Posts Tagged ‘bad rescues’
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: Buying vs. Rescuing
This guest post is by a regular reader; you may know her from the comments section as “Charm”.
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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?
Well, this is a huge fucking embarrassment!
This story makes me absolutely furious, because everyone here is rich and no one here is stupid. It’s about greed and laziness and not giving a shit about the animals you are supposed to be protecting. It’s about putting money in your pocket while animals starve, and there is NO excuse for it.
Ex-Racehorses Starve as Charity Fails in Mission to Care for Them
Nope, it’s not some little backyard rescue full of barbed wire and mobile homes this time…it’s the fricken’ Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation! Yes, seriously. MILLIONS they get in donations and they don’t pay their bills to the boarding facilities and, in some cases, the poor horses starve. WHAT THE FUCK. What ended up happening is that a major donor got suspicious and conducted their own investigation. (Kudos to you guys! I love it when people are smart and start asking questions!) And then the shit hit the proverbial fan…
“The most dramatic instance of neglect discovered so far, she said, was at the 4-H Farm in Okmulgee, Okla., where the owners, Alan and Janice Hudgins, would not let Ms. Huntington onto their property to inspect T.R.F. horses until the foundation gave them $20,000, a partial payment of what was owed them for taking care of 63 horses since 2005. They also forced the foundation to sign a pledge not to prosecute them for the condition of the horses.”
While clearly this is a huge clusterfuck on the part of the TRF, both in terms of not paying and no oversight, I am NOT in any way absolving the boarding facilities that neglected horses of responsibility here. I don’t care if someone’s paying their bill or not, you can’t let the horses starve. If they weren’t paying, maybe you should have outed them. I’d have been very happy to help you with that, as would various other message boards and blogs. I bet a little public humiliation would have gotten that bill paid quickly! (And since when does the TRF decide who gets prosecuted? Okmulgee Sheriff’s Office, if charges are appropriate, for heaven’s sake, charge those twits. It sounds like Ms. Huntington gave you plenty of evidence!)
Compare the Hudgins’ way of dealing with the situation to this other facility:
“Last September, the T.R.F. owed Out2Pasture Farms in Jamestown, Mo., more than $43,000, The farm, run by two University of Missouri professors, Zachary and Robin Hurst-March, is one of the nation’s most highly regarded sanctuaries for thoroughbreds. When the couple pressed for payment, the T.R.F. asked them to reduce their per diem to $3 a day and eventually removed 13 of their horses.
“I was being emotionally blackmailed to lower my per diem, and was the subject of retribution because I questioned the care of the horses,” said Mrs. Hurst-Marsh, who is owed $10,000.”
Well, good for you Mrs. Hurst-Marsh, for REFUSING to compromise care. THAT was the right thing to do, and I have no doubt you are telling the truth that your principles were not seen as a good thing by the TRF. Now, sue those jackasses –they HAVE the $10K they owe you.
Actually why doesn’t everyone on this page get together and file a lawsuit against the TRF board? There’s an idea. Hold these people accountable for the millions of your dollars that they stole and did not use for its intended purpose. How smart do you have to be to know that feeding the horses is a higher priority than administrative salaries? I know six year olds who could figure that one out.
I want to know what Larry Taylor’s been getting paid to run the TRF. Hey, put me in charge of a Thoroughbred retirement foundation and you can pay me 25% of whatever he’s making…and I’ll clean stalls and be willing to be held accountable for the condition of the horses I care for! I won’t sit on my ass in an office somewhere while horses I never check on starve to death in a field in Oklahoma. DISGUSTING.
Now for some good rescue stuff…today’s adoptable is Sadler, an 11 year old Irish bred OTTB rescued by Shiloh Horse Rescue in Nevada. How super cute is he? And his $600 adoption fee won’t break the bank. I can see this guy hitting the show ring this summer with the right person!
