pen for him in the corner of the barn out of old six bar gates and left it at that. He eventually sold to a neighbor down the road for his grand daughters when I went overseas and now lives out on pasture 24/7 with a halter on 24/7 never blanketed in barbed wire fencing. Is he happy, fat, healthy and shiny? Yep. Is it the way I would do things now? NO. I’m appalled looking back at those conditions!
I now work at a great A barn and I get in a tizzy if the courtyard isn’t raked, so that shows how much you learn along the way. I manage worming after analyzing fecals, all horses are on an individual feed program, blanketed, booted, fly masks, medications, I’m there for vet and farrier visits, get to stick my arm down a horses throat during dental visits to feel the hooks and snags, I fix fencing and check the oak boards weekly for any loose screws, etc, I work with two yearlings whos births I was there for, and in general, know a hell of a lot more than I did five years ago! That doesn’t mean I condemn those who keep their horses differently than I would. I think so long as horses are healthy and happy, we can not condemn. And I think new owners should possess the quality of willingness to learn- that is the most important of all.
I was amazed at the learning curve the first year you have your own first horse. But you do have to be willing to listen and read and learn from your mistakes. I always thought the smartest person was the one who freely says they know very little and have a lot to learn – and were willing to learn it!
GREAT POST! My past mistakes? OY. Green horse, green rider. Questionable pasture situations. Ill-fitting tack. Thankfully the Good Lord watched over us and we never did have any trainwrecks! 18-ish years later since my first farm and I feel MUCH more competent LOL! It IS always a learning experience though…even to this day I think I make (thankfully) harmless mistakes that I really didn’t notice at first. I think many of you can atttest to the fact that if there is a way to get into trouble, a horse will find it.
I like to consider myself middle of the road on this subject. Those kids in the video honestly made me smile. Their horses look in good weight and they are exercised, trained, and cared for. It sounds like peer pressure is alive and well at that stable. Is the place they stay at a palace? No, but honestly neither is mine. Is a horse living in a city everyone’s ideal? Likely not, but it seems to be working there.
I find myself getting really irritated at posters who insist that the only sure sign of good horse ownership most include having a bankroll for the unexpected. I don’t agree with that at all. If I have an emergency, I call my vet and I work out the details of payment later. I don’t burn my hay guy or my vet or my farrier with money and in turn, if need be, I don’t need to worry about paying up front if an ugly situation rears it’s head. Does that make me a bad owner? Cause sometimes I have to ask for extended credit? Absolutely not. Why? Because my horse (and dogs and cats) gets the treatment they need and if need be, over time I WILL pay my bill.
If pet ownership could only be granted to the wealthy and to the ideal home situations, the MAJORITY of us would miss out. I KNOW my farm wouldn’t live up to many Fugly posters’ ideals. I don’t really care. My horses are happy, all their needs are attended to. There are no unplanned pregnancies, no injuries caused by neglect. My happy place isn’t your happy place and I’m OK with that…I just wish money/finances wasn’t touted around so much as being the MAGIC way to be considered a “good” owner.
Very interesting question and a lot of great replies. Regarding the idea of making sure that you have plenty of money before getting a horse is a great thought, it doesn’t always work according to plan. I saved and saved before I finally got a horse. I went to the track, paid $500 and then had a friend trailer her to the barn I am boarding at. I filled his gas tank to the tune of $100. I got lucky and the farrier was at the barn so he pulled her back shoes off so that she could be turned out with other horses. (He wasn’t going to be in the next week, so it worked out well.) I asked how much, he said don’t worry about it. Bonus! Then hours later, my horse wasn’t doing well – she was highly stressed, broke out in hives, wouldn’t drink, was becoming dehydrated and wasn’t pooping. We met the vet for the first time around midnight. Horse treated for dehydration, hives and mild impaction colic. $400 later, horse recovered nicely. Since then, I have become unneeded at my job and found myself out looking for another job (thankfully I found something within a week that will start soon so that is a huge bonus) and my car broke and cost a small fortune in repairs. So my nest egg got swallowed up in a hurry but we’ll pull through.
I have ridden on and off for nearly 40 years, leased a horse before and groomed at horse shows for years to pay for my lessons but there is a huge difference in all of that and actually owning a horse of your own, especially a very green one. I am really lucky that I board in a barn where the owner/trainer is very willing to help me. I am not afraid to ask questions and clarify things with her and she is great at answering my questions. There is never a shortage of people willing to lend a hand. There is always someone around and I know my horse is well looked after.
Knowing enough to ask for help is a huge thing. Being willing to accept help and tips is important for every horse owner.
A little off topic but I would love to hear what others think. Last night, I took my 15 year old daughter to go and see my horse with me. She has ridden for several years and is dying to ride the horse I just bought myself. My daughter asked if she could turn Mocha out in the sand ring to play. Sure no problem. As Mocha ran around the ring, my daughter asked how long before she could ride her, I said that we would have to see how things went. After a little while, I said that the horse was quite hot from running around and would need to be walked before we put her in her stall for the night. My little angel who is DYING to ride my horse…MY horse, looked me straight in the eye and said, “She’s your horse, you walk her.”
Seriously???? Ask me again when you get to ride her!
I don’t know where that attitude comes from, but it is HUGE in teenagers today, and even a lot of adults. Students in my classroom will start out the year with a standard response when I make them pick up the floor of the room:
“It’s not my mess, I didn’t do it.”
My response:
“The janitor didn’t do it either, and if we don’t step up and clean it up, he’s going to have to work extremely hard. One person will take an hour to pick up the mess– thirty students can get it done in a minute or two.”
Kids have a hard time learning that sometimes it doesn’t matter who left the mess. It’s about taking charge of a situation and being the solution. Even my son, who is raised this way, still needs reminded frequently that it’s not about who causes the problem/mess, it’s about solving the problem/mess.
Usually by the end of the year, students are starting to learn this key fact. It takes time though– I dropped a piece of paper wadded up on the floor two days ago, and all thirty students filed right past it without picking it up. Ask me how it goes when I do the same thing in a month.
I teach kindergarten so I know this won’t work with all grades but in my classroom there’s always a piece of “magic trash”. I tell the kids about this special piece of trash and you wouldn’t believe the scramble there is to find it and throw it away in the trash can I’m holding. I randomly select a piece of trash to be the “magic trash” and the child who finds it may get one Starburst or a sticker or just a lot of congratulations. My floor is clean, the kids have gotten to move around the classroom, and we also do talk about being responsible for our environment whether at home, at school, or in the world.
There is a huge sense of entitlement. I constantly hear things like that at home. “That isn’t my mess, that isn’t my plate….” and so on. When I remind her that I made supper for everyone, did everyone’s dishes & everything else, it falls on deaf ears. One of these days, she’ll get it – I hope. I just returned from cleaning a horse covered in mud from head to toe. I tried to tell that I didn’t get her muddy. She licked my nose so I cleaned her. At least someone appreciates me!!
Having a cushion set aside is great – but you can eat it up not only through emergencies, but through loss of your income. What are you supposed to do when you get down to that last bit of money that’s just enough to euth your and dispose of the body? Use that money to keep on going for another few (or several) months, or put it down because if you don’t get a job by the end of those months the situation will be fodder for the self-righteous people who never make a mistake?
Personally, I’d keep on going.
Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, that video, that’s my hometown yo! If not for horses, who knows what trouble I would have gotten into? I do. I know!!
Horses in Philadelphia is more serious business than many are aware of:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/11/eveningnews/main20052900.shtml
It’s black, white, red … it crosses racial lines. It’s a horse thang.
Don’t disrespect the citykids and their horses who make mistakes just like the country-white-seem-to-have-money people. We’re just fine, even as adults now, and most of us are still riding. And no I wasn’t offended by your post. I am just sayin’. (Truth be told, you again have another posting I adore! So Thank you) I have some great pictures of city riding. I can send them to you.
Being from where you are, let me explain some things that even the country peeps here don’t understand. Riding through the city streets to get to the park, clip clop clip clop, the horses were welcomed. It was encouraged. It was the diversity that the city embraced. We spent our money on horses, not drugs. He says in the video, “You’re in the park in 15 minutes and everything changes….” It’s true! You are transported from inner city shittyness to paradise on earth via Fairmont Park. We were part of the community and I was always invited to take part in the holiday parades.
There are enough people in-the-know around you in that city to point out when you were goofing up. My from-out-west horse thrived in the city after I moved him here. I finally convinced my country friends ride with me on borrowed horses who needed exercise. My friends were amazed. They didn’t know it could be so cool. They would come back for more because damn! it was fun. My horse was always sound and so were others. We didn’t have to worry about some things, like grass founder, since there was no pasture but we had a dry lot and a riding ring. Our horses were well fed, exercised, acclimated, and happy. Someone in a previous post said we as a group (here on the blog) seem to have forgotten the effectiveness of shunning. In the city, if you don’t take care of your horse, people were mean to you and it’s justified and you will never live that down unless you straighten up, and even then they will remind you of when you were an ass. There are a ton of asses out here where I live now. I’ve seen more colic out here than I ever did in the city.
I still ride and have horses but yes this is all in the “country” now. The lessons I’ve learned will stay with me for a lifetime. My horses thank me because I know the value of pasture management, feeding, and DAILY exercise. You can’t procrastinate in the city. You can’t cheat with exercising your horse by turning him out to pasture and you also can’t forget about him. You gotta git up and go! because that pasture and turn out did not exist. I carry those values with me today. I’m the one people call with a question or advice. I learned well. As a citykid too… dayum. Most of us are a prideful bunch. We endured the stuck up noses and we think, ‘hey, what bout choo?”
Thanks for the chuckle today Mugly. There are times I miss the rise and fall of Philly streets, the friendly wave, and entering into the oasis of Fairmont Park…. y’know I can’t ride down the road here without a car speeding by me at 40 mph. In the city, they slow down and haha they also point and wave! “A horsey! Can I pet him?! I love horses! Does he bite?”
Thank you, thank you for writing in, I was amazed by this video. It’s an entire horse communitry I knew nothing about. I want to go to Philly now!
Come visit someday and I’ll make sure you get a tour of the barns. There are all types – dressage, jumpers, western, polo, and the cowboys. I can show you the largest city park and Saul High School. Can you believe Philly has a farm school, with crops, cows, and horses?
Back to your original question. How stupid do we get to be? We get the chance everyday. It’s a matter of choice. Mistakes happen, I know this, but people who do not THINK or heed advice should hang up their bridle and call it a day indefinitely.
YES!! Ignorance is a choice. You can choose to be an educated animal owner or you can choose to harm your animals out of ignorance.
Thank you Mugs for the post and the video & to CityKidAllGrownUp for the reply! This has been my so far unfulfilled passion for many years and when we do get the property I WILL open up the facility for rescue horses to be cared for and loved and ridden by the inner city kids. It does open up new lives and experiences for both the horse & the children.
I never knew about the N Philly horses and am so very glad that they are there for the kids. Awesome & Inspiring!!!
