Posts Tagged ‘bad owners’
Guest Post: Being Unfuckingbelievably LAZY
You all know her; y’all love her. So for a limited time, I give you: THE ORIGINAL FUGLY!!!!
—————–
After reading two news stories this morning on Facebook, I felt compelled to write a blog entry – a compulsion I have not felt for a long time. In the months since I sold the Fugly Blog, I’ve read many stories about abuse, neglect, poor training, backyard breeding, and all of the topics I used to rant about on a daily basis. These particular stories hit a nerve.
The first was about a woman in Galesburg, Illinois. Her name is Sara J. Feighner. http://www.pjstar.com/news/x760605403/Woman-charged-with-cruelty-after-two-horses-die
Sara had two dead horses on her property. “Feighner told officials one horse had died because its hoof became caught in a fence and remained there until it died.”
OK, you got that one? Now on to the next story, which is about a man named Bob Trocha. The article states that Bob works as a “farrier, hay deliverer and personal trainer.” He had 11 horses seized.
http://lincolnnewsmessenger.com/detail/202155.html
Bob is now throwing a hissy fit because the authorities want to lop the balls off his stallion:
“He’s worth a lot of money,” Trocha said. “If I were to sign him over and just give him up, I lose the potential of selling him and making money from him.”
Bob, if Studly Pants was worth a lot of money, you would have sold him back when you had NO HAY to feed your other horses. I’ll leave it to the fine readers here to ID Mr. Oh-So-Valuable (I have no doubt you will do so quickly and save me the trouble), but allow me to put on my Madame Cleo hat and predict that this valuable stallion is worth under $1500 and has never sired a single foal of any distinction.
I’m off track though. What really gets me about Bob’s story is that his horses all desperately needed hoof care even though – scroll up – HE IS A FARRIER. Which brings me to the topic of this blog entry:
Being Unfuckingbelievably LAZY
I mean, really. Although I tend to accomplish a lot in a day, this is not because I am some amazingly high energy person. It is because I feel guilty when shit doesn’t get done. So, even when my body is screaming “crawl under the covers and stay in bed,” as it was doing at 6:00 a.m. today, my mind says “get your lazy ass up and go work your big yellow money vacuum.” My mind won. And we are talking about simply working a horse so that he continues to get fit, because fitness is good for his wonky stifle, not removing his hoof from a fucking fence so that he doesn’t DIE.
Sara is 52, not 82. She is only seven years older than I am. Sara, how exactly do you let a horse stand tangled up in a fence in your own yard til he dies? This is a criminal level of laziness. And it’s responsible for far more horse neglect and cruelty than anyone ever really wants to talk about. No, people want to give out excuses. Excuses abound:
I was sick.
I’m out of work.
I was away and a caretaker was taking care of the horses. (People use being gone for a WEEK as an excuse to blame someone else for poor condition that took months or years to get that bad)
I’m depressed. This is one of my favorites. Please raise your hand if you have ever been significantly depressed and genuinely wanted to curl up and die or even seriously thought about ending it all, but instead, because you are responsible, got off your butt and fed your kids and/or your horses and went to work anyway. My hand is up. I bet most of your hands are, too. I simply do not believe that any significant portion of society suffers from depression so crippling that they cannot function at all. Most of us have the ability to kick ourselves in the ass and get moving again, and most of us do just that. Bear in mind, I am not saying that catatonic levels of depression do not exist – just that they are rare, and that too often, depression is an excuse for lying around like a lump not even trying to improve your life or live up to your responsibilities. (Cue flaming from people who do not understand this paragraph and will feel the need to write 2000 words on their horrible depression and how I just don’t get it).
My husband left me. Another winner. If you are over the age of 16, you have, almost for sure, experienced heartbreak. I will bet your parents made you get up and go to high school anyway, crying or not. You can feed hay while you’re crying, trust me on that. This is not an excuse not to care for your animals. They didn’t dump you. Your self-esteem won’t be improved by the addition of animal carcasses to your yard.
No one ever wants to face the real reason the horses aren’t fed, or, especially in Bob’s case, the feet aren’t trimmed: That the person responsible is NOT A GOOD PERSON. They are a lazy piece of shit whose ass is grown to the couch watching the Kardashians instead of taking care of the poor, suffering animals in the backyard or trying to earn money to feed them.
Or playing Castleville, Pioneer Trail and basically every goddamn game Facebook has ever thought up. Nice, Sara. You have time to do THAT, don’t you?
https://www.facebook.com/sfeighner1
She also has time to beg for money on the Internet:
http://www.giveforward.com/mygooddeedshavebeenpunished
Give me a fucking break, Sara. If you’re a lazy piece of shit, own it. You can sit on your goddamn couch ‘til you die and the housepets you are also no doubt neglecting eat you. But put an ad on Craigslist already and say, hey, I’m a lazy piece of shit who can’t even walk outside and free my horse who got caught in a fence. Come untangle him and he’s yours!
