Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Dubious charities pulling at your heart strings
Maybe it’s just me and my own innate callousness, but I find myself wary of self-proclaimed rescues who try to solicit donations by telling their own personal sob stories. Something about hearing of their personal tragedies or misfortunes makes me question what, exactly, my potential donation is going to be used for.
When all the “rescue” talks about is their inability to send Pappa Billy-Joe-Bob off to get another tooth pulled because they put all of their money directly into the rescue, it makes me think that they are beyond incompetent. First and foremost, if you can’t take care of yourself (or your human responsibilities) how do you expect to cope with the high demands of abused and neglected horses?
How is it my problem that you can’t afford to take your daughter to dance class? That’s either a sacrifice you chose to make prior to starting a rescue or you’ve taken on more horses than the rescue can financially support. Which has consequently put you in the position of having to put in more of your own money than you had intended. Both scenarios indicate poor management skills and poor judgement. In the end, people like that end up hurting horses because they take on more then they can handle and eventually won’t be able to feed them or provide necessary vet and farrier care. What happens if there’s an emergency? I’d be willing to bet good money that people like this don’t have a contingency fund for such occasions. And when horses are involved, we all know an accident will happen sooner or later.
Rough Start Rescue, I’m talking about you.
When you feel the need to post a blog post on your website defending yourself about your fencing (and erroneously stating that, as a 501c3 rescue you “are not able to make improvements to other peoples land”) and the vet and farrier care you provide, well, then something ain’t right.
They actually took that blog post off their website because it apparently turned into quite the debate and they didn’t like all that negativity. It’s ok though, I saved a copy! Here are some highlights:
- “They have also questioned our financial ability to take care of these horse and to that all i have to say is 30 plus horse who need weight is a strain on anyones pocket book”
- “if anyone would like to see my vet bills I would be more than happy to show you as we have spent close to 5000 in vet care last year”
- “As for farrier care the horses who will allow us to work with their feet they have their feet done at least every 14 weeks some more often others longer depends how fast they grow.”
- “Others have been so traumatized that they need to be sedated so there feet get done approx. three times a year as giving them IV sedation more often than that just for their feet we try to avoid. ”
- “Training consists of getting them to trust people, to allow us to put a halter on them, to be able to walk behind them without getting kicked, to eat out of our hand and be brushed and bathed and to be handled enough not to be a danger to people or other horses. ”
*FACEPALM*
Sometimes you just gotta say ‘what the fudge?’ When you have 30 horses that you’re just working to halter break, not saddle break, only have their feet done every 14 weeks and spend a [warning: impending sarcasm] whoppping $5000 on them in vet care you’re doing something incredibly wrong. Sure, $5000 is a lot for one horse in a year. But for 30, it’s potentially negligent. Feet done every 14 weeks or a minimum of 3 times per year? That is negligent. These people either have no knowledge of proper horse care or are blatantly disregarding it. Horses need their feet done typically every 6-8 weeks. It’s true some can go a little bit longer, but 14 weeks? I don’t think so. If a horse won’t stand to have its feet done then you tranq it. It’s not an ideal solution but it beats the hell out of waiting for their feet to look like they’re wearing elf slippers. How dare you call yourself a rescue when this is your attitude towards caring for horses.
Next, and here’s where my opening rant comes into play, RSR wants to use your donations to help them buy a farm. They are currently asking for $50,000 for a down payment on 20 fenced acres, complete with a 20 stall barn and indoor arena! Well fuck. I’ve been doing it wrong! I should just become a hoarder rescue and get people to donate the money to me!
Psst. According to their facebook page, their last move was done on September 21, 2011… draw your own conclusions.