Ok, now I get the idea of this post, but I would kind of like to play the devil’s advocate here. Yes it’s all well and good if they are being properly fed, feet are being done and vet care provided. But this post actually made me think of a post I was rereading the other day titled killing them with kindness is still killing them. Recap on it was a girl letting a horse get away with behavior he really should not have been allowed to get away with, and the fact that this horse being allowed to rear at his owner is a good way to turn good ponies into bad ponies. Usually ending them up with a one way ticket to Mexico. The reason that I was reading that post was because a family member recently bought a yearling Arab, of course for all the wrong reasons. This horse had needed a home asap that could care for a wound she had gotten. Well of course I couldn’t say no, but I certainly do not need a yearling Arabian, so my family member offered to buy her, because she was so “Pretty”. She had at that point promised to listen to me on how to work with a young horse. Well since then I have been stepped on kicked bit and run through by this filly. All things that I would normally deal with and correct asap. However I have now been informed that “she is just a baby, so I can’t get mad at her”. Plus every time I try to be consistent with not letting her do something, the family member just allows the behavior and even rewards it with cookies. I mean she can kick people because bandages hurt, and she deserves a cookie for even letting someone touch it…(Grumble) This horse has vet care, feed, foot work, and more than enough love to last her a lifetime. But she is not being well taken care of. I am now just waiting for this filly to grow up spoiled and mean, and end up really hurting someone. I have a sneaking suspicion that’s when I will get called in to deal with the problems, all of which her owner will have no idea why they happened, all she did was love her, why does she want to hurt her now?… Point of this is that I was green once two, even did stupid green things. In fact I wouldn’t say that I don’t still do stupid things now and then because I don’t know better. There are months that a vet bills leaves me only eating noodles, but I still love and care for my horses mental and physical health to the best of my abilities. This is a tough subject to address because I have seen very well taken care of homeless pets, and utterly abused pets of people with lots of money. I do know that no matter the situation the basics need to include at least minimal training as well. That goes for the people and the animal involved.
To me, as long as a person actively wants to learn, then no matter their situation, it can be worked on and made better. If you want to wallow in your ignorance, there’s nothing I can do other than calling in authorities (if the situation warrants this).
I’ve spent years teaching martial arts and coaching sports; I don’t care how talented someone is, I just care if they’re going to try. Someone who is constantly trying to improve and do better is a fantastic student! The talented person who doesn’t push themselves because they’re naturally gifted? Not so much. (Of course, people run the gamut of no-talent-with-no-try to talented-with-try, but in general, you know what I mean.
)
The question of who should be allowed to own animals is very similar to this athletic scenario for me. I feel like everyone starts out with the basic privilege of being allowed animal ownership. Some people do their research and make great owners from the get go, some learn as they go, some have no idea what they know or don’t know but are willing to learn and some choose to wallow in ignorance. In my opinion, only this last group should be banned from owning animals.
Everyone makes mistakes. If you can learn from your mistakes, not repeat them and become a better owner through the experience, great! But if you make a mistake, don’t even try to fix it and sneer at the idea that you have done something wrong – oops, too bad. By your actions you just forfeited your privilege of owning animals.
“If you learn from your mistakes, not repeat them and become as better owner through the experience, great!” DITTO, DITTO,DITTO!!!!!
Following the auction post this is very thought provoking. Even after lessons and working at a boarding barn, when I got my mare it was still different. I was now responsible for all the decisions her care was based on.
I’m glad I had others to ask advice, I wasn’t humble when it came to learning. But I still had the stupid stuff happen, late in her life I wrapped her leg too tight and bowed the tendon, plus a chemical burn on top of that. I should have known better.
Part of the reason we did as well as we did was because she was smart and kept herself out of trouble, if she got stuck some where she would wait til help came. But I also had the ill fitting tack at times, esp when the top line would change from age and lack of work, WTF, it fit the last time!! Fed some old feed once. Now my nose is super sensative to the tang of fermenation.
And this is just my adult experiences with horses. As a kid I hung out with whoever had a horse and sometimes it was pretty scary in hind sight. No supervision, I learned horses kick and bit cause I was the occasional target, learned to stay on cause I got launched.
Ignorance can be cured with education, sometimes you just can’t fix stupid.
Loved the video!
I believe you and I should tackle something a little easier to answer…like “which came first? the chicken or the egg?”
As a child I obsessed over horses. My folks had enough money and lacked enough knowledge about horses to buy me one, then two and more.
The horses were “boarded” down the street from my house in a pasture on Indian Reservation land. Usually about 5 acres. They grazed in the summer and were fed hay in the winter, trees were their shelter. We lived in Bishop, Ca. (think MULE DAYS)
I owned brushes,hoof pick and a bridle with a curb/grazing bit. I’m tempted to say I was over horsed, but that would imply that I had some, any knowledge of horses beyond which end of the horse to face when I got on. We learned as we went. There were accidental (ignorance induced) injuries to horses and myself. (I think the first concussion, never had a helmet, is why to this day I still own horses)
I am wiser today at 50+ yrs old. Wise enough to know that I know almost NOTHING of what there is to know about horses.
I have rescued/rehabed and rehomed 10 horses. Some came from homes that were financially strapped, some from homes that didn’t know better (either no knowledge or incorrect knowledge) and some from homes that just didn’t care and couldn’t / wouldn’t be bothered. As well a combinations of the above.
I probably have too many horses for my financial /economical /experience situation in some peoples opinions.
I would/should be chastized for having bred for 1 QH baby , because I have a soft spot in my head/heart for QH’s and 1 Arab baby, to be my future endurance horse, four years ago. One mare (arab) was a broodmare lease and has moved on. tho’ I do keep in touch with the people who have her. The QH mare has taken a job for our local pack station as a dude horse.
I purchased/adopted 2 mustangs, one gelding (now out on lease to a friend for her husband) and one mare that smuggled a colt on board. (He was raised, trained and now is another friends endurance horse. Sold on craigslist)
I purchased 2 Arabs out of the Kontiki line, a gelding I endurance race, and a filly that won’t be ridden until she is 4 yrs. old.
I rescued and couldn’t let go of a Padron greatgrandson last year, he was 2, still intact. He has been gelded and is getting his ground work completed.
I also took in a 7 yr. old arab, very green, that my husband uses as his endurace horse.
I have a 2 yr. old little filly that hadn’t been touched until I got her 4 mos. ago. Never vaccinated, trimmed, wormed etc.
I am trying to find her a home on craigslist (OH SHAME!) while continuing her training. I am also utilizing my vet, her assist., and all my friends to find her a person and home.
In order to keep all of my horses cared for I have learned to do all of my own vaccinations, sheath cleaning, and trimming.
I have some medical training as an EMT and utilize that knowledge to determine when I need to bring the Vet in or if it’s something I can handle on my own.
This spring I wasn’t able to vaccinate all my horse at the same time due to lack of $$”s due to taking in another rescue. But, all did get vaccinated eventually.
I am the bitch who WILL report you to Animal Control if you fall into the “don’t give a shit” catagory. I will repeatedly harass animal control to keep them harassing you.
I have been threatened by the “don’t give a shit’s”. Comforted the crying “financially strapped” as I loaded their horse into my trailer. and taken food, wormer, other supplies and a lot of knowledge/instruction to the “didn’t know better’s” without condeming or ridiculing them. And handed out my vet’s phone number over and over again. She’s wonderful.
I often wonder, and grumble when I get calls from strangers who have been told that they should contact me because I’m the person who can help them with “X”.
We don’t have cable or dish for our TV, no internet. We have older vehicles and even older horse trailers. We don’t go out for dinner, dancing, movies, etc. But I’m not asking anyone else to give up the things they enjoy for me, my horses or my dreams.
I still am capable of stupidity. Just the other day I left the clip unclipped (forgot) on one of the gates and one of the many “Hudini’s ” opened the gate and let themselves and their compadres out. Fortunatly, all pens open into our fenced back yard and those gates are always secure.
So…Which came first??? Was it the chicken?? The egg??
I’d say redundant gates are extremely NOT stupid. Momentary lapses are human and a good system can keep them from becoming fatal.
“I still am capable of stupidity. Just the other day I left the clip unclipped (forgot) on one of the gates and one of the many “Hudini’s ” opened the gate and let themselves and their compadres out. Fortunatly, all pens open into our fenced back yard and those gates are always secure.”
Then it wasn’t stupidity, was it. You know the potential, you looked around at some point and said, “Gee, if I forget to lock the gate, what is the potential for disaster?” and you figured out a way to protect from that disaster. Sounds pretty smart to me. Stupidity is thinking, “Well, I know locking the gate is important, so I’ll NEVER forget,” and then moving on with life blissfully sure you are too perfect to make a mistake.
Stupidity can also be something along the lines of, “Oh him? I just let him run around loose. He never leaves the property.”
Wish my horses could read GIS and maps. I’d save thousands in fencing materials……
What a great video! The point these horsemen make that I took to heart the most is that their horses are a reflection of their owners. If their horses are skinny or dirty the rider will be criticized by the others. Isn’t that exactly what we’re doing on this blog? Our horses are a direct reflection of who we are as people and owners. Owners who push themselves hard generally have the healthiest horses and the cleanest barns. Albeit not the fanciest of either. My first boarding situation was in a huge tobacco barn with only 1/3 of a useful roof. The barn flooded inside in the spring and would suck up any vehicle trying to drive in. But the end where the horses were was dry and cozy with mismatched stalls and boards nailed haphazardly but safely to contain the horses.
Those Philly horses don’t know that their barn is rundown or that their life differs from most horses. They know that they’re fat and cared for. The fancy fences and barns really only matter to the people anyways. What does a horse care? Most situations can be made to work as long as the owners get off their asses and do the best they can with what they have. It doesn’t bother me if the horses aren’t completely UTD on every vaccine and chomping down supplements with every meal. There is effort, there is the understanding of how good it feels to be on the back of a horse for the exact same reasons we all ride and they have a home. Totally loved it!
I could watch that all day! I love seeing stories like this. Horses are amazing animals!
Hmm.
Well, this ought to be an interesting litmus test, since this post is kind of diametrically opposed to the opinions expressed by the old Fugly. I’ll be interested to see the reactions you get.
I’ve had thoughts similar to yours, and thought through them as best I can. Bear with me while I give you some personal background.
When I was in college, my roommate and I adopted a stray cat. The cat originally lived in the dumpster behind our apartment. We started feeding him, then we started petting him, then letting him inside, then finally we couldn’t bear to let him outside. He had the loudest purr of any cat I’ve ever seen, and a habit of “hugging” like a person if you picked him up. Wherever my roommate and I sat, he would sit exactly between the two of us, so as not to show favoritism. He was a wonderful cat.
At the time I had a partial scholarship that I could only keep if I kept an A average. Because it was an expensive school and only a partial scholarship, I also had a job. My job more or less paid for books (not covered by my scholarship) and half the rent. Food was optional. Our typical fare for an entire day was an egg sandwich with ketchup packets taken from the convenience store for breakfast, no lunch, and ramen with an orange for dinner. Somehow we managed to buy cat food even when it meant we went hungry.
Then the cat got a blocked urinary tract late at night on the weekend. We took him to the emergency vet. They fixed him up.
And then they wouldn’t let us have him back unless we paid the bill – which was more than both our rent and utilities for three months.
We begged. We asked to make payments. My roommate pawned her stereo and offered them partial payment. They were unbudging. They told us that either they would put the cat to sleep as an abandoned pet, or we could sign him over to them and they would try to adopt him out to someone else.
Which we did. Sobbing. I felt literally sick at the time, like I had betrayed someone I loved. I’m still in touch with my roommate from that time and she has said that she feels abandoning the cat was the worst act she has ever done in her entire life.