At least then he’ll have a fighting chance, which is a hell of a lot more than he had with you.
Why idiots shouldn’t own horses
Three year old paint not broke wild stud .This one has all his oats .The meek need not inquire .Raised this colt from birth will let you pet him and feed him thats about it .Cant get any more honest.Needs EVERYTHING.$100.00 CASH ONLY .SERIOUS INQIURES BY EMAIL THANK YOU PRICE IS FIRM.
It’s idiots like this guy (Yes, I’m making what some may call an “assumption”, that the seller is male. I, however, prefer to think of it as a logical deduction based upon past experience of reading lots and lots and lots of craigslist ads!) who create problem horses and then dump them. To clarify, for anyone out there who’s thinking of getting into breeding: “raising” a horse involves putting more training into the horse than just petting and feeding. (Please read the following as if in a loud, fake, stage whisper) Psst! Neither of those require any training or effort. Your horse is likely feral because you put so very little time or effort into him. From the rest of the horse-world: thanks a ton, you giant douchebag.
It’s sad because this little guy looks like he may be cute. That is to say there’s no overt fugliness; no weiner-dog-esque back, his hind legs don’t appear to be camped under… aaand that’s all we can guess at based on the photos. But, considering what typically passes as a “suitable” stud on craigslist, this guy is a freaking GQ model! *facepalm*
I guess the one good thing you could say about this ad is that the writer freely admits the horse “needs everything”. He actually acknowledges that the horse needs work – perhaps somewhere in his subconscious, deep down, buried under sports stats and fond Playboy memories, he knows he didn’t do right by this horse.
Marion County seizure
Being out of the state does not excuse you from the responsibilities of horse ownership that you readily, if not eagerly, accepted when you took possession of the horses!
Marion County deputies recover eight malnourished horses from “deplorable” conditions in South Salem field
There are some out there who would say that the out-of-state owner did her duty by making arrangements with a local person to care for the horses.
To this I say: Bullshit
You can’t just pay someone and be done with it. You have a duty of care to check in once in a while and make sure your hired help are, oh I don’t know, helping! Let’s see if we can’t relate this to a non-horse world scenario. Say, for example, you’re a manager at McDonalds. You hire people to do a job, you train ‘em, give ‘em some direction, whatever. Once all that is in place, do you then leave for Costa Rica? No! For better or worse, it’s your job to make sure the job is done, because ultimately it is your responsibility!
Then, of course, is the issue of there being no shelter. That’s something the owner would have found out about when she went to rent the place. Again, you can come up with a bunch of lame scenarios where the owner isn’t to blame, but let’s be honest; if you’re a responsible animal owner, any type of animal, you’re going to inspect the place you intend for your animal to live, prior to it living there! So yes, dear readers, she knew and she was ok with it.
What about the land owner? Did they rent out 50 acres to someone they knew would bring horses onto the property? Knowing full well there was no shelter available for the animals?
I know people who rent out a condo and they make sure to do an inspection at least quarterly. And those people are sharing multiple walls with other tenants! There’s some accountability there! But for someone to rent out 50 acres and not schedule inspections? Of course, I’m making a judicious leap and assuming they didn’t inspect the property and had no knowledge of the starving and deceased horses (at the very least that would decrease the property value, right?) on their land.
None of the above is meant to excuse the behavior of the “caretaker”. I just feel that their involvement, or lack thereof, is obvious. They are, after all, the ones who willfully and cruelly neglected all aspects of these poor horse’s care.
So who’s responsible? The owner for not checking in? The landlord for willfully turning a blind eye? Certainly the caretaker is. Any way you slice it, body scores of 0.5 don’t happen overnight. Not to mention six – SIX! – dead horses on the property. It’ll be interesting (and presumably horrifying) to see whose horses those turn out to be…
I don’t claim to be an expert in decomposing animals, but it would seem to me that their being in different stages of decomp means that they died at different times, right? Still with me? Ok then, doesn’t that sound like they probably died from starvation? Logic being that different animals use up fats stores quicker than others and that alpha horse(s) likely chased the others off what little food they managed to find. This is supported by the fact that the remaining horses were found with body scores ranging from 0.5 to 1.5. Albeit that’s not much of a range.
The little bit of reassurance we can take from this latest episode of horse abuse? The swift and effective action of Marion County – they acted immediately upon receiving the phone call about the horses, got a vet out, blanketed them, brought food and water and got them the hell outa there ASAP. Good job guys and thanks from all the horse lovers!