They published this post on their website on January 25th stating that they had 6 days to get themselves and their 30 horses off their current property and wanted to raise the $50k in those 6 days to get into their dream home. Uhuh. And what happens when they get the $50k and are all nice and cozy in their new farm…
… and all of a sudden they realize that they’ve taken on more than they can handle and have made the difficult decision to get out of the rescue business. One day you’re helping to get a roof over these poor horses heads, the next they’re being shipped off to slaughter and these people are running a profitable boarding operation. Ok ok, I know, no one makes money at a boarding operation! Oh right, and this is a bit of an extreme scenario and probably won’t happen. But what’s to prevent it? It could very well just be me, but I don’t feel right about people asking me to donate my money to buy them a fully set up property. Hay? Vet care? Farrier work? Hells yeah. But you want me to help buy you a place to live? Nope. Pass.
Hey look! Barbed wire! Just what we all want to see at a rescue! And this guy is listed as a “stud cold” not available for adoption…
Oh and yup, another stud.
WHY were their balls not chopped off ASAP?! There’s nothing about these horses that warrants them keeping their man-berries (sorry guys, nothing personal).
Ugh. I want to believe RSR has their hearts in the right place but they seriously need to check themselves before they wreck themselves and those poor horses! Get your shit together. Downsize the herd. Concentrate on doing what you can to find those horses quality, permanent homes – and yes, that includes breaking them to ride (I find it sad that that needed to be said). And for gawdsakes get the damned farrier out more often than ever 14 weeks!
Guest Post: The Day I Took Control
I’ve been riding since I was 6 years old. When I say “riding”, I don’t mean that I sat on a relative’s horse a few times a year, or occasionally took the neighbor’s horse for a spin whilst holding on for dear life. I rode every single day after school and took lessons at least once a week. I took things very seriously, always striving to improve the quality of my riding, the training of my horse, and my knowledge of how to keep him healthy and happy.
I was not the kind of kid who picked just one instructor to take lessons from. I enjoyed hauling my horse to various trainers and clinicians. I felt like utilizing various resources was the best way to soak up as much knowledge as I could, rather than limiting myself to just one person’s ideas.
Occasionally, I would try a new instructor and instantly knew they were not for me. The reasons varied. There were the ones who sat on a chair at the end of the arena talking with the barn moms, and each time I rode by they’d offer something as educational as “good, now change direction” and return to gossiping. There were the ones who wanted me to change my bit, tighten my noseband, and strap my horse down with gadgets before even seeing me ride. There were the ones who tried their best to offer insightful training theories that were probably helpful, if only my juvenile brain could have comprehended them. On the other hand, there were times that I tried out a new instructor and felt like I learned more from them in the first lesson than I’d learned from someone else after several months of lessons.
Regardless of how I felt about their communications styles or training techniques, one thing was consistent: I always respected that they knew more than me, and that I should keep an open mind and try what they asked of me, just in case they were leading me toward an amazing epiphany that would change my life as a horseback rider forever.
Unfortunately, my blissful naiveté came to a crashing halt when I was 15. I’d started riding with a classical dressage trainer who was a beautiful, elegant rider. I didn’t particularly care for her on a personal level, but when I took lessons from her I always felt like she explained things in great detail and I was able to feel a positive difference by applying her techniques. She commented that she appreciated me as a student because, unlike some of the other kids who would mindlessly ride around in circles, she would see me riding on my own and practicing the exercises that she taught me during our lessons. After a few months of lessons with her, she suggested that I ride with a clinician who was coming to town. She told me all about him, his extensive accomplishments, and said that she’d ridden with him many times and appreciated his methods. He was quite pricey but my parents were impressed with his resume and trusted the instructor’s opinion of him, so they agreed to let me try one ride.
I won’t go into specific details of the who/what/where of the clinic, let’s just say it was not a pleasant experience. I was riding a nervous horse that I hadn’t had for very long, so I got on early in order to warm up and settle him in. It turned out that the schedule was running ahead of time, so when the clinician noticed I was on early he put me right to work. He immediately began asking me to do difficult things which my nervous horse was obviously not ready for. I had difficulty understanding him because he had a foreign accent and was yelling at me. This only made me feel more tense, which made it difficult for me to help my horse to calm down. I asked permission to have a few minutes to do some of our usual suppling and calming exercises, just to get the horse into a better frame of mind. He responded that I just needed to keep trying what he was telling me so that I could get it. After several more minutes of trying my hardest to do what he asked, and still failing to receive any good results from my horse, the clinician became increasingly irritated. He asked me to get off the horse and said that he wanted to lunge the horse to get the horse’s mind focused on working.