I still hate that vet a little, honestly. I know that vets need to be paid like other people. But blood doesn’t come from a stone, he has to have known we were telling the truth about being unable to pay, and what was the point of threatening to kill a healthy animal when it wouldn’t have cost him any more than he was already out to let us have our cat back? He wasn’t going to get the money either way, and one way was just mean. It doesn’t raise my opinion of him that I’ve since learned his clinic has prices three times those of any other clinic. They know people on weekends are desperate and will do what they have to to save a life. They also have a deliberate policy of NOT telling how much things will cost on the front end, so that clients can’t make informed decisions.
So.
Should college students never be allowed to adopt dumpster cats? We couldn’t afford proper vet care, that’s obvious. But was the cat better off picking through broken light bulbs for scraps and dodging the crazy cat-hating drug addict who lived next door to us? Ignoring the cat’s well-being for a moment, are only solidly wealthy, respectable people allowed the comfort of a loving purr?
I know what I think about this today – I donate to a local clinic that offers reduced price vet care to people who need it. That’s what I think about that. And I also tell people who can’t afford shots or spaying that if they can’t afford regular vet care, they can’t afford a pet. Which is a little hypocritical of me, since I would feed that cat again in a heartbeat, even though the outcome made me literally sick with misery.
Now – that’s a different thing from ignorance.
Another blog I frequent is discussing Black Beauty right now. There’s a passage in Black Beauty about ignorance, you can read it here:
http://www.classicreader.com/book/84/19/
I was pretty ignorant when I got my first horse too, and I had him at a barn which didn’t have the best practices. My horse lived. Other horses at the same barn did not live.
If you think that God protects fools and new owners, well, you must live in a different universe with a different God. In this universe, horses get their fetlock nerve stripped by a bad wire fence and have to be put down. Little girls tie ponies improperly and the ponies hang themselves and strangle to death in front of their eyes. Other little girls get thrown from the back of ponies while riding double and end up in the hospital with concussions. Maiden mares give birth unexpectedly early while still in the general pasture with other horses who kick the baby’s head in. Or they give birth to twins that no one knew were coming because the vet was never called and the twins die. Fat ponies founder, and young promising colts eat blister beetles and die writhing in agony.
I’m sorry, but that’s the universe I have seen, and it doesn’t much resemble a comforting platitude. I love God a lot, but I’ve noticed he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike, and if you’re too stupid to come in out of the rain, you’re gonna get wet.
“Then the cat got a blocked urinary tract late at night on the weekend. We took him to the emergency vet. They fixed him up. And then they wouldn’t let us have him back unless we paid the bill – which was more than both our rent and utilities for three months [...] They also have a deliberate policy of NOT telling how much things will cost on the front end, so that clients can’t make informed decisions.”
That is just shitty. That is horrible. If they’re going to do procedures first and ask about financial ability second, they’ve got to expect people aren’t going to be able to pay. I’m shocked, and I’m so sorry you and your friend and your dear cat went through that.
(That said, I’m told it is normal for emergency vet facilities to charge 2 to 3 times what a regular vet does, they really do have incredibly high overhead. An ER vet explained it on her blog much better than I can: http://returnofthederelict.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-does-trip-to-vet-er-cost-so-darned.html )
That’s an interesting article, thanks for the link!
The ER clinic I prefer, which unfortunately is about an hour from me, has the odd situation of having two completely unrelated practices sharing the same facility and equipment. One comes in at night and the other during the day, and they carefully explain to you that never the twain shall meet and if your animal is a patient of one he is not a patient of the other. They have one tech at the clinic and the vets on call. This keeps their overhead to a manageable level.
It seems really poor practice to perform expensive procedures on an animal without discussing the cost with the owner on the front end. And over a thousand dollars to unblock a cat with a little plastic poky thing? I watched him do it, took less than five minutes of his time. Plus keeping him overnight for observation. The older, wiser me would have taken him home after the unblocking and to my real vet first thing in the morning. The even older, even wiser me would have asked the cost on the front end!
What a total bastard. I’d have called the police on him. Seriously, threatening to put the cat down if you didn’t pay in full? What a sick guy. I doubt that is legal– he could have taken you to court, sure, but holding your cat ransom and threatening to kill it? What a loser. I’d love to know his name, and even years later it’s worth spreading around, because vets like that really don’t need to be in business.
Sheesh, a blocked urinary tract is like what….. $50 for the anesthesia, tops, and a few minutes of work, then the cost of autoclaving the surgery tools? Yes, vets need to make money, I get that, but something is really sick when you threaten to kill the cat in retribution for lack of payment.
I was 18 at the time – I believe I would have handled it differently today. For one thing, demanding pay for services when there is no price list and the price wasn’t revealed up front probably wouldn’t hold up well to legal scrutiny.
Believe it or not, I have used this vet a second time. Again on the weekend, I found my cat in a pool of blood, with blood coming from his mouth and nose. The clinic did blood work on him to find out if he had a clotting problem, X-rayed him, gave him two transfusions. And as soon as my vet opened on Monday I took him out of there (over their protests) and paid their $1200 bill.
My vet found the problem instantly – a shed claw piercing the artery of the roof of his mouth. That emergency vet hadn’t even looked to see if there was a physical source of the bleeding. Five stitches later, I took my cat home.
So… I guess you call that a bill for “overnight stay with misdiagnosis”? At least I have my very own set of detailed x-rays of all parts of a cat, which are kind of interesting.
As far as publishing the vet’s name, I don’t remember it, but it’s the emergency clinic on Summer Avenue in Memphis, TN.
I think there’s a subtle difference between ‘I’m broke, but this animal needs help’ and ‘I’m broke, but I want a pet’. If you add in that some people truly don’t know how much it costs to keep a pet (many never think of vet care), it becomes much harder to get after someone for having a pet they can’t afford. Or, maybe they know but are hoping that the critter stays healthy until they’re in better financial shape. Either way, I get upset with the people who know better but do nothing to do better.
I have also met vets who’s sole focus is the money. NOT the animal’s well-being, or the owner’s peace of mind. After my dog was hit by a truck, and his pelvis broken in four different places, the vet told me in these exact words “if he didn’t cost much, I’d just put him down”. Never heard so much BS in my life. Sure, if my dog had been a purebred little fru-fru dog, with every genetic problem known to man, some effort might have been made. So despite his “opinion” I took my dog home and he made a great recovery, and can run faster than I can despite being crunched under a truck.
Stray cats are my weakness. The stray I caught in a trap because he looked so pitiful and seemed like he could die at any minute, is now the sweetest cat I own. He was skin and bones, had a horrible infected cut, and had trouble eating. Straight to the vet (different vet) this little scruffy kitty went, and got fixed up. For a week he stayed in the cage so I could feed him, and make sure he got his antibiotics. Then I was going to set him free. He was wild, and hissed like a maniac when I went near him, so I didn’t have a lot of hope of taming him. So after a week, I opened the trap, and he disappeared….
…only to sneak in the back door and make himself cozy in our laundry room. Eventually he would creep into the kitchen and hide under the cabinets, and beg for bologna. Soon the little bone bag with the snotty nose was fat and shiny, and let me touch him. He now sleeps with my mother every night, and DEMANDS to be petted. Still doesn’t like to be picked up though.
So thats one of my stray cat stories, and I feel for you having to give yours of because of an insensitive vet. I would spend my last dollar on my pets, and stand on the street corner if I had to in order to care for them
lol
This is the fat and happy stray, who I think knew someone had saved him
What code do I use to add the image? I tried the HTML code but it just disappeared when my msg was posted :/
I had a vet tell me that “there are millions of rats born every day, just get another one” when I brought my pet rat to him after he had a stroke. I absolutely hate people like that.
I have a wonderful vet now, though. They’re so great that I moved 2 hours away and I still go to them.
It would be wonderful if we could all have a separate bank account with a minimum 10K balance reserved solely for those emergency vet bills. In reality, I know of no one who can muster this kind of resource.
We had a very unsettling but similar situation with a friend’s cat. To condense the story a bit, 1 yr. old cat swallowed string. Previously, had all required vet care; all shots, license, was microchipped and fed vet-brand cat food. We were all out of town the day we THINK he ate the string, and when we got home the next afternoon he was dehydrated and listless. Clinics were closed by the time we realized something was wrong, so we rotated shifts all night getting up to syringe small amounts of water into him and make sure he wasn’t taking a turn for the worst.
We were waiting in the parking lot when the closest clinic opened at 8 am.
The diagnosis was quick (he still had the end of the string wrapped around the very back of his tongue), and the surgery was explained as ‘challenging’ due to the risk of infection with having to open up the intestines to extract the string, depending on how far down it went. We were quoted a price I thought was mind-blowing. Two grand. Having just graduated and only worked a year, most of this friend’s money went toward her substantial student debt. She had no credit cards, and the quote amount in her bank account by several hundred.
I can tell you there was a lot of crying; she simply didn’t HAVE two grand to drop on the surgery then and there. The vet’s response was only that it needed to be done. He asked if she had any jewellery she could sell. I still cannot believe he asked that… if she had ANY she would have. Bear in mind, this clinic had already seen the cat twice for his shots/microchipping, and she came in regularly to purchase his food. They knew her, knew that she lived ten minutes away and that the cat was well cared for. We had to resort to a good cop bad cop routine to get them to accept payments. I put a $500 deposit on the surgery for her, and we waited.
Cat went into surgery, all was well thankfully. Except that when the bill came, there were additions that meant the two grand quote? Doubled. Four grand and change. “Administrative fees” were several hundred dollars.
Thankfully, the furry little bugger came through alright… but I have no idea what would have happened if we hadn’t brow-beaten the vet into taking payments. I understand that its a livelihood, but when I relayed the story to my sister-in-law, who’s a veterinary technician a couple hours away she was FLOORED by the bill. Had we drove to her clinic, it would have been a FRACTION of the cost.
Now, my friend has an ‘emergency’ credit card. And we’ll never go back to that clinic again.
I’m amazed at the differing attitudes – one vet we used threw a wobbly and refused to come to a colic because we owed them about £200 which was being paid off while our vet we use now was happy to continue treating anything which came up (as well as pure emergency’s) despite a bill which touched £900 at one point. So long as they got a little every week they were happy and worked ways to help us keep our bill as low as possible such as they taught us to do shots so anything we could self treat they would supply the medication ready dispensed and we’d administer it, they did a lot of phone advice for free with just medication cost etc. We were going through a rough patch due to my sister being out of work cause of injury but they helped and understood and so long as they got something regularly they were happy. They’re not equine specialists and anything complicated like a complicated lameness or something beyond cuts, colic, emergency type things we do use a different vet but basic things and our small animals they definately get our business and our recommendation.
They were paid in full and have kept customers who usually have a decent sized bill (our three horses do seem to like the vet a lot lol) whereas the ones who throw a strop are going to loose themselves customers.
It’s a tough call to make, because there are so many factors that go into responsible ownership. The ability to care for the animal to a certain standard is one (including the knowledge necessary to do so and the financial security etc), but the motivation to do so is another. Is the homeless man who jumped into a river to save his pet rabbit a less suitable owner than someone who would have a better ability to mind the animals but less motivation?
http://www.herald.ie/news/rabbit-river-rescue-hero-is-offered-animal-care-job-2814016.html
You do hear vets talking about homeless people who would benefit from the kind of care they give their pets. So does the one-on-one care make up for the dangers and awful conditions, provided there’s the right owner?
As for learner mistakes- everyone makes them. I’d say the big issue is willingness to learn, even if you didn’t read or get enough experience to begin with. I’d be lenient on people who are just getting advice from the wrong people, unless it’s obvious they should have known better from the kind of knowledge they’d be expected to have.