For pictures of the poor remaining horses, check out our Facebook page.
For information on the rescued horses and/or how you can help them, check out Strawberry Mountain Mustangs (took in 5 of the surviving horses) and United SPCA (took in 3 of the horses)
Guest Post – Horse Training: Redneck Style
1. No helmet. On a very green horse. Aside from the ruination of this horse, this is my biggest pet peeve here. On the other hand, if this rider removed himself from the gene pool via massive head trauma, that wouldn’t be so bad.
2. Inappropriately dressed “cowboy.” Flat sneakers and shorts? Really? At least get a boot with a heel! It’s like this guy wanted to get hurt.
3. Pulling on a horse to make it move. It seems logical, until you remember that a horse weighs a thousand pounds, and can lift you off of the ground with its neck alone. You can’t out-pull a horse! What you can do is pull so hard on a horse’s face that it gets pissed and rears away from the pressure– just like this poor thing. My favorite part is when the “handler” on the ground leans on the rope so hard he’s almost laying down– it would have been perfect justice if the horse had chosen that moment to leap forward and squish him.
4. Totally inappropriate tack. First, of course, is the bit– a long-shanked monstrosity designed to exert maximum leverage. In the wrong hands (these guys’ hands) it’s a jaw-breaker. Even in the right hands, you don’t start a young horse in it! Next, that’s not a real leadrope– it looks more like a random, thin nylon rope from the back of a truck. No wonder it broke! And that saddle? Okay, I can excuse them for using a cheap one on an unbroke horse, if they’re trying not to damage a good saddle on the first go-round; but at least make sure it fits the rider! It looks like the cantle is crawling up the guy’s butt crack, and no one bothered to adjust the stirrups, so that even if he had gotten his feet in, he’d nearly be hugging his knees.
5. Yelling. Yeah, ’cause yelling loudly and angrily at a horse to is really going to want to make it move towards you!
6. Incredibly, awfully, terribly bad riding. Feet not in stirrups half the time, heels up, kicking and yanking back on the reins to make the horse move forward. This rider deserved to come off.
7. Wire fencing where you’re breaking a horse to ride. Arghhh!!!! Smooth-wire pasture fencing itself isn’t too bad; I use it myself. Wire fencing in an area where you know a horse is going to act up in a big way? Stupid! One of my biggest nightmares is losing control of a horse and having it run through a wire fence, there to get itself (and possibly me) tangled, lacerated or dragged. Note: people, do NOT try to make a “roundpen” out of wire and posts!!
8. Dangerous environment. Besides the issue with the fencing, I see a whole lot of forest that’s going to A) spook the horse and B) be a potentially deadly hazard to a rider, if the horse becomes scared enough to start bolting through the brush. Oh, and did you glimpse the front of the ATV parked next to the fence? The cameraman is sitting on it. I bet the noise from that thing driving up really made this green horse feel calm!
9. This is a “maybe,” but I’m betting I’m right– this horse looks way too young to get broke. He’s on the small side, and looks like he hasn’t filled out yet– like a two year old. If so, these idiots are doing him lasting harm physically as well as mentally. Of course, we could give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that it’s just a small horse… but I wouldn’t trust these guys to know how to use a bathroom without pissing themselves.
10. Too many players on the field. We’ve got Cowboy Idiot, Pulling Idiot, Spectator Idiot and Camera Idiot. All of ‘em are making noise and making it more difficult for this green horse to chill out. If I had that many people around me while I was training a young horse, I’d tell them to back the hell off or prepare to get kicked in the face (by me, if not the horse). I especially liked it when Spectator Idiot stood in front of the horse next to Pulling Idiot. I wanted to tell that horse to leap forward “NOW!” and get two-for-one squishings. What a deal!
—————–
Today’s guest poster is North Horse – check out her blog here!
—————–
I just spent 5 minutes watching that dude fall off over and over and over again – kind of like what I did with that scene in Titanic when the guy hits the propeller…
Anyone else think that horse just got tired of those jackasses laughing at her confusion. Dude had it comin’. Way to go Sassy.
The ArkLaTex Fuck up
Fair warning: this post contains coarse language and links to disturbing pictures.
First the facts: On January 6, 2012 approx. 60 horses were seized from O’l Home Place in Many, Louisiana. Not all of those are still alive and certainly none of them are well. According to one article, rescuers have so far found the bodies of 25 dead horses on the farm. The owner of the horses, Charles Ford, was arrested but is already out on bail.
Donna Keen, who took part in the rescue efforts, wrote this account of conditions on her blog:
On January 7th and 8th 2012 Remember Me Racehorse Rescue and the Louisiana Horse Rescue assisted the Sabine Humane Society in conducting a 60 horse seizure at a thoroughbred breeding and training farm in Many, Louisiana. There were originally reported to be about 120 horses on the property but by the time the case was built and the seizure was conducted half of them were either missing or deceased.
