Posts Tagged ‘bad parent du jour’
Tough Little Filly – 1, Knuckle-Dragging Redneck – 0
I always get e-mails from people who tell me that they have always had their horses at a nice barn, or at home, and they simply did not realize how many horses have to live, or what kind of complete and utter idiots own horses. This is one of those stories.
We’ve all seen the Craigslist ads where some family of knuckle-dragging morons brag about riding foals. What we haven’t seen here is the consequences. This week, Sunkissed Acres took in an eight month old filly who had been getting the crap ridden out of her by the former owner’s kids. Of course, she had also not been fed. Wouldn’t want to waste any of the beer money, you know!
Sunkissed Acres – Is There Ever a Reason For Something Like This To Happen?
Fortunately for the filly, Mr. Gurley, who originally rescued her, has a heated garage and the equipment to set up a sling for her. I think she looks like a tough little thing that has a very good chance at this point.
Sadly, there will be no charges filed against the man who owned her, because he surrendered all of his horses to animal control. I hate cases like these. Let’s think about this – if you had starved your child nearly to death while simultaneously making them do physical labor every day, would we say, oh just sign over the child and it’s ok, we’re not going to press charges against you? But with animals, we do just that because we know the laws are weak and we just want to get the animals out. The problem is that it’s at the cost of the lives of the future animals this guy will own. How long do you think it will take for the kids to demand a new horse to ride now that all the old ones are gone? Uh, yeah. Craigslist is full of free horses. No one has learned a damn thing and there’ll just be another horse that does die on this man’s property, after suffering through months of literal torture, dragging riders around though they barely have the strength left to keep themselves upright.
Here is the part you all need to remember: There are a lot of horses living in homes just like this. Way more than any of us want to think about. Ignorance is not rare. So, stop giving horses away to a good home that you don’t monitor. Stop selling your “culls” or the colt that got injured at auction for $40. And stop voting for anyone whose stand on animal welfare you do not know. The reason this guy got a get-out-of-jail-free card is that everyone knew there was a high likelihood that the good old boys weren’t going to think this was a big deal. Time to get rid of the good old boys!
If you want to help, please send your donations to Sunkissed Acres – there is a Paypal button on the right side of that blog post, and they also have a Facebook Page
For those of you who want to donate some dollars toward a reputable rescue that is trying to get a few more Thoroughbreds out of the kill pen today (and will actually know WHERE those horses are a year from now and HOW they are being cared for), Second Chance Ranch needs $425 more to spring a couple of Thoroughbreds from Enumclaw. If you can help, please paypal to info@secondchanceranch.org. I really like this mare, below. She is Iluvwhatyoudoforme, by Waquoit. I would love to see someone get her who likes older mares and wants to teach her a new career — she definitely cannot be bred as she had a foaling disaster with a breech foal that had to be surgically removed. Please donate, or you can always rescue one directly if you’re local – check out the Auction Horses Board for information about each horse with tail tag numbers. You will need the number to buy a horse.
File Under: No shit, Sherlock!
Craigslist train wreck of the day…I’m printing it in its entirety but please do not be an idiot and call the number or e-mail to harrass them. Give someone a chance to rescue what looks to be a lovely horse (and if you get him, please let us know!).
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A horse isn’t a good Xmas Present – $700 (Lyte/LaCoaste)
Date: 2010-12-30, 10:08AM CST
Reply to: sale-rt3qp-2135889984@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
Ok so a horse isn’t the best Xmas Present for 4 little girls so we are now selling this 3 yr old registered Thoroughbred Gelding. He is broke and has coggins paperwork. Also his registration paper work goes with him. I’ll also through in the halter and lead rope. I don’t have any other tack because I just borrowed it. The kids refuse to ride it cause he is so tall. I paid $900 for him 2 weeks ago I would really like to get rid of him quick so I am willing to take a loss. please call 210-748-5677 (no endless emails)
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Other ad, posted December 31: 3yr old Bay Gelding for sale. He is broke and does ride he is shoed need to sell quickly. $700 OBO.
I know nothing about horses, don’t ask
No I can NOT Deliver I have no trailer
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So they bought a three year old, most likely fresh off the track Thoroughbred for their four little girls, put him in the backyard with a wading pool for a water trough and it hasn’t worked out? NO, REALLY?