Great topic Mugly!
I do believe that anyone who has ever welcomed an animal into their lives has made a mistake (sometimes more than one) at one time or another, in the caring of the animal. Sometimes the animal lives through the mistake and sometimes it doesn’t. Learning from the mistakes, taking the time to educate yourself so you can give the best care possible to the animal, ensuring that the quality of life of that animal has meaning, that is the owner who values the animal as something more then an object, status symbol, or commodity. The species of the animal is irrelevant.
I’m hoping to become a first-time dog owner soon (horses I know, dogs I don’t). I’ve been reading up, but there is a lot of contradictory advice out there, on training especially, as no two trainers seem to agree. It’s giving me a taste of what first-time horse ownership might be like, even if that new owner of horses is someone who recognises that they don’t know enough and are looking to find out.
And then there is the question of whether as a first-time owner I should get a rescue dog (which is where my heart is, but comes with baggage) or buy a puppy which could be less problematical but which would help to support over-breeding. With dogs, there isn’t the “trained adult animal” option that is the best for a horse beginner, so I’ll probably just hope I’ve found a reputable rescue that will know whether an animal is suitable for me or not. Not sure I’d trust most horse dealers to do the same.
You can still rescue! Most pound puppies are not aware of what has happened to them and go on to lead well adjusted lives as long as they are socialized like a “normal” puppy as soon as they are adopted.
There are plenty of young (1-3 year olds) who need homes too, but in first hand experience, they can have a lot of emotional baggage, even if they seem happy and well adjusted where they are. I adopted a 2 year old, who was wonderful in the fact that he was completely house broken and trained, but once he settled in and put weight on, he was very hyperactive and actually had separation anxiety when I would leave the house and could become somewhat aggressive to other members of the household while I was gone. That lasted a good year before he realized he wasn’t going anywhere and that I personally wasn’t the end-all-be-all of life.
However, I adopted for a county run shelter, not a rescue. While I don’t have a problem with county/city shelters and would personally adopt from the same shelter again, they do not usually know the dogs as well as a rescue and also don’t have the time to interact and socialize with the dogs as much as a GOOD rescue. They also NEED that space. The day I adopted my dog, 20 small dogs were being brought in from a hoarders home. They were low kill but not no-kill, and I truely believe that the volunteer I was working with with my dogs adoption didn’t really let me know how squirely my dog could be, because he had been there for quite a long time at that point and was in danger. She told me over and over again that she loved that dog to death but couldn’t take him home because she had already adopted 3 others from the shelter she had gotten attached to and were there for ‘too long.’
I think for you, you could find a good rescue group and tell them what you’re looking for, and they’d be able to find you a good, well adjusted dog or puppy and tell you straight up what its issue are and aren’t. A good rescue isn’t going to give you a dog they don’t think is a good fit for you, because all that will lead to is you bringing the dog back to them.
True, very true. I have the pound mutt, but my parents have a gorgeous well bred golden retriever puppy. I wouldn’t ever snub their decision to get that dog, either.
I was just pointing out that if her heart was in adoption, she could adopt without getting more ‘crazy dog’ than she bargained for
Could also look into breed rescues. One very good possibility, if you like that kind of a dog, is that there are *always* off the track greyhounds looking for homes. They’re decorative and tend, once let down from racing condition, to be laid back, pleasant animals to be around. I’ve never encountered one that showed signs of having been abused. Worked, yes, abused no…the ones adopted out tend to be mediocre runners who aren’t suitable for use as breeding stock.
Totally agree with regards to the Greyhounds. They really are couch potatoes. My brother and his wife adopted one, “Raven”. She was small for a greyhound, so she got bumped on the track and just didn’t do well. She was an absolute sweetheart, and stayed that way even after the kids came along. We would dogsit for her when they traveled. She was well socialized, got along great with our dogs, and was great in the house (though she loved to sleep on the furniture which was a no no for our dogs.) They come crate trained, housebroken and leash trained, just from their time on the track. Her biggest issue – teeth. Her teeth were terrible and required a lot of care, other than that she was very healthy and loving. Some do have dietary needs, and they warn against letting them run loose in an open area since they are sight hounds. Raven loved to jog with my brother or go on long walks with my SIL. But she would tear it up in our big backyard doing laps for about 5 minutes…then…she was looking for a place to nap in the sun. I would highly recommend greyhound adoption. If we didn’t live on a farm with very cold winters…we would have one.
Buying a puppy does NOT necessarily support over-breeding! We need to support the good, responsible breeders who produce only a few litters and care about the quality of their pups or they will go out of business and the puppy mills will be all that’s left.
It depends on whether you want a purebred dog or don’t care what you end up with.
Let me just suggest that whatever you decide to do, you research genetic problems common in the breed of dog you’re planning to get. I have friends who purchased high-dollar “quality” dogs and ended up buying epilepsy medication, etc. for the rest of the dog’s life. Although some breeders will guarantee this won’t happen, when it does you will be too attached to the dog to want to trade it for your money back.
Shelter dogs are not automatically ‘baggage’ animals. I’ve known some lovely wonderful shelter dogs who lost their owners, whose owners had to move to a ‘no animals allowed’ apartment and simply ran out of time to find a home, or who lived in less than desirable situations and came out of them with souls and minds still intact. The best part about shelters is that they aren’t ‘selling’ dogs. They usually want those dogs to be happy with their owners, and they will give you time to decide if you and the dog are a good match.
Puppies are also nice, but to be honest a lot of breeders sell puppies that are in the ‘cute’ stage, which for me translates into the “I’m adorable and fuzzy and WILL piss all over everything for the next two months until I learn better” stage. The one single bit of training that I hate to fight with is the potty breaking stuff, so for me a shelter dog that is already house broke is a nice choice.
Just something to think about– some of my best pets have been from shelters, although likewise I’ve had some wonderful pets that were ‘breeder’ purchases.
This is a huge issue in the dog world – buy or rescue?
1) If you want to start fresh with a known personality type, buy a puppy from a _responsible_ breeder (a term that comes with a long explanation).
2) If you want that known personality type, but not a puppy, check with breed rescue. If there isn’t one in your area, go to rescues/shelters that foster out dogs so they can tell you for sure what training the dog has, how it does with other dogs, other critters, etc.
3) If you don’t care about breed, skip the breed rescue part and just go to rescues/shelters that foster out dogs. You might even be able to foster a dog to see how it fits with your life.
Aside: plenty of people pick up a mutt puppy and are thrilled with the dog they get. It’s not something I would encourage, but it can work out well. It’s a complete crapshoot as to what you’ll get, especially if you’re getting the dog from a shelter. From a backyard you might get to meet the mom, but then you’re rewarding backyard breeding. Tough call if you fall in love with that particular bundle of fluff.
I would encourage you to think long and hard about what sort of dog you want. Long hair or short; high or low maintenance coat; how large; couch potato, sprinter or marathoner; clingy closely attached or aloof; loves everyone or bonds tightly to one; easily trained or a challenge; very smart or kinda stupid; etc…
The best example I’ve seen of a good trainer in the popular media is Victoria Stillwell. Anyone can use her style – which is positive-based, but she does not hesitate to give a dog a sharp “no” when called for. She doesn’t indulge in the “you must dominate your dog” foolishness. It is your job to be pack alpha, but that does not mean your dog has to roll over and show his belly to you and forcing that will not create the relationship you want.
If you adopt from a good rescue (breed oriented or local) you CAN in fact find the older and already trained dog you might be looking for. You might even find incredibly well trained dogs with perfect personalities! That’s one of the greatest perks of the foster care system that rescues use, they live in homes with people until they are adopted, so they end up trained and people know they personality and can make a “perfect fit” match for you and your home and other animals better than some shelters can. And unlike many shelters, the dog hasn’t spent the last month in a kennel only to be walked by volunteers.
I realize here’s more differing opinions in the comments for you, but that’s part of what we’re all discussing! You d on’t know until you’re told sometimes, and I think that you have read up on dogs first and have apparently read several different training methods is even better – you’re not trying to be like one trainer without learning about the others (think Pirelli-ites) and that’s awesome. It gives you an arsenal of techniques and attitudes for all the potential situations you get with any new pet!
Thanks everyone for the encouragement and information. I’ve worked out what breed I want (border collie), and it’s both a good fit for the physical and mental environment I can provide and the breed I’ve had most contact with in the past. There are local breeders, but I know that I don’t know enough to judge “responsible” and a really responsible breeder probably isn’t one whose adverts I see, and might not want to sell to a first-time owner anyway. There’s a breed rescue, but several hundred miles away. There are local rescues which have collies occasionally, and as I’m not in a hurry I’m getting in touch with them, and preparing to wait for a suitable animal. I’m being honest about my lack of experience, and the feedback I’m getting so far is that they are happy to work with that to get a successful rehoming. Getting a dog from a rescue is also a useful back up to the “estate planning” problem. So hopefully in the near future I’ll be starting to prove Mugly’s post right.
Allie – here’s a quick thumbnail sketch of a “responsible” breeder:
1) Breeds only proven stock. That means conformation champions, both parents and most of the last three generations should have their conformation championships. With border collies, you might also want to look for agility and/or hearding titles, but watch out for too much drive (even if you like the type, it can be a real challenge to keep a highly driven companion BC mentally sound, the high end ones need to work).
Side note: with BC’s, I’d be willing to skip the conformation champions if I was looking at a breeder who has working stock with a good record of soundness (physical and mental) and good health. They are a working breed.
2) Screens breeding stock for known problems. I don’t know what problems a BC should be screened for, but you can find that out fairly easily.
3) Screens prospective owners thoroughly. May require a home visit, references, or for you to visit them.
4) Includes a “take back” clause in all contracts, and honors it. Meaning if at any time in the dog’s life you can’t keep it, the breeder will take it back and find a new home. My old dog’s breeder did that for one of his siblings when the pups were several years old.
5) The best breeders don’t breed a bitch until they know they have homes for every potential puppy. In some cases, that means not breeding until they have a filled list of approved homes, which can mean a substantial wait for _your_ puppy.
As for finding a breeder, start digging around online for national, state and local breed clubs, herding clubs and agility clubs. The AKC website is a good place to start. Go to events and talk to folks. Take your time, keep an open mind and be respectful of their time. I did this for my first purebred, and it paid off big-time in the very best dog I’ve ever had.
With BCs I’d run from a confirmation championship dog. They’re working dogs, breeding them for work is the best way to keep correct temperament, and most dedicated breeders are strongly against the idea of breeding BCs for looks. They also tend to be incredibly easy to find, at least here- your place may be different. You can get a housetrained, sweet-tempered dog here for the asking, if the owner knows you’ll take good care of it and if you don’t need a dog who works sheep.
BCs do often have ‘issues’ though, including the pups- raising it yourself isn’t necessarily protection against that, it depends on the breeding. Personally I’d rather choose an adult one who’s been fostered, since then I’d know if the dog had issues, rather than waiting to see.
http://www.bordercollie.org/boards/ These guys know a lot about this, and can give you tips on choosing the right breeder, or finding the right rescue, and pretty much everything else.