Just to be clear, at this point the horse was not misbehaving or out of control. He was not bolting, bucking, rearing, or anything of the sort. He steered in the directions that I pointed him, and when I asked for an upward or downward transition, he complied. He just was very tense, rushing in the trot, a little bit jiggy in the walk, and distracted, occasionally whinnying for his friends.
The clinician put the horse on the lunge line and instantly chased him into a gallop. He seemed to alternate from chasing the horse with the whip to yanking on the lunge line and expecting the horse to instantly halt. I watched in horror – this was NOT how my horse was used to being lunged. Having never experienced this sort of ambush from a trainer before, I didn’t know what to do. My instructor who referred me to this clinician was standing there watching and she didn’t give me any sort of sign that she was not satisfied with the way things were going. There was a small handful of auditors and I remember glancing over to see if they where whispering or wearing facial expressions that would give some indication that I should run over and take my horse back. Nobody else appeared overly appalled, so I held on to my good faith a little longer, thinking “This guy is a pro. He is trying to get a result, and if I’m patient, I will see the light bulb go off in my horse’s head and some amazing transformation will occur.” That’s about the time that my horse flipped over, scraped the inside of one of his legs with the shoe from his other foot, jumped back up, and galloped back onto the circle, dripping with sweat and looking very stressed.
At that time, I do remember looking to my instructor and several others and asking “shouldn’t we stop him and check to make sure he is okay?” Allow me to remind you that I was 15 years old. I had been raised to be polite and respectful toward adults, so mustering up the courage to question an accomplished professional took all the guts I had. The response was a collection of awkward faces with sympathetic smiles, as if they agreed with my concerns but did not think it was socially appropriate for me to tell Mr. Big Shot that I wanted my horse back. So, regretably, I just waited.
I think the clinician did hear my question (which I intentionally asked just loud enough that I thought he would) and stopped lunging the horse just a few moments after he fell. He led the horse back over to me, told me to get back on, and had me trot a few circles. The amazing transformation that I’d trustingly waited for never came; I was left with a horse that was even more nervous than he’d been 30 minutes before, but too broken and exhausted to protest. To me, that is NOT training.
The clinician told me he thought my horse had had enough for one day (no, really?) and that I should hose him off and put him away. I had not signed up to ride the second day, but he said he’d be happy to squeeze me into the schedule (how generous, squeezing in another lesson that he’d be making a lot of money for!) because he thought that my horse would benefit from it. At that point, my brain was frazzled. I just smiled and thanked him for his time, and told him I wasn’t available the next day. I felt so many emotions at once, which in turn made me feel emotionally numb. I felt betrayed by the clinician and by my instructor, and I also felt angry at myself for betraying my horse. I beat myself up over that for a while, and still feel tremendous guilt when I think about it today. I was taking a sociology class in school at the time, and it reminded me of the research studies that showed examples of humans in groups witnessing an atrocious event. Each person is hesitant to step out of the group and do anything about it, because they assume someone else will, and because nobody does, they all assume that allowing the atrocious event is acceptable. I was THAT person, the one who allowed an atrocious event to happen to MY OWN HORSE, knowing it was wrong, and didn’t even try to stop it.
I remember thinking what a shame it was that my parents spent such a hefty amount of money (and we were NOT big spenders) to ride with a clinician that not only traumatized my horse and me, but I learned absolutely nothing from him.
Oddly enough, once my emotions recovered and logic kicked in, I realized that I learned a lesson from that clinician that was worth every penny.