Oh, and they can’t AFFORD a horse either, as evidenced by another CL ad of theirs I found. I am NOT making this up. “Have you got a hog problem? I’m looking to fill my freezer with meat. I am not a trophy hunter I’m just trying to feed my kids. Please call 210-748-5677.”
(insert huge sigh)
The bad choices people make when it comes to horses never fail to amaze me — but then again, they admit they “know nothing about horses.” Why would you GET a horse when you know nothing about horses? Would you get a car if you did not have a driver’s license? It’s just nuts.
That said, let’s talk about how you do actually select a horse for your kid(s). First of all, if you know nothing about horses, you are not qualified to own a horse. Horses are large, complicated animals with touchy digestive tracts, among other issues. If you want your kid to have a horse and you intend to keep him at home, you need to take lessons – not necessarily riding lessons, but care and handling lessons. Many trainers will be happy to help you out, and you can use resources like Rate My Horse Pro as well as good old Google to get recommendations and find out something about the trainers in your area.
Next, don’t assume that horses naturally love kids. They are not Golden Retrievers (and heck, not even all of those love kids!) You need to find the right horse for your child’s experience level and your child’s disposition. For example, if your kid is confident and loves to go fast, a feisty and high-energy pony may be a perfect match, but that same pony would be a train wreck for a child who is less experienced or easily frightened. (If your kid doesn’t ride yet and you don’t know how he/she will be as a rider, discard the entire idea of buying a horse and get your kid into lessons!)
Don’t assume that small = good — there are many unsuitable ponies and extremely suitable 16-handers. Also don’t assume that senior horses are always quiet. I have owned 25 year old hot potatoes and so have many of my readers! The best way to find a great kid’s horse is to find one that has been successfully packing around a kid who is about your kid’s age and similar in riding ability, and some of the best places to find those horses are by talking to your local 4-H club, Pony Club, saddle clubs, or just hanging out at open shows, playdays, and local rodeos and talking to people. Most horsepeople really do want to welcome beginners into the sport, and want to give free advice, but just take it all with a grain of salt and double check things online, especially any advice that sounds like it MIGHT be shady/cheesy! Your instincts can help you out, even if you do not know much about horses yourself — most of us can smell b.s. unless we stubbornly ignore our feelings. 
If your kid wants to show, and is with a trainer, you do need to involve your trainer in your horse-shopping. Otherwise you are very likely to come home with something cute but unsuitable and that is going to be hard on everybody, and hardest of all on your wallet! Now, if your kid just wants to trail ride or do low level playdays and stuff, then your best bet might be recruiting an experienced friend to help you shop.
Horses that are never, never, never suitable for your kid include:
a) Stallions
b) Horses freshly off the racetrack. Ex-racehorses can be great kids’ horses – but not until well after they have had a chance to “detox” and completed several months of retraining.
c) Horses that are not yet trained to ride. No, they cannot learn together. This includes baby horses that are too young to ride. Don’t do it. Ditto pregnant mares. You need a foal like you need a huge, bloody hole in your head. Trust me on this.
d) Horses that have a bad ground vice, such as biting, striking or kicking or a bad riding vice, such as rearing, bucking more than a little crow-hop, or bolting. Kids just aren’t (yes, there is an exception to every rule) capable of consistently disciplining these behaviors and avoiding injury while doing so. Most horses don’t do these things. Avoid horses that do.
Finally, before you even think about buying your kid a horse, ask yourself if the kid has demonstrated the necessary responsibility level. Has he/she consistently taken care of another, smaller pet, or have you had to help? If you don’t mind helping, fine, but realize that a horse is a 365 day a year commitment. That stall will need to be cleaned every single day. The horse will need to be fed at least twice a day every single day in the winter, even if you have enough pasture in the summer to avoid that. And horses have an amazing ability to get sick or hurt at the worst times – Christmas Day, your anniversary, your cousin’s wedding. In general, I think 99.9% of first time horse owners are better off boarding their horse for just these reasons. If you’re at a good barn, crises can be handled with little to no involvement on your part other than whipping out your credit card. Having a horse at home isn’t like having a dog at home — it is a heck of a lot of work and it can get old fast. Not to mention that most kids don’t even stick with riding if it’s not a social event with other kids, and that riding all alone isn’t safe, so if your horse is at home, you may spend a lot of time supervising horsey time.