Reputable breeders of many breeds place retired show dogs, breeding dogs, or older puppies/young adults who did not wind up making the grade as show dogs, who already have some training on them, or are certainly well socialized, in pet homes, already spayed/neutered. I have Pomeranians and do this quite often to keep my numbers low, I can’t keep every dog if they wind up being unsuited for my breeding program once fully grown or if they pass on some unwanted health issue, or are simply ready to enjoy a pet life after having a few litters. So that is an option apart from rescue too. Screen the breeder if you don’t want to contribute to “over breeding”. If they require spay/neuter and do not breed tons of litters, IMO, your conscience should be clear.
Just how stupid is the topic? It’s also what I’m saying about my new neighbor who is amusing but mostly terrifying me with the things she does. She keeps three horses in a little pasture, probably less than one acre and, despite the fact, there is no grass and the horses are eating leaves off the trees and shrubbery, she refuses to give them hay. Her argument: One acre per horse is supposed to be sufficient pasture and I’ve got eight acres. F’r cryin- out loud, lady. You’ve got woods and barns on seven acres—
Oops! Flying fingers misfired. Anyway, seven acres don’t count if the horses can’t graze them. Is that rocket science?
In the morning, she walks into the tiny pasture with three pans of grain (tiny pans like cereal bowls), bends over, and places the bowls in a triangle like she’s feeding stray cats, and sits down in the middle. In addition, we are in the midst of a wicked hot summer with hoards of flies. First there were the green heads and deerflies. How do horses kick greenies off their bellies? A big upward whump, then kick to the side. Then came the bots. How do horses deal with bots? Hind legs kicking, front legs stomping.
Early on, someone told me this: “Most parts of your body can recover from a kick but not your head. Always know where your head is in relation to the horses’ hind legs.” Yet, there my neighbor is bending over to set out those cereal bowls and another activity that seems to be daisy picking around grazing horses. I tried to tell her that the horses, as they become hungrier, will be more aggressive when those cereal bowls arrive and that she could get hurt. Her response: “My horses RESPECT me.”
Oh lordy, and if someone fires a shotgun at a groundhog while you’re sitting cross legged on the ground in the midst of those horses, will they remember to pause for a moment of respect before they knock you into the dirt?
I am all for homeless people having pets. When people start to freak out about the care of the pet more than the care of the homeless human, there’s a problem. If a man can live without a house, so can his one and only companion. However in my opinion, the pet needs to be taken care of – food, water, love, and care as it can be given, which is why the type of programs who give that care to homeless or poverty stricken families is so important.
But of course not EVERY homeless person ought to own a pet. If you’re drugged up, crazy, and not taking care of yourself, then you can’t take care of an animal – and you probably don’t care to, either. But again, in this economy, there are so many people on the streets NOT because of drug addiction at this point that I can’t judge the broad spectrum of the homeless and say, “you’re bad pet owners.”
My thing, horses or any pet, is that your pet better be taken care of as well as you are. So if you have a nice house and good food on your table, but you have a downed, skinny horse in your backyard, THERE IS A PROBLEM. If you’ve fallen on hard times and you’re eating ramen noodles and your horse’s feet are a bit overdue, and the hay is shit because that’s all you can afford, I can’t tell you to starve entirely so your horse can be better off than you. Even though animals are the innocents, my mentality is that we’re all in this together.
While animals are a privilege and not a right, I’m going to guess that most of the animal-owning population does not have a gigantic nest egg for medical bills for their animals, most don’t have insurance on their animals. To say that you need loads of money to own an animal would have pet owning something only the wealthy can afford. I always find it funny when certain people freak out about this, because the people who scream from the rooftops that animals need to come before all else and that you should have 1gazzillion dollars to make sure all your animals are healthy, tend to be the ones living in a 1 bedroom apartment with 20 cats living paycheck to paycheck – because of the cats.
I don’t think people have the right to own however many animals they want – but I’m 23 years old and I own a horse and a dog. I can support my horse and my dog. I could, but it would be difficult for me, to support 2 horses and 2 dogs so I do not own 2 horses and 2 dogs. If I lost my job, I wouldn’t be able to support my horse and my dog, but I’m not going to NOT own a horse and a dog on the chance that maybe I may lose my job. How would that make any sense? I may as well move back into my parents house too, because IF I lose my job, I can’t afford rent, either. And to think of it, maybe I shouldn’t have bought my horse when I was 16 just in case that some time in the next 20 some-odd years I might have a job that I might lose and then I wouldn’t be able to afford the horse and that means I’m a bad horse owner.
Durrr….
As far as the stupidity, I don’t think anyone can be so stupid that they are cruel, unless they are also lazy and don’t care. With no horse knowledge, it would be very easy to allow a horse to colic, founder, or injure themselves. This ANGERS me, but this does not make me want to go and hurt someone. This makes me want to educate them.
It doesn’t matter how horse-stupid you are, if you were interested enough in horses to go buy a horse, you know enough about horses to know what a skinny one looks like. And if you know anything about, I don’t know, humans even, you know that if something is skinny, you feed it more. You should also know how to put a brush to an animal and clean it. If you really want that horse you’ll probably also like it enough to bathe it, and you don’t need to know anything about horses to know what a limping animal looks like and that you should call a vet.
So while I wish more people were inclined to research horses before they bought them, I feel that true horse neglect at its core does not come from stupidity or ignorance on their care, but a total lack of compassion or love for the animal. I do not believe for one moment that if a horse gets so skinny that it dies, that the owner “didn’t know anything was wrong.” We ALL have a primitive instinct in us to know what starving/sick/dying looks like.
My sentiments exactly!
Ugh, I hate hate hate people! The last part of your post reminded me of the girl who used to keep her horses on the land that we lease. She had 2 horses that she “rescued” from the racetrack that she used to work at from the big mean trainer who was mean to them and didn’t take care of them. When we first saw them, they had fly sheets on and it looked like they had mud on their legs. Of course we couldn’t get close enough to them to see, either.
We happened to move our horses in on the day that the girl was there with her horses. She only came to check on them once every 2 weeks or so. She bought all kinds of expensive grain, mixed them together, and expected the guy who owned the place to feed her horses even though he had made it very clear that it was self care all he was providing was the land. She thought she didn’t need to buy hay because the guy who owned the place found a round bale on the property and put it in with her horses. Of course it was at least 2-3 years old, so the horses wouldn’t touch it.
The ‘mud’ on her horses’ legs was actually scratches that was almost halfway up their legs, and of course our horses got it because the guy who owns the land decided that her horses wanted to run around with our horses even though we had been keeping them separated. I basically had to threaten to move to get him to stop turning her horses our with ours, and no amount of explaining how fungi work or that our horses have their shots and coggins and hers don’t would work. And of course our horses still got horrible, horrible scratches that we couldn’t get rid of no matter what treatment we used. We broke out with chigger bites. I had at least 100 of them all over my body.
Then the owner went out of town, and the girl had someone come pick her horses up so she could skip out on board. 2 of our horses’ scratches were literally gone the next day, and the other 2 cleared up within a week and a half. I haven’t gotten one chigger bite since those horses left. I don’t know what was wrong with those horses, but they weren’t healthy at all. I can’t tell you how many times I came close to slapping her and screaming “those horses need to be rescued from you! You’ve had them 6 months and they look like they’re about to drop dead!”
While the horses’ are not living the “perfect” life many think they should, from the horses’ point of view, they look happy as clams. No wonder is cranking, yanking, and spurring them into the “required” frame and head set, no one is hanging them from the rafters to get them to carry their heads lower, and no one is tossing them out if they don’t win in the show ring. Their riders all are riding on a loose reins and everyone looks happy. Nearly everyone I know can tell stories of mistakes and stupid things they did with their horse, but they learned, and now are all super horsemen and women. I would rather my horses would go to a youth who is learning, than to many of the show barns I know of.
This is a good thought – what’s the lesser of the two evils? Living in a field with poor fencing and so much grass that a pony might founder, being pretty much left alone except for some yank-crank beginner fool’s ride, for example, OR, having shoes on time like clock work, vaccinations done like clockwork, a full bath every week, the best supplements and feed money can buy, in a training barn with no turnout and a rigorous work schedule?
Which horse is happier?
Given the health issues that can be brought on by a life of work and competition, we can’t even really guarantee which horse will live longer. And that’s without citing true abuse on either side.
This is certainly a very interesting topic.
I don’t think a person’s income (or lack of) should be a major factor in allowing someone to have a per. I mean, come on, how many rich bastards have you seen right here on this blog letting their horses starve to death?
Cathy once said something along the lines of, you may not like your job, but it beats being homeless. She also said the same applies for horses. I believe it applies for all pets. If the pets are being fed, sheltered and even loved, hell yeah it beats starving to death! keeping a dog alone in a flat all day long may not be the best for it, but if the alternative is being out on the streets or being put down, then I say its better off that tiny little flat.
I don’t own a horse -yet- but I do have a clueless owner horse to share with you. the BM at the school where I ride had been taking lessons for several years before she bought her horse, but there was a lot she did not know about horse care. She told me that at some point her horse has loosing weight and showing signs of stress, so someone asked her when was the last time you had his teeth floated? She said: “horses need to get their teeth done?” The horse hadn’t had his teeth checked in 2 years. But she learned from her mistakes and she is now taking care of her horse and helping the barn owner to take care of all the other horses boarded there, as well as broodies and their babies.
Some mistakes are not so easy to fix, however. I have a 12 year old cocker spaniel with full on aggressive gene that i did not know how to train, so I ended with spoiled rotten, aggressive and potentially dangerous dog. But she’s absolutely happy, fat and safe. I just need to always make sure that other people are safe from her.
So to sum it up, you can care about your animals and still do some really stupid shit, it’s when people don’t care and even refuse to accept help that I draw the line.
I meant to say *allowing someone to have a pet. This is what I get for posting at 1am…
P.S. Loved the video, but couldn’t understand a damn word those kids were saying lol
Your BM isn’t the only one who didn’t know about dental care.
I figured it out in around 6 months, so my mare didn’t have to suffer due to my ignorance. However, it would appear that of the 3 horses I own, not one had seen a dentist before coming to me, or at least seen one recently. I lived in a pretty small town (and moved to another pretty small town lol) and there was a lot that people didn’t/don’t know, but I think that fencing and dental care would have been the two things that most people got wrong.
http://www.operationhorserescue.blogspot.com
Mugs, first let our species figure this out relative to having children, then we can try to figure it out with other species. In other words, it is a highly theoretical concept, the idea that anyone ever could restrict horse ownership, assuming “we” could agree on the minimum requirements. And to reply to your question, how stupid are we allowed to be? Really stupid.
And the amazing thing is, sometimes it does work out for the betterment of human and horse. Sometimes, not. Predicting outcome with total accuracy is impossible. It is fun to pretend to be Ruler of the Universe, and think of requirements for horse ownership, but I like your point, that most of us started from zero knowledge, and had to learn with our horses, often the hard way. The Rulers of the Universe might have stopped us. I know I was an ignorant 13 year old, with nonhorsey parents, but loved my mare to the best of my abilities. I have learned some in 43 years, but know there is so much more I need to know than I do know, about pasture seeding and maintenance, field erosion control, and how to start the damn weedeater by myself. And these things ARE important horse care skills, the ripples go on and on of what one has to know to be a good horsewoman. I hope I get there before I die.