That was the day I took control. I learned that while it’s good to have an open mind and a hunger to learn as much as I can from multiple trainers, there is another side of the coin. An eeeevil side of the coin. A side of the coin that says that some trainers do not have my best interest, nor my horse’s best interest, at heart. A side of the coin that says that some trainers are arrogant pricks who think that just because someone is paying them for a service, they have the right to do whatever they want with that person’s horse. A side of the coin that says that some trainers are downright abusive to their students and to their horses. And the most important part of the lesson I learned was that when I encounter trainers like that, there is only one person who can protect my horse, and that person is me. I have the power to step in and say what types of interactions I will or will not allow them to have with my horse. If they do not choose to respect my boundaries, I have the power to pay for the lesson and politely excuse myself early. Suddenly, as I vowed to myself that from that point forward I would raise my hackles and protect my horse anytime I needed to (which is only fair considering he protected me every day that I rode him) I began to feel quite empowered. I had visions of myself and my horse being partners in crime – us against the world – sticking together and watching each other’s backs through and through. A dressagey version of Batman and Robin, if you will.
I mentioned earlier that when I was a child, I blindly trusted my instructors, knowing that they had more knowledge and experience than I had and could guide me to be a better horse person. It was much easier when I thought that was always true. Now that I’m all grown up, full of knowledge and experience myself, I have pretty good judgment on the types of training techniques I am willing to use, and the horses I ride are very happy and trusting. I occasionally see green riders in a predicament, wearing the same questioning look on their faces that I wore during that clinic, as they watch a trainer work with their horses in a destructive manner. I have sympathy for them and, if it feels appropriate, I share my experience with them in hopes of building their confidence to stand up for their horse. It is very difficult to tell the professional “You’re doing it wrong!” when you yourself don’t have the knowledge or experience to know for sure if what they’re doing is, in fact, wrong. Even if your gut feeling tells you something’s wrong, it’s difficult to confront the professional who will possibly respond by defensively asking “do you, miss know-it-all green rider, know how to train this horse better than I do???” It’s easy to become intimidated by the professionals, but we should never forget that everything that happens to our horses, good or bad, is because we allow it to happen to them. Even if we don’t know correct training from incorrect training, we can’t forget that we still know right from wrong.
It’s unfortunate that I had to endure such a horrible experience in order to learn this lesson, but I’m infinitely grateful that I learned it. That clinic was the first and last time that I ever allowed a trainer to mistreat one of my horses. In case you were wondering, the horse from the clinic progressed into a happy dressage horse who is now partially retired and offering rides to dressage students who want a “preview of coming attractions” should they stick with their training.
It’s a Miracle!
…that they actually think a responsible horse person would use this atrocity.
“The Equine Miracle Harness is sewn by our shop out of heavy duty nylon which has a strength of 6000lbs. Would that be the same nylon that halters are made from? The harness is made of 2 colors, red for those pieces that go around the body and blue for those pieces that go under and over the horse for easy installation. The one size fits most harness is completely adjustable, allowing a custom fit for horses from foals to a 1000 pounds.
While standard halters allow control of the head only, this harness allows the handler total control of both the head and body at all times. It is designed to be used with a halter and lead rope with chain which are not included with this product. In addition to the front lead rope attachment point, each harness has 4 additional tie points (2 on each side at shoulder and flank).
This is a great product for young handlers also, increasing their control, power, and confidence where as they might have otherwise been easily overpowered by even young horses. You know what else increases “control, power, and confidence”? Actually learning to properly handle a horse. Which, if they can’t do then they probably shouldn’t be around young horses!
Safely teach your horse the following concepts and commands while instilling confidence in the animal and handler, and making training more enjoyable for everyone!
Leading
Whoa
Backing
Loading
Stalling
Shoeing
Washing
Cross Tying
Trotting
And MUCH more!
Each order includes an instructional DVD. The harness is durable and easily cleaned, and will be an asset to your training for years to come! We will ship internationally, please contact us with your postal code for a shipping quote.