All right, readers! What other advice would you give about how to pick out a horse for your child? What mistakes did you make, or did you hit the jackpot and get a wonderful babysitter horse on the first try?
Here is a fun video! Brandy and Katie were rescued out of the Enumclaw Sale’s kill pen a few weeks ago and are very kindly being fostered by Fox Creek Farm. This is only one week post-rescue and look how happy the girls are! They are classic examples of the kind of sweet, sound horses who go to kill all the time, so all I can say is STFU, Sue Walrus – YOU go to a slaughterhouse, heaven knows there is a surplus of loud-mouthed, unethical politicians with poor impulse control TOO.
Both of these mares are available for adoption through Second Chance Ranch, so just send an e-mail if you’d like to learn more!
Cabin Fever!
I was thinking about this the past week, because we literally had days of pouring rain in Los Angeles and I just could not get anything done. The arenas were slop. I tied the OSU pony up tacked up and let her stand in the aisle a couple times since she has patience issues
but other than that and lots of grooming, and handwalking in the aisles during the worst of it, I was frustrated with losing a week of training time on both horses.
So I thought this would be a fun topic. For those of you who do not have an indoor arena, what do you try to get accomplished during inclement weather? What do you do training-wise if you’re stuck in the barn or the barn aisle? I realized (hindsight!) that I should have worked on clipping with both of them. Rotten weather is also a good time to do stuff like hang the bit in their mouth or tie them around, stuff where you really can’t walk away and need to stay close and make sure they don’t get in any trouble. (No, I don’t have a problem with tying around in moderation – and doing so with a halter, not a bit.) Of course, be careful with introducing anything new in an enclosed area. There are green horses so calm that you can do pretty much everything in the stall, and others so reactive that anything new is best introduced in the arena where you have space to get clear if they get upset. You pretty much have to know your horse to know what is likely to be safe.
Another good green horse trick if you have pipe corrals or some kind of indoor fencing is to sit on that at their back level or higher and just hang out. I’m convinced that getting the horse used to having you and your voice in between back and ear level prevents a lot of issues once you do finally climb on their back. I’ll sit and talk and tap my feet on their back and drag my foot all over their neck and butt.
Of course, I also used the time to clean tack and wash leg wraps and clean the tack room. I’m one of those typical horsewomen who has no problem navigating a bedroom that looks like it belongs to a particularly messy 12 year old, but is terribly aggravated by a messy tack room. I cleaned it. I even washed all the different bottles of liniment and stuff, LOL. Yes, I have been borrrrrred!
So what else? I’m afraid we may get some more of this weather before it’s over, and I know plenty of you are dealing with much worse things, like 10 foot high snowdrifts. It did occur to me that I should de-cobweb the barn – perfect weather for that, and as you probably know if you read my blog, cobwebs are a fire hazard that should be dealt with regularly. And really, who is going to get that done on a day that is nice enough to ride?
Now, I want to hear all of your ideas. What do you do when the weather has you barn-bound?
Oh, and for those of you who just hate it when I don’t give you something fugly-blog-worthy, here is the infamous 16 & pregnant moron mom on a horse video. I understand that if you are 16 & pregnant to begin with, you might not be the queen of great decision making, but after nine months of pregnancy, you might want to try to keep it alive longer than a week, just maybe? This should be titled How Not To Introduce Your Child To Horses.
You all know how I looooove old broodmares and love to see them back to riding after their producing days are over, so I have to promote this girl over at Mid-Atlantic Horse Rescue in Maryland. What a sweetie (and my favorite color
)
Count the Fail!
How many ways can you FAIL in one photograph with a horse? Thanks to the Internet, we have answered that question. It might be easier to evaluate what is not wrong here: The horse is well fed…woohoo! One tiny element of sanity in what is otherwise just a great, big, huge WTF???? picture.
Now, most of you already know these things, but in case there are some beginners reading today, I’m going to explain everything that is wrong with this picture:
NEVER, no matter WHAT, get on a horse that is tied to something. This is one of the most dangerous things you can do. Why? Because horses are a prey animal in nature, and when something frightens them, their overriding instinct is to escape. If you are mounting or sitting on a tied horse and something startles him, his natural instinct is to pull back and thrash around trying to get free. This often leads to the halter breaking and the sudden release of pressure causes the horse to flip over backwards. Even if they don’t break the halter, they can lose their footing and wind up underneath the trailer, under a gate, etc. If you are in the saddle, where do you think you wind up? The answer is: In the Emergency Room if you’re lucky, if you’re not lucky, the morgue. And in this case, baby and all.