I am delighted with the turn that the blog has taken. Sane, kind, thoughtful and asking people to think things through, no attacking, no email blasts, no name calling, no swearing…. Not what I have seen here in the past as an attempt to be another Perez Hilton…thank you for your posts. Most of us, I suspect, should never have been allowed to have horses. But we learned the hard way, mostly no one was hurt (horse or person) and valuable lessons were learned.Having had a very expensive filly who was chased over the barbed wire fence this spring that my husband chose to ignore in spite of my repeated pleadings and even hen pecking to get him to remove and replace, now the fence is safer and he’s working on the rest of it. Will probably take us 3 years to “fix” it all but it’s coming along. He learned a lesson and in a way that I seemed to be unable to reach him with. Once Nickie was hurt, then he was sorry and got busy and took care of the situation. Nickie is fine now and although her wound looked terrible, healed fast and just a bit of a scar to remind him not to be stupid when his wife asks him to do something in a reasonable way.
Your stories of the homeless really touched me. These animals are in so many cases, the only friend the person has, and the pet makes the person feel empowered to help, to protect and to love this throwaway animal. The animal responds in kind, providing the affection and touching that so many of the homeless lack and yearn for. They would share their sandwich from the soup kitchen with their dog, to be sure he had something to eat, too. A few years ago where I used to live, we started a pet food pantry as people didn’t have enough to feed their pets. The other choice was to give them up. My husband noted one day that some of the people on his route of delivering Meals on Wheels were sharing their food with the dogs/cats that lived in the home. He bought some food, conned the cook to give a little extra for this person or that one, and finally the Humane Society came up with the program which helped so much.
Don’t blame, try to find solutions, try to help. Yes, there are stupid idiots out there who will not listen or will not care but I think most people would accept a little help for Fluffy faster than they would accept charity for themselves. Let’s just try to help them.
Great post Mugs, I loved it! My own favorite saying is “You have to break eggs to make an omelet.” I apply it to life, not just horse ownership. I got my own horse as a teenager and I have made so many mistakes with him over the years, with and without a trainer’s advice. I’ve never tried to stop learning from him and through him how to be a better rider and owner and the things we’ve learned together will stand my next horse in better stead. Although I’m not religious per se, I do feel blessed to have him in my life now and to have had the benefit of his patience and good sense when I was a stoopid, horse-crazy teenager. Thanks for putting a lot of my feelings into words on this subject. I never quite knew how to express this same sentiment whenever the posters here would declare things like there needing to be a license to own horses. If we all had our say, none of us would own horses because we would all find some heinous fault with the care provided by everyone else.
Excellent post! This is something I have thought about before but not in some time. Good job new FHOTD writer!
My thoughts on this are people should have a willingness to learn, not money. I know this blog is about horses mainly, but it’s kind of like parents who’ve accidentally left their baby in the car and it dies from the heat. If the parents are otherwise good responsible parents, they get to keep their other children and they are not banned from having kids in the future. It would be just awesome if these accidents (people, pets, etc.) never happened, but they do. The best we can do is learn and move on. I was not a perfect horse owner in the beginning. I studied and learned as much as I could. Nothing terrible happened. Actually the worst was I was was letting my mare push me around a bit. I still have her, but I’ve learned to be more firm and not allow her to ‘walk all over me.’
My ignorant horse owner story: I was in the feed store a year or two ago and I added a salt block to my order (to be picked up outside with the feed). A man was in the store and he asked the owner if he needed salt blocks for his horses! This is how he had to learn that he needed to provide salt to his animals. I just wish people would read up on the animals before they got them. But I suppose it’s kind of like kids, none of them come with instruction manuals. The reality is that even if they did, many people wouldn’t bother to read them.
It’s not about how stupid you are when you start out, it’s about how much you are willing to learn along the way. I can give a first time horse owner with an eagerness to learn a lot of leeway. What I don’t condone is people in the industry, some of them top trainers, that use and prescribe abusive methods while pretending to be horsemen.
A person with genuine caring and lack of ego will learn what is best for their animal. An egoist will try to justify their methods by citing their show record or how long they’ve been doing something without being killed.
I’ll work with stupid before I’ll work with vanity.
My personal opinion is that people who love their pets will do anything possible to keep them happy and healthy.
I have a shih tzu x chihuahua cross that I *gasp* bought. He was home raised, an accidental litter to a shih tzu breeder who came recommended to me. The breeder, in an effort to make the mistake go away, was going to sell any pups from the breeding to back yard breeder who bordered on puppy mill. I decided to buy him, before he was born, without knowing gender, or what he’d look like. Paid 650$ for him, 450$ purchase price with 200$ extra for him to spend an extra month with his mother and for his 3mth shots. When he needed his flea medication and 6mth shots I lived on a daily meal of ramen noodles until I had the money for it, so I could get him what he needed. I rationed my food down to the smallest item, yet provided my dog with high quality free grazing food. I swallowed my pride and moved home when I discovered my room mate treating him cruelly, because it would have taken too long to save up for my own place. I gave up presents for Christmas last year to get my dog fixed and his one year shots. Now, I have 10 shifts left before my place of employment closes its doors. I have been stockpiling the things my dog will need, and will probably end up giving up presents again this year in lieu of people putting money on my tab at the vet.
Some people would deem me a bad pet owner, because I have no provisions in case of an emergency. They would say I should not own an animal because I do not have financial stability. They might imply that I’m a bad person for paying for a dog from a breeder, and for buying a “designer breed”. I say that my dog is healthy, happy, and given more love than any animal has a right to hope for.
Don’t judge people by what they have, judge them by how their pets are treated. I’d much rather see a poor person with a happy, well adjusted animal than a rich person with a disgruntled expensive show horse.
I like the way you think! I really enjoyed Cathy’s blog as well, but you have a very different way of making one think for himself as opposed to telling one what to think. I like it. I really don’t know what my position is on this is yet. I will have to consider it for a while. Before reading this post I would have said that horses have no place in the city or with people who are too ignorant to know not to do really dumb things, but I guess at some point we all have made mistakes with our horses. I guess it’s the intention behind it that’s important (and a good vet on call). I know my first horse lived in a pasture with barbed wire, picked around the bailing twine on his hay (thank god), and put up with A LOT of bad riding. But he’s still with us today- fat and sassy at 30 years old.
I’m tolerant of ignorance. I’m also toleranct of the variety of ways people keep horses and what they do with them. I am intolerant of cruelty. I lend suggestions when I see someone headed for a bad situation.
My personal preferances for how my horses live are not available to many (big pastures, lots of work). And I don’t begrudge anyone fulfilling their passion to be around these fascinating animals.
Grew up in Detroit. Followed the scissor man and rag man’s wagons back to stables much like the ones in the North Philly video. Hung out at the Detroit Mounted Police stables like one of the rats. Ended up on race tracks, starting in the Detroit area. Yes, if it wasn’t for the horses and horsemen available to me as a kid, I don’t doubt I would have found some trouble to get into.
Love the post but … am I the only one that thinks one of the horses in the video looks footsore on the pavement?
I could rant on this, but I’d have no idea where to start.
It’s unfortunate in many situations that horses are such resilient creatures. They will generally suffer through many years of stupidity – long enough to teach us the right from wrong if we’re paying attention at all.
i would just like to say yes some people are what i like to call (HORSE STUPID), meaning yes people decide i want a horse and go out and buy one, not realizing the full extent of what there getting into. example i had an ex-friend who decided to buy not one but more than 4 horses, someone who has never owned a horse in her life.yep why start out with one tell you at least get a clue? i have owned horses sense i was 7, and first to admit that after all the years i have had horses i still learn something new everyday,so i try to show and teach ex-friend what i now and how to feed, when to clip feet, checking teeth, worming, and how to ride and just generally take care of her horses,but magically after a couple months with me she suddenly knows it all!!! really, dont think so, i new she still had no clue!!!! well friend ship ended, and i was concerned for the horses she had due to the fact its winter and i didnt feel they were being fed properly, so yes i said something, and once again got told she new what she was doing, then her 2 year old stud breeds her 2 year old filly, im like really!!!! did she care ? no,its people like that who really tick me off, i mean there is way more to caring for a horses then feeding them,i ask questions all the time, take advice, why because i dont know all, and people that think a horse living in there back yard, sheltered in there garage exc… are im sorry a bunch of asshats!!! i think people just starting out should have SOMEONE they can go to for help or questions and what not about there horse!!
Ignorance combined with a burning desire to learn so as to do the right thing is OK by me. Accidents and mistakes will happen, but they happen to the best of us too.
Ignorance and stupidity, or simple laziness, is not OK. That leads to wilful neglect.
Anyone who has an once of sense knows that a life with horses is a life of learning. In a perfect world all horse owners would be perfect, but it’s not and we’re not. I figure so long as an owner is willing to educated themselves, they’ll be decent to their animals.
I was also pretty ignorant when I first got a horse. I can’t even tell you all the things I didn’t know! Fortunately, I went on Y!A, which lead me to this blog. I also got hold of a lot of books and I studied them religiously.
I personally think that a licensing test would benefit all horse owners, as I think ignorance is probably the number one reason horses misbehave, become neglected, starve, end up at auctions ect. My idea of a ‘test’, would simply be to present facts on horse care and health. I think everyone agrees that the more information you have the better, so I don’t see what the problem with presenting facts to prospective owners would be. If they don’t pass, they can go home, study and come back next week!
I think the only people who should be BANNED from owning an animals are those who starve, abuse or neglect an animal. When I say neglect, I don’t mean that you are a few weeks late on a hoof trim, or that you only got time to walk your dog for 10 minutes – I mean when they are being denied vet care or if they have no access to water. I think everyone should be tested until they know how to provide a reasonable standard of care, but nobody should be banned unless they have abused, neglected or starved, in my opinion.
http://www.operationhorserescue.blogspot.com
I think there was a line in Black Beauty that pretty much sums up horse ownership… something about “It’s the people that make a place pleasant”.
For me personally, I just think there all different types of opinions on horse keeping (like how much turnout, what kind of work, etc…), but some thing are universal… and those things are, the horses need to be safe, healthy, and maintained. Period.
I think that example of the horses in N. Philly is a great one. Those people care about their horses and are proud of them. Yes, the conditions are not where some people would want to see a horse kept, but the horses are cared for, healthy, and maintained, and clearly well adapted to their environments.
A horse should be safe… not be turned out with barbed wire, in a field full of junk. They should be fed, have their feet maintained, their teeth & shots & worming done. Etc. etc.. but this does not mean this type of care can only be received in a fancy barn, with white 3 rail vinyl fencing and fields of grass.
My horses don’t have grass. Heck, the one horse I have that is in a field with some grass wears a muzzle! LOL. My barn isn’t fancy. But it’s safe, they’re happy, healthy, well fed, and well cared for.
I have been at barns where the place is lovely…. grass paddocks, nice stalls, amenities like indoor arena, club room, refridgerator, “real bathroom”… and moldy hay and water troughs that never got cleaned. Obviously, I moved
In contrast to where I keep them now, which is not as fancy. My horses always have clean water, good hay, consistent feed. I have had professionals come out to care for my horses, like a saddle fitter, and a few others, that have made snide comments about the property not being nice. I never had them back out.
Don’t judge a book by the cover. It’s how well the horses are cared for that counts, and in the end, that’s all that matters.
The horse need to be cared for properly.
http://www.kshai1715.wordpress.com
Horses. Life. Photography.
Funny, mugs, very funny. How about these guys, should they be owning/riding horses?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16z26vO8lgY
Love the booting the horse up the arse, eh? THAT’ll get ‘em going!
BTW, the horse in the garage? He WAS bought at auction, and then put in that garage, by someone who was IMMEDIATELY left “horse care guidelines” from the OSPCA. He was neglected to insanity. But the owner is a member of the CTHS, don’t ya know. Owner had a groom’s license at Woodbine, well known at the track. Not in a good way.