Not only were the horses at Charles Ford’s farm in horrid condition there was a large dog kennel full of hungry barking dogs with deceased dogs only feet away. There were also pigs and goats on the property that looked like staggering skeletons.
As this is an ongoing rescue effort, there really aren’t that many facts to report on. Of the articles we were able to find, they each quoted slightly different numbers. What is clear is that this was supposed to be professional Thoroughbred breeding and training farm.
O’l Home Farm LLC (Suzanne Ford listed as the owner) was still running horses at Louisiana Downs as recently as this past September. William R. Young is listed as the trainer in the track’s racing form. According to Remember Me Horse Rescue Mr. Young was on the property during rescue efforts and was commenting on the condition of some of the horses. In his eyes, the following emaciated grey mare was “not too bad” and he “laughed when she was being difficult to catch stating she couldn’t be too bad if she could still get away from” the woman trying to catch her.
Grey Mare (You’ll have to click; it’s refusing to embed. Grrrr.)
Apparently the trainer also told volunteers that “the owner will try and retain ownership of some of these horses. The Humane Society representative did tell us that this was his understanding and that in the end the Judge would make the final decision.” Unfortunately, and here’s where the law sucks, according to this article, Ford “has 15 days to post bond on all animals he wants to retain.” That bond is set at $1,500 per horse. Although if he’s hoping to claim multiple horses, than at least that amount is slightly more substantial than what bail was set at for Ford himself.
After all, you might be asking yourself, as we certainly were, how did this monster make bail when he can’t even afford to feed his goddamned horses? Naturally, we had assumed that since the DA is charging for each horse that bail would somehow reflect the number of charges. Nope. It was just $2,500. That’s it. The bastard wouldn’t shell out for edible hay, but bail he managed in a heartbeat! Of course, $2500 doesn’t go far when you’re talking about this many horses, especially in their current condition. According to the Louisiana Horse Rescue Association it’s going to cost around $450/day to maintain the remaining herd. That bail is worth just over 5 days to these horses.
From a TB Champions forum: “Louisiana Horse Rescue Association recently posted this list of dead/alive broodmares, given to them by Charles Ford, owner of the farm. Obviously, many yet remain to be verified. I’d heard that previous owners of Crossed Wire were actually going to go to Sabine Parish, LA, hoping to find her alive and to take her into their care. Unfortunately, it appears that that will not be possible.
ALIVE:
Auto B A Pro
Beautiful Lyrics
Beep Beep
Brassie Road
Bunny Cat
Cayla’s Playmate (euthanized during rescue))
Da Vinna
Dance Recital
Daring Tru (found dead horse with this collar)
Dillydalydeed
Fabulous Gamble
Formal Blossom
Galorious
I Dream of Jeanie D
Jewelry Talks
Le Big Time (claims to have given away)
Maggie’s Missy
Monita’s High Stepper (claims to have given away)
Moonlight Mango
Nassau Bound
Radcliff (claims to have given away)
Salty Cowgirl
Sattidy’s Girl
Sheikra
Tactical Vixen
DEAD:
Algebra
Ambitt’s Bullet
Anti Versay
Avie’s Trick
Bemybabytonite
Beyers Fortune
Call Me Eppi
Claudcat
Crossed Wire
Flattermeforever
George Sand
Great Aunt Alice
I Had To Laugh
Invalidate
Lady Di’s Kipper
Lissanisky
Miss Salty Gift
Notice
Ohnoitsmotherinlaw
O’Nora
Party Dreams
Pewter Power
Ralina
Samuri Dancer
Smokin Bonnie
Tiff’s Problem
Winterland”
In case you’re wondering, that’s 27 dead mares that the owner himself admits to. What possible defense can he come up with? Money issues aren’t going to cut it, especially considering the farm was still breeding and racing horses within the past year!
There are two things in particular that we find especially disturbing about this case.
The first is the incredible disparity in condition of the horses at this farm. While the broodmares and the babies were being left to fend for themselves (and dying off as a consequence), the “training” horses were stalled and in relatively good condition. How can someone knowledgeable enough to get horses in race shape just look on as others starve to death? Which brings us to the second thing – these guys were supposed to be pros. As much as we get after the backyard breeders and the irresponsible ammies, it pisses us off that much more when people fuck up at this level. They’re bloody well supposed to know better.
And just in case you weren’t depressed enough, here’s another abuse story from the southern US. In this case 16 horses and 2 donkeys were recently seized from a Missouri farm. According to a neighbor, he’s been complaining about the place for four years and 42 horses had died on the property in that time period.