Check out our website for more information on the product. www.equinemiracleharness.com “
Ok, we can kind of see how this might help people teach a young horse to lead – but then again so does a lead rope around the bum. The lead rope doesn’t require $65 and the extra time and hassle of training the young horse to accept this contraption. If you’ve ever tried to halter a horse that has never had a halter on you, then you know that most of the time they’re none too pleased about it – imagine how this thing’s going to go over! The lead rope also doesn’t leave nylon straps hanging down around the horses legs and straps and buckles around its body just begging to get caught on something.
What we don’t understand is how this thing is supposed to help with teaching the whoa, backing, loading, shoeing, washing, cross tying or trotting. We’re going to go ahead and include lunging there as well – it’s not mentioned on their list but they do include a picture of it. We’ll forgive them this oversight, kind and benevolent people that we are.
They have a video of a young girl leading a young horse and having trouble stopping it – so this miracle harness is supposed to give her control and a “whoa” command because it pulls the horse’s nose to its chest and eventually makes it stop. Congratulations you’ve taught it an evasion technique and not the correct response to a command. Kudos. Really.
The only way we can even fathom that this contraption helps with backing a young horse is that it has already broke them to the feeling of a girth-type-thing. But in terms of accepting a rider’s weight and aids – well not so much. If we accept that this harness helps lead a young horse forward then we guess it could be used under the saddle with a person leading the horse while another sits in the saddle? Personally, we prefer the method of breaking that utilizes ground driving to teach steering, halt and go before a rider even sits in the saddle but that’s another topic for another time.
We’re sorry, you want to load a young horse onto a trailer wearing a buttload of nylon straps? Are you fucking kidding us?! You know, we’d be a little more understanding if you had designed this piece of shit with even just a little bit of safety in mind. You could have made it out of leather (which a horse can typically break free of whereas nylon is definitely not going to break) or put in some sort of quick release mechanism as opposed to the current system that requires the handler to undo two buckles. If When a horse catches that harness on something and panics, good fucking luck getting it safely out of the death-trap harness.
They next state that the harness can be used to teach a horse to be shod, bathed and cross-tied. We’re guessing these are just extensions on the “whoa” concept. Weaksauce. Talk about an attempt at a marketing ploy by just listing as many uses as they could possibly think up! If you can make a horse halt you can make it stand for the farrier, stand to be bathed and stand in the crossties and to make a horse halt you need this product! Yup, we’re sure there’s no way for a horse to hurt itself while wearing this thing in the crossties… S’all good.
Check out their video of how to teach a foal to lead into a stall. With mad skillz like those, how have you not run out and bought like 10 of these already? Clearly he knows what he’s talking about and has assuaged any concerns and/or misgivings we had through this informative video. Neither of us have ever tried to pull a horse of any age into a stall but we certainly believe it to be a next to impossible task.
While we typically wouldn’t want to put someone down for their ingenuity – it takes courage to put yourself and your ideas out there -but this one receives two thumbs wayyyy down. It’s not safe and the only aspect of training it is actually effective at (teaching the horse to lead forward) can be easily accomplished by using a lead rope or lunge line – two items 99.9% of horse owners already own. Thanks, but no thanks. And please don’t try to sell these anymore because eventually some dumbass is going to buy one and their horse is going to get caught on something and end up hurting itself.
Guest Post: Buying vs. Rescuing
This guest post is by a regular reader; you may know her from the comments section as “Charm”.
—————
The Rescue Fetish
I recently traded for a new horse. Believe me, I really tried to turn Sugar into a forever horse; she just wasn’t the one for me. She needed someone younger, who didn’t mind the dancing, prancing, and sometimes manic behavior of an 11 year old mare who consistently wanted to GOOOOO…
Yes, I traded her away. In her place is a much quieter, more laid back little mare who is already squirming her way into my heart. Sugar’s new owner seems very happy so far, I’m happy, and the other people involved are happy. Of course there are a few grumbles, elsewhere—just a few little whispers on the wind—why didn’t I rescue instead of buying? Why didn’t I SAVE A HORSE?