The owner BRAGGED to the previous care-giver of the horse, about all the horses’ visits by the OSPCA. This “owner” enjoys neglecting them. You can’t educate a cruel person. Period. There are people who LIKE to torment animals. Should they be allowed to own animals? Of course they can! No law against it, mugs.
AND, btw, TWO vets proclaimed the horse in the garage’s care as suitable and adequate, in the eyes of animal welfare laws. Yup, keep a horse in his own shit and piss for months on end, do NOT feed/water/muck him at the same time, and NEVER exercise him. That’s LEGAL, you airy-fairy horse-people. DO something about it?? No, MY horse is fine. I’m all for education. But what if the person isn’t EVER going to listen? Horse saw a farrier after six MONTHS in that shit-hole, and the OSPCA had to order the owner to do it.
I had NO problem with the horses’ “location”. It was the owner’s gleefull enjoyment in the horses’ suffering & neglect, and the OSPCA’s insistence that his “care” was suitable, that enrages me to this day.
CHANGE animal welfare laws. How? Keep caring, and voting, for those who also give a shit.
Evil, that’s what baseball bats are for.
Wow! At about that point, I’d have been tempted to go through all her stuff and find everything that needs to be taken care of and made careful note of it. Anything she didn’t take responsibility for, she would lose. Favorite jeans but won’t do laundry? By-bye jeans. Then again, I never had kids…so my response might not be a very good one.
On another note: how much of bad horse care comes from people thinking of horses as riding toys? Kind of like quads that run on hay instead of gasoline. Take it out, run it around, put it away, throw some hay at it. That’s all it needs, right? It doesn’t have feelings, feels no discomfort, has no special needs…it’s just a horse. (In case anyone missed it, those last two sentences were sarcasm.)
That was in response to Sue68′s post about her daughter wanting to ride (someday), but not wanting to walk the horse out.
I haven’t tossed out her clothes, but I have made her do her own laundry for several years. It warms my heart when she complains that she has no clean undies…I tell her to take it up with the person who was supposed to wash them
There’s one thing people have now that we didn’t before. Its called google, and it’s very easy to use. Don’t have a computer or Internet capable phone? Use the library or an Internet cafe. There’s always a way to find the information you need, and it’s simply flat out careless and lazy not too in this situation. Going to google and typing “how to take care of a horse” takes less effort than it took me to write this sentence. Doing so produces many wonderful sites that will at least point you in the right direction. Not that hard.
I don’t understand why people can’t be bothered to research anything before they do something major like buying a horse. Information is readily available and easy to obtain thanks to things like the Internet and the library.
Very good post! Thank GOD for the horses in NYC while I was growing up!
First off Welcome Mugs!
I am a case worker in Sacramento. I work with the mentally ill, chronically homeless population. A few of my housed clients have pets. They do have social security income, but with rent, utilities and food… But their pets are healthy. One couple have a 11 year old dog, that they adopted, and he lacks for nothing. He is a grumpy old man, but an angel! They even special order his food, because he has food allergies. But then again, they dont buy new clothes and pretty much live on Dollar store food. Another client, just adopted a Chihuahua, and we developed a “if anything happens to me, or I cant afford Dolly anymore” contract. Im Doll’s dog god mother now i guess. But this dog, just by being a dog….has greatly increased the quality of life for her new owner. His symptoms are greatly decreased. The power of a small dog!
And for the homeless….one lady has a cat colony, which she saves up all the money from pan handling and buys catfood and gets them spayed and nuetered. And most of the people with dogs….those dogs are very well behaved, clean and healthy looking. Better behaved then most of the dogs I encounter during my work day.
There are resources out there that can help with some of the costs of having pets…maybe not so much for a larger animal.
In Sacramento: http://www.sacpetfoodbank.org/
I took a client there…no questions, no guilt…just recieved a months worth of dog food and a sincere thanks for caring for your dog comment.
just google pet food bank to see if there is one in your area! Hopefully at least a few people will give out this info to people who might need it.
great post!!
Thanks for working with those people and their pets! I’m told it’s not an easy job.
If someone like me – your average middle-class working stiff – wants to help the people you work with, what’s the best way to do that? I don’t like ignoring the people I see panhandling every day, but I’m really not comfortable with the idea of handing out money either (too many stories of frauds and drug addicts). Are there reliable organizations or types of organizations that I should be looking to support?
I would start at the local soup kitchen. They know all the homeless agencies and EVERYBODY needs volunteers desperately.
I’m an old, retired, granny type, and sometimes I think I’m stupid to still own and ride a horse, especially a green horse. The good thing is, I’m old enough to take good care of my horse. He probably won’t suffer from my stupidity. That’s the difference between being young and stupid and old and stupid. I’m old enough that I get to be stupid and get myself hurt.
Looks like I’m in the minority when I say ‘bullsh*t’.
If someone wants to buy a horse, which is a thousand pound animal that likes to run away from things that scare it and can crush a person by accident with little provocation, the least they could do was pick up a copy of ‘Dummy’s Guide to Horses’ at the bookstore and learn that they need their feet done, they need their teeth done, they need shots, and what the heck the gear is. It’s about $20, and anyone buying a horse that can’t afford to buy a single book and can’t be bothered to read it has no business owning an animal that size and with that potential for mayhem and injury. Period. End of story.
It’s so cute when the six kids are climbing all over Tessie. Aw, isn’t that sweet? Until something spooks Tessie, she steps on a kid, the kid goes to the hospital (no shoes or helmet, of course) and she ends up at auction so fast your head spins. Now she’s got no real training, is in rough shape, and has no real hope. Or maybe she’ll slip up and have a run in with that barbwire fence? Nothing says ‘childhood memory’ like that. She’s looking a bit thin, let’s toss her a bag of sweet feed. Sounds funny until dear Tessie is foundered and the owners don’t know why she’s standing like that. Maybe she doesn’t want to move because she likes standing in the sun. Let’s not romanticize what can be a living nightmare or the cause of serious injuries.
The whole ‘I want one so I can have one and that’s my right’ concept is self-entitlement at it’s worst. We all make mistakes. I’ve made thousands. I made one today because it was my first time trailering unsupervised. That’s how we learn. The difference is that I have respect for my horse, take responsibility for her, I ask questions from people I respect, and realize that this is not a toy or a Disney character. My mistake was rectified because I had a clue and back up equipment. I respect the fact she’s very big and can move very fast and has a brain the size of a walnut. For those that aren’t willing to do that much at least? There is a whole world of lame, broken, scarred horses out there that got that way with the excuse of ‘I didn’t know’.
Bullsh*t.
And that’s the other side of this coin, isn’t it? The Proudly Ignorant, the ones who won’t even try, because somehow it interferes with their rights. And then we are supposed to act sad when they get themselves and their children hurt or killed. And their poor horses.
You’re right, too.
I, too, really like the “Only Ignorance” chapter in Black Beauty. Important points. People SHOULD arm themselves with information. Sadly, many do not. I’m all for helping the folks who will listen.
Mugs, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your style. It’s thoughtful, compassionate and low-key. I know some people have already criticized you for not doing the expletive-filled rants that were so common before. Those always bothered me. It’s not that I didn’t like Fugly, it’s just that that kind of stuff does more to turn people away than to draw people in; and if a good discussion is what you want well, that’s not the way to go about it. So KUDOS to you Mugs!
That video was fascinating by the way. Beautifully done.
The biggest problem I see with neglect and abuse… is the people who REFUSE TO LEARN. They often cling to their ignorance so they have an excuse to have a neglected horse and not have to do anything about it. Here, people want horses for free, then they want to pay sweet f all to keep them. SO many won’t call a vet when needed, won’t feed well, won’t accept ANY help because they are blissfully aware that if they learn better… they will then have to fork out more $$ or get up off their couch to put some effort in.
I reckon you stop getting to be stupid when you aren’t interested in learning to do better.
Cathy talked before about a test for new horse owners but I personally have problems with that on a few levels. First who decides what questions should be on the test? Will the questions only be about horse care or will it also include questions on pasture maintenance, tacking the horse up, saddle fit, different types of bits? The range and scope of possible questions is mind boggling and if a test were required to own a horse someone, somewhere will publish a book with the answers to all the questions so people can memorize the book just like the driver’s test. Just because you pass a test doesn’t make you a good driver or guarantee that you will follow all you learned. Many people, myself included, treat the speed limit as a suggestion not a law. Same thing with a test for horse ownership, just because someone passes a test for which they learned the information doesn’t mean they’ll be a good horse owner or practice what they learned.
Everything you said is absolutely correct, but I still think a licensing test would help for the following reasons:
1. When people do the wrong thing, they can’t simply plead ignorance. Even if they cheat on the test, they can’t say they didn’t know if they are taken to court. I hate it when people get away with neglect or cruelty because they plead ignorance. I personally don’t know why this is an issue to beging with – when it comes to road laws, you are expected to research them if you don’t know them. The courts don’t take it easy on you for that and I don’t see why it should be different when an animals life is at risk.
2. Some people really do want to know how to care for their horses, but are SO clueless they don’t know where to begin or what they should be looking for – so I think it would be nice to give them somewhere to begin.
You are 100% right about the questions though. Nobody would be able to agree what should be on the test, what it should be about ect. I still think it would be nice when someone says “I didn’t know fluffles needed hay, it’s not MY fault!” coz then we could turn around and say “You did know. You passed the licensing test, didn’t you?!”
http://www.operationhorserescue.blogspot.com
The better part of me thinks this is a wonderfully thought provoking question- to which I have no good answer, except that to some extent you recognize evil when you see it. And some of the people we have seen here, and in the news, are evil – and in those cases the reason for the evil (ignorance, mental illness, stupidity) matters not at all.
The less kindly inclined part thinks your ruining my snark enjoyment with actual thoughts!
I have to say that one of the reasons I have always read Fugly was because the ‘judgment’ often made me question myself and my horse keeping (even as I was being horrified by someone else’s) At the back of my mind was the thought- if I was on Fugly how would I come out? Silly perhaps but I am a well socialized monkey so it works.
I used to have this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Comforts-Adventures-City-Vet/dp/0698112210/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Its author died of AIDS some years ago, unfortunately… but his writing about working for the New York ASPCA hospital was illuminating. He did a lot of triage and education for the animals owned by poor people, from chihuahuas grown morbidly obese because well-meaning Puerto Rican housewives fed them the same stuff the family ate (a mark of love in their eyes) to giving cans of dog food for homeless people to share (literally) with their desperately loved pets.
One of the things I picked up on about Cathy is that, like many upwardly mobile young professionals in careers that involve a lot of traditional organizational skills (finance and law, specifically), she just can’t wrap her mind around the fact that kind, well-meaning, functional, otherwise responsible and caring adults aren’t necessarily financially savvy. I know I’M not – I’m also not organized, punctual or particularly Type A about anything other than the welfare of my family & pets, and the files on my computer are breathtakingly organized, like so many squadrons of soldiers & minions poised to do my bidding. Would that the dollars in my bank account stood the same way…..
Who are we to judge? I’ve helped out folks who’ve put curb bits on upside down, though their horses are sleek and shiny. I see kids bombing around on chipper little ponies with mouths of IRON from their owners’ uneducated hands. It drives me NUTS, and I keep wanting to run around and make everyone do everything RIGHT, but it’s good to be reminded of what’s most important.