Even the wrong person holding the horse while you mount can cause a similar accident. A ground person must always hold the horse with “give” in the hold, particularly with a young horse. Having a horse take a few steps to balance himself as you get on is highly preferable to winding up underneath the horse, and trust me, those flipping incidents can happen in a split-second and with horses you do NOT expect to do such a thing. I hate it when people say “but s/he would never do that!” What are you, a fortune teller? Read stories from people who have lost a loved one to a horse accident and they pretty much always say “but Brownie never DID that before.” Yes, because Brownie is a horse, not a golf cart, and predicting equine behavior is like predicting the weather – no matter your skill level, sometimes there will be a big surprise!
Now let’s go on to the obvious example of Bad Parenting. Come on, how many brain cells do you need to rub together to figure out that hanging on to your baby like a sack of groceries while you sit on a horse YOU describe as one for an experienced rider is phenomenally, epically stupid and irresponsible? If the horse does the slightest thing, you are in no position to react to it while protecting the child. The child isn’t wearing a helmet, so he is one tip of a hoof or bad landing angle away from spending the rest of his life at the same developmental level he is currently at, diapers and all. Or you can spend your life visiting his grave – what do you think about that idea, Mom? Sure, accidents can happen no matter what but that doesn’t mean you let your baby play in traffic or leave your cleaning cabinet unlocked. There are many ways to minimize the risk of a catastropic accident whereas you, Mommy Dearest, seem to just be inviting one to come and get you and your child. It’s NOT cute. It’s NOT proof of how safe the horse is. It’s scary and cringe-worthy.
Then we have the fit of the saddle. Even from here, I see that it is not built for this wide-shouldered Icey pony, and it’s certainly not built for your butt. Yes, Iceys can carry weight, but be fair to them with a properly fitted saddle and a quality pad. Don’t park your behind up there in your kid’s saddle – it’s not safe for you and it’s not at all comfortable for that poor pony!
Now, since I always like to give examples of how to do it right, here are some good ads showing How To Sell A Pony (same general price range):
Honest ad explaining what pony does, rider level required, with nice (expiring) picture
OMG the cute…Very, very cute pony, priced right and looks good! (Nice web site too – probably homemade but has well-chosen professional pictures and woohoo they can SPELL.)
Another rockstar pony for the price – how fun does she look to ride?
See, it is not THAT hard to sell a pony without looking like a knuckle-dragging MORON. Learn from the FAIL shown in the first picture, and don’t let that be you (especially if you have a baby!)
(FYI: It actually took a bit of work to find good examples. Why do people post video on Dreamhorse of lame ponies? Seriously? You seriously don’t know it’s lame? I know it walks over tarps and all kinds of cool shit, but it’s REALLY FREAKING LAME.)
We’re a rescue, no wait, we’re a BYB!
Look, we’re a rescue! We have a 501(c)(3)!
Really! We’re a rescue! Look, here is one of our rescue mares!
No, wait. Maybe we’re a backyard breeder who is going to whore out our “rescue” mares (including the one above) to make more low end Thoroughbreds that all of the other TB rescues in the Seattle area will get stuck trying to find homes for.
This particular faux rescue is run by a father-daughter team. I love the description of the bad parenting the daughter survived, right on their web site: “Sarah was born with a gift. By the time she was 3, David found her fearlessly standing underneath his stallions, cleaning their stalls with her pink wheelbarrow and little green shovel without a care in the world – and she hasn’t stopped loving and taking care of horses since. ” Yeah, the gift is she has a guardian angel making sure she did not get her head kicked in, and that sure as heck wasn’t you, you moron!
And things are no better now. Go look at their lesson page. Triple bareback and no helmets. That’s a pony ride and a pretty scary, high-risk one at that. Not a riding lesson!
Get a damn job, Sarah. That’s how you feed your horses over the winter. Not by creating more mouths to feed!
P.S. If your 20 year old mare even gets pregnant, she is not gonna produce the next Zenyatta. You are smokin’ crack if you think that.
P.P.S. How the hell does a horse teach small children how to survive in the wilderness??? What, does it teach them how to make a fire?