Oh believe me, I considered rescue. I’ve actually rescued horses before. I thought about getting something from Camelot, or one of the hundred other venues that are popping up like Orville Redenbacher in a high powered microwave. So I looked online, and I looked at what was out there. The pressure to rescue instead of purchasing is huge; shopping for a horse is like trying to watch a PBS special during their fund raising period; I try to enjoy the show, but all around are voices demanding that I donate. So I looked at the rescue posts. I looked at the brokered horses. Unfortunately, I discovered that I was far too picky. My list of demands is just too…well… demanding.
- I would like a sound horse. Yes, I know it; it’s really unreasonable for me to want a horse I can ride. And because I want the horse to be sound longer than a week or a month, I’m also demanding a horse without a structural defect that is going to turn into lameness soon.
- I would like to try out the horse first. I get it—the truck is coming! Someone is going to buy her first! I can’t go to the feedlot or babies in Africa will starve to death! That doesn’t change the fact that I want to try the horse out. Otherwise it’s like buying clothing at Walmart without trying it on first—it might fit nicely, or it might not. At least at Walmart my purchase is $3 on the clearance rack, instead of hundreds. Besides, I can return items at Walmart.
- Papers that are up to date would be nice. I don’t need to breed or show, nor do I get a kick out of waving my papers in random strangers’ faces screaming, “Look! Her great granddaddy is Northern Dancer!” However, I do like knowing where my horse came from, who handled her, and whether she has ever actually been ridden outside of a barn aisle in an auction lot. Unfortunately, in this modern day world of genetic diseases, I won’t even look at a stock horse anymore without a set of papers; HYPP is too heartbreaking.
- I want to pay what the horse is worth. I just read a Facebook post that was trying desperately to find this lovely nice Tennessee Walking Horse mare a nice new home. She deserved it! She was in terrible danger! She was going to slaughter! She was ON THE FEED LOT! And for the low low reasonable price of $600 plus Coggins plus shots plus quarantine plus shipping she could be mine.
~insert announcer’s voice~ “Now taking all major credit cards and wire transfers and first born sons”
Folks, that is not rescue. You are buying a horse off of a feed lot from a seller who is checking to see if he can make a lot more money by selling his horses to private buyers like us. We want to save them all, and instead we have created a fake industry in which horses at certain auctions are sold for a higher price, just so a dealer can spin the ‘rescue’ angle and make a few hundred dollars. Think about it; they have companies that will ship anywhere in the U.S., they have people who will quarantine your horse for you (for a price of course), and they can pull blood for a little bit of nothing, almost any day of the week. It’s an entire industry, in existence because we are desperate as an equine society to ‘save them all’.
Some of these organizations are truly legitimate. Some of them truly care about the horses. That isn’t my point. My point is actually this: Why buy a horse like that when you can take your money and go to a quality breeding or training farm and purchase a horse that has been well treated, well trained, and well kept? Imagine what kind of world we would have if we personally visited the farm of the horse we wished to purchase? You go there, and you see happy, healthy horses, owners and trainers and breeders who know how to care for horses, and a facility that is clearly safe and healthy. THIS is where you should spend your money. There may not be that horrid tug on your heartstrings—you know, the one you get when your prospective purchase is standing knee deep in muck, with dingle berries hanging from his belly and hips, nibbling old straw—but this way your money is going to someone who will spend it wisely.
There are great rescues out there, places that carefully vet, feed, and retrain their horses and then offer such horses for a reasonable adoption fee to the RIGHT new owner. Such places take their time to make sure the horse matches the new owner. There is no pressure on the buyer/adopter, and like the better farms in the world, the owners of these facilities are trying to create a long term home for the horse. So tell me, where have you been that deserves a shout out? What farm has well cared for horses? Which people in our industry deserve to get that money you were going to spend bailing out some unknown skinny mistreated wreck? Wouldn’t it be lovely if we changed society so that you received maximum credit for purchasing your horses from a quality caring organization, instead of getting credit for buying a horse sight-unseen from the other side of the country so you could save it?