I’m taking the plunge & becoming a full 4-H leader this year. I know which people are going to just drive me BONKERS, the peanut-roller enthusiasts, the family with the skinny horses, the girl who tries to jump in a Western saddle… but I’m going to have to call on my inner Buddha, and do what I can. I hope to emphasize some real education, and I hope to get kids excited about it instead of feeling like it’s a chore.
Yikes!
Again, thanks for reminding us that even when people do things to and with their horses that make our skin crawl and our heads explode, we should gently reach out and give them some knowledge and understanding.
Pursuant to that, what IS a good quick-n-dirty guide to beginner horse ownership? When I was a kid I read every single book I could get my mitts on, but one of those things making my head explode is that there are many, MANY people who don’t even seem to KNOW there are books about horses, or who think that they’re “boring.”
Now, is that where I draw the line on nonjudgmental niceness? Willful ignorance, I mean. Because I think maybe it is. Wait, not “maybe.”
The United States Pony Club manuals are a godsend to beginner horse owners. There’s a D manual (basic, uncomplicated essentials like how much to feed, how to keep a safe stall, what good condition and bad condition looks like, fundamental riding technique, basic conformation, when to call the vet, what shots your ‘pony’ needs), a C manual (more advanced horsemanship skills, more thorough conformation and veterinary knowledge) and an A manual (How to Manage a Barn). The USPC is super stringent on safety–when I participated as a tween we had 12 point safety inspections every. single. time. we. got. on.
My organizational skills stop at my tack room. Finance? I must still have money because I still have some checks….
It’s not just finances that people assume only idiots can’t handle. How many people have you met you simply didn’t know that a dog doesn’t really thrive if he’s forced to live outside? Or who think all a horse needs is a grass lot to live? Or ?
Plenty of people will never think to buy a book or do online research because they think they’ve already seen ‘how it’s done’. They watched movies or TV shows, read books as kids, or maybe even had grandparents they visited when they were children, but never for long enough to see more than the very basics of care.
Add in that fewer and fewer people actually think to READ a book and that information found online requires some knowledge to sort the wheat from the chaff and it’s no wonder people make horrible, ongoing mistakes with animals.
Yup, THOSE are the people I can’t deal with, whether you’re talking dogs, horses, kids, cars, computers, education, construction or politics. Just because your beloved Uncle Junior did something a certain way doesn’t make it right.
I’m perfectly willing to discuss the relative merits & pitfalls of Uncle Junior’s philosophies, but I’m also expecting some acknowledgment of a wider world that just MIGHT hold better options.
I have two horses on a ‘nanofarm’ of 1.25 acres, which they share with two humans and four large dogs. They have about a quarter acre dry lot with a run-in shed and a couple of trees for shade. It’s a rectangle, and large enough that they can run around if they need to… when the grass is growing enough that it can ‘keep up’, they get some turnout time.
Am I ‘judged’ by some? You betcha.
But before I brought them to this place, I had discussions with a considerate, wise horseman – quiet trainer with a following, but no show record that he speaks of, and infinite love of the hooved ones – and he told me this:
If you had fifty acres, it would approach ‘ideal’. But if YOU had fifty acres, you’d fill them up with horses… so back to square one. Your horses will get excellent care and plenty of attention, plenty of good work. They’ll be FAR better off than most horses in the area, who spend most of their time in stalls… or turned out with no interaction with anyone.”
This man lost my board money when they came home, but he didn’t care. He’d raised my gelding from foal-hood, and my mare is cut from the same cloth his favorite mare of all time was… so it wasn’t that he was glad to be shed of the aggravation of them. They are welcome to come back any time I might have need. But his arguments in favor of my having them here, despite the lack of space, were pretty convincing. He told me I’d learn their daily habits, and know immediately when one was ‘off’… and that, since I’d be seeing them and touching them several times a day, our bonds would become stronger.
He was right. on all counts… and he missed on ‘pro’ in favor of The Nanofarm: gelding gets FAT on air. He’s better off on a dry lot, I think…. so…..
I’ll listen to my horses, who have been gotten loose a time or two. They don’t leave. So they must be OK here, huh! So TOODLES on those who choose to ‘judge’!
Hey now, our 30+ year old horse is allowed to roam in our yard and beg at the back door. We have both a swing set and a toddler (but no pit bull mix). He’s a noble old fellow who’s earned this right. He also needs the shorter, regularly mowed grass because he has essentially no molars. He also gets mash, but the grass keeps his gut happy and moving.
On another note, I traveled extensively in other countries with the military (during the current war and during peacetime) and you would not believe some the conditions horses live in.
Lastly, what about gypsies? Or, the Irish rovers?
I should have also mentioned some of our own reservations. Some of the horses are very poorly cared for.
Here’s a video of Irish and UK gypsies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR9uJY7f4vA
Romanian gypsies living in a dump. Note the horse at the beginning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY1wZxP6v6o
I think this is one of the best posts I have read! So true in many ways.
Per the video it was quite obvious those horses are taken care of and fed well.
Everyone has their own idea of “perfect living conditions” for horses however if you were to see these horses in the park you would not even think about the barns they came from. You would just know they look great and must be taken care of!
Thank god I lived through the beginning years and so did my horses!
LOL Fugly – your description of your first horse gels so well with my first ownership experience. Even the video of riding through the city streets, when you are a horse mad kid, living your dream, then you are fearless. I think the difference between us and cruelty is we were desperate to learn and to do better by our horses. Like the pets of your homeless friends, our horses meant the world to us.
Cheers
Jenny
This video made my day! It’s great to see inner city people discovering the joys of horses! The next time I ride with my friends, I’ll be sure to tell them that we’re “ghetto-fabulous!”
Great post. One that provokes me to interject~ Mugs, you and I must have come from the same generation. I too was given a horse as a crazy 11 year old because my parents were tired of seeing me run around on my hands and feet doing horsey antics. They were not horse savvy by no means, but my dad was a dairy farmer prior to the horse dream and did have some knowledge of large animal keeping, from back in the 50′s and 60′s. He also was a vet student that decided it wasn’t for him for personal reasons. But all that doesn’t mean I had a great teacher when it came to learning. I pretty much learned and rode on the cuff so to speak. I too did many dumb things like rode with the front shoes clanking down the road sometimes half off the hoof. (I just couldn’t pull it off myself). My girlfriend and I would take our ponies into the pond and swim under their bellies until her mom caught us and gave us hell about how dangerous it was (who knew, right?) We would ride from sun up to sunset and beyond worrying our parents to pieces. But I don’t recall much about how I fed my horse. That was let up to Dad but I can remember seeing moldy grain in the bin
I hope it wasn’t fed, which I am certain it was not. The question is should I have been given a horse? Absolutely. But only allowed by the seller if I joined the local 4H horse club which I did. I learned a lot, but not near enough to keep my horse and me safe. That comes from one on one adult teachings. I was lucky and so was my horse. We did many stupid things and pulled through. But this was back in the early 70′s and times are much different now. People who are attuned to horses have no excuse to not learn. There are more horse people now than ever and many are in it for the business. With that I mean that there is much opportunity for any one wanting to learn it’s there. Now I have 2 horses. But I have always had a willingness to learn all I can. With horses, you will never, ever learn everything there is to now. That is the problem with those who delve into it and end up being the ones you see down the road with skinny, super-fat, poor conditions, or what have you. They become offended because you might think they are doing something wrong. My belief is if you want a horse, you need to have an open mind. Some might think I shouldn’t have a horse because I have no extra money for what may or may not come up. But I have the tuition and common sense to make sure my animals are in a safe place, properly fed and watered and I do as much vet care a lay person is allowed, and even beyond. My thought is if there is a risk involved? I will not do it. That goes for feeding round bales of hay left outside, halters on except when in hand, unmarked fencing, etc… I do double the work to keep my horse area clean and free of accidents. If something should go awry I will deal with it then. Since losing my job 2 years ago, I have to be more cautious than ever with no funds coming in for anything extra. But I’ll get by as I know there is no place else for my horses to go except a long ride to nowhere.
Okay, well, now I’m in the need to educate situation and could use some advice.
I have a neighbor who has a chihuahua. This dog is not fat…he is obese. Her excuse is that ‘he put on a lot of weight since he was neutered’.
When I gently, politely informed her that it’s not uncommon to have to reduce feed after neutering, she told me ‘better a little bit fat than sick’.
Now, I don’t know whether he was neutered for medical reasons or because she has it into her head that intact dogs get sick more, but this dog is not ‘a little bit fat’. This dog is unable to move faster than a walk and is waddling around. I’ve seen worse, to be fair, but if she doesn’t get his weight down fast, he’s going to get diabetes.
How do I educate this person? She’s very nice and I know she doesn’t intend to abuse her dog, but it’s very sad to see the poor thing struggling to haul his fat belly around.
Thanks for posting this. I remember reading one of fugly’s blogs and someone commenting that anyone who has horses should have a savings account for vet bills and if they couldn’t afford a vet they shouldn’t have a horse. Well, I dried out my savings on vet bills for my horses. So, now I should sell my horses because there isn’t money for a vet? How can I be sure they will go some where better? No, I think I prefer keeping my horses and praying I don’t have to call a vet but if I do, I will make arrangements to make monthly payments. I treat my horses well, I love them and there is always enough for them to eat. Just because I have to trim their feet for myself once in a while and doctor the smaller injuries for myself, does not make me a bad horse owner, despite of what all the fugly fans believe. A lot of us got horses when the economy was better and now we are doing what we can to maintain our horses. Selling them may not always be in the best interest of the horse. I know that a home with me is better than some of the other places out there.
I think this is a great post. Try to educate whenever possible. As much as I rant and rave online, in real life I actually do take the education approach first.
If it fails or I get told to mind my own business, ha, watch out. But I will try my best to educate those who want to learn!
At my agistment place, there is a man with 2 young daughters, he is on a disability pension and has a 15hh appaloose, 2 grey pony and has recently taken possession of 2 miniature ponies, an aged 23 year old mare and her 7 year old progeny who has never been separated from mum. both unbroken but handled as miniatures get handled. So I go to feed my pony this morning and he has saddled up the minimum for his approx 6 year old very beginner daughter to ride. He is riding his horse, other daughter who is a little older than other one, both very tiny girls too. Said minimum pony is very quite but not even mouthed or taught go or whoa and they are off on a trail ride on the reserve next door.
Reserve consists of dirt roads shared by joggers and mountain bike riders up some very steep hills with cliffs on sides etc through 100 acres of mountainous area.
Now he is very caring of his kids, they are happy well adjust girls only a little timid but keen but obviously dad is not an expert horseman because he wouldnt be doing what he is doing this morning with those ponies or his daughters. Ponies are well fed and attended to for all their needs in a basic manner.
Now they an accident waiting to happen and hopefully they get value from their beginners luck through these early years. It has held out for them so far and fingers crossed it will continue to do so. Those girls are experiencing many a little girls dream in owning and riding a pony, get to go on great trail rides instead of sitting in front of a TV every weekend and learning nothing at all and getting fat. They are slowly learning the responsibility of animal ownership and care….sort of.
Should they be horses owners ? You could say NO
but this morning, while dad was saddling up his horse, I gave the little girl on the unbroken minimum a short lesson in Go and Woah and how to stop asking once the horse is doing what you ask it to. What else can I do except that and cross my finders that it all ends well and she remembers my lesson.
And I say YES they should be horse owners.