And even more strikes…
For those of you who didn’t get your fill of senseless suffering and death at the hands of a “rescue” reading about Three Strikes last year, this year we have the same with the Montana Large Animal Sanctuary. R.T. Fitch has covered this thoroughly so I’ll show you the link: (warning, dead animal pictures)
Sanctuary Lost: Death in the Montana Mountains
And as with Jason Meduna, the excuses have come fast and furious, but the main problem is simple: They committed the cardinal sin of putting all of their eggs in one basket. As this news story notes, “In a 2008 interview, Warrington told the Missoulian it cost $400,000 a year to operate the sanctuary. Almost all of it, it turns out, came from a single donor who cannot foot the bill any longer.”
So let me get this straight, Brian and Kathryn…you allowed a thousand or so animals to depend upon ONE person contributing almost a half a million dollars per year, and you somehow assumed this would continue into eternity?
Really?
How irresponsible and short-sighted and stupid WAS that? When, during all of those years you DID have that funding, you could have been developing a steady stream of donations from multiple sources and putting on events and fundraising online and doing everything that every other decent sanctuary and rescue does? Oh, and FYI, you had a CHOICE to keep your numbers manageable. You chose not to, and you allowed willy-nilly breeding. You are not a sanctuary, and never were. You are a particularly low-end, multiple species, backyard breeder.
How many times do I have to say it…hundreds of animals is just asking for trouble. Have 20 or 30, or less animals. You do not need 200 or 400 or 600 or 800. Have you ever even tried to do the math on what that costs? No one has the resources to clean up a disaster of that magnitude, and it WILL be a disaster eventually — because NO ONE cannot run out of money. (Yes, even you, Madeleine Pickens).
For those of you who may be able to give an animal a home, or donate, here is the info:
Hot Springs: Montana Large Animal Sanctuary and Rescue (MLASR) has run out of operating funds for anything other than the mortgage and payroll. A cruelty complaint has been filed against MLASR by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries based on the condition of some of the animals, and other agencies may follow suit as the investigation into this situation unfolds. A list of animals in urgent need of adoption is below, as well as names of people to contact if you can help.
Horses – 85 (about 15 are wild)
Donkeys – 25-30
Llamas – 650-700
Potbellied Pigs – 7-10
Sheep – 15
Goats – 20
Cattle – 37
Guinea fowl – Unknown number
Chickens – Unknown number (mostly roosters)
Emu – 15
For inquiries about adopting llamas:
Contact: Phyllis Ruana, Montana Animal Care Association | E-mail: MACAusa@aol.com
For inquiries about adopting farm animals:
Contact: Susie Coston, National Shelter Director, Farm Sanctuary | Phone: 607-583-2225 ext. 223 | E-mail: shelter@farmsanctuary.org
For inquiries about adopting horses:
Contact: Jane Heath, Executive Director, Montana Horse Sanctuary | E-mail: ht@mt.net
RANT: How not to suck at animal care
Inspired by the latest “rescue” clusterfuck
1. Wake up.
2. You are allowed to go pee.
3. Now: Take care of the animals in your house. This means everybody gets CLEAN water (yes, you may have to actually wash a dish, scary, I know). If you free feed, fill bowls and make sure those are clean, too. You do not just dump new food on nasty stuff that has been there a week. If you feed wet food, you will need to wash those dishes daily. If you have a dishwasher, please sanitize them weekly, too. Got litterboxes? Now is the time to clean them. Yes, you do it every day. I’m no neat freak, I’m on the sloppy side, but litterboxes need to be done daily or don’t complain if your cat thinks your pillow is a better spot. That’s WHY you do them daily. The alternative sucks. If someone had an accident, clean it up. If there is puke, clean it up. Since they will probably come running for breakfast, now is a good time to see if everybody looks normal. By normal, I mean as interested in food as is normal for them, normal energy level, not coughing or sneezing, no pus anywhere and not bleeding. If someone needs meds, administer them. If you are in the city and need to walk the dogs, put on your scary clothes and do it. I typically leave the house with the dog looking like a homeless person, LOL. Dressed up in my best Wal-Mart and Goodwill collection of sweat pants and huge oversized fuzzy shirts. But the dog does not care – she just needs to pee!
Oh, and if you have children, it should go without saying that you take care of their needs too. Don