Nice horses!!! Cheap – $100
Apparently we’re using the term “nice” to describe anything and everything these days…
“Older couple trying to sell out! Herd number got outta control selling cheap for fast results. Percheron thourobred crosses, quarter horse, and thourobred. They have 1 curly mained palimino mare very sweet 9 year old is broke to ride just been a while $100, bay mare x jump horse 15 years old registered rode 6 months ago is tenderfooted on front end $100, quarter horse mare sorrel blonde main 5 years old very pretty $100, 2 blackish fillies around two years old one real gentle one has never been handled $50 for one $75 for the other, grey stud thourobred percheron cross $50 2 year old, FREE older thourobred grey 17 hand gelding one knee bigger then the other rides just been a while, FREE older percheron mare poor, not gentle only be good for breeding, FREE arabain pony never been handled stud 3 year old.FREE crippled filly and black gelding the gelding is sweet.”
Since when do mares get pregnant, drop a foal, and get pregnant again in the span of mere weeks? Gosh, you’d think something like that would make the news. Does the accelerated aging/growth continue past birth or is it limited to in utero foals? Perhaps these people would be kind enough to explain to us how this is accomplished. And, if they haven’t already, let’s patent it and make a fortune! Hazza!
Oh no wait, we know, all of a sudden their horses spontaneously and concurrently reproduced via mitosis? Now that could generate quite the herd!
No? Not buying it? Neither are we. But honestly, those are the only scenarios we could conceive of wherein their herd numbers could get “outta control”. Given that a mare’s gestation period is approximately 11 months – how the fuck does the growth of a herd sneak up on someone and become “outta control”?
More than likely they’re just complete fucktards who have their heads so far up their own asses that they lack the basic deductive skills to calculate the following
1 stallion + 1 mare = 1 more mouth to feed
“bay mare x jump horse 15 years old registered rode 6 months ago is tenderfooted on front end $100” –WTF is a “jump horse”? THAT IS NOT A BREED! Hmm 15 year old horse with tender front feet… we’re taking bets on navicular vs. laminitis/founder - anyone want in on that action?
“grey stud thourobred percheron cross $50 2 year old” and “FREE arabain pony never been handled stud 3 year old” Good gawd, please don’t tell us they’re the sires of any of your “outta control” herd. *face palm* If they aren’t contributing to the gene pool yet they will be if they’re not rehomed soon!
“FREE older percheron mare poor, not gentle only be good for breeding”. What in that sentence makes her “good for breeding” – just because you can’t do anything with her? Over at Snarky Rider we have a saying: Just because it has a uterus doesn’t mean it needs a baby. Applies quite nicely here. Seriously, we’re going to start putting that on bumper stickers or something and start mailing it to asshats like this.
And last, but certainly not least, we unfortunately have “FREE crippled filly and black gelding the gelding is sweet”. So the crippled filly isn’t sweet? Could she perhaps be a little bit ornery because they’ve somehow crippled her? Ok, it’s a bit of a leap to assume these people are the cause of the filly’s lameness, but come on. It’s not exactly a stretch of the imagination in this case.
Why is it that people like this can’t get it into their heads that just because their horse isn’t suited for the show ring doesn’t mean they should be popping out babies! A fugly, useless mare is not magically transformed into a useful horse when you have it impregnated. All you’ve succeeded in doing is compounding the problem. In 11 months you’ll have 2 useless mouths to feed! You know what’s sad? These people are apparently an older couple – they should know better. In our society, age is somehow equated with wisdom – presumably the assumption stems from people gathering life experiences as they age and learning from them, however, this is clearly not always the case. People like this serve as nothing more than a reminder that we should always think for ourselves and be very careful who we choose as role models.
Damn, that got a little preachy. Oh well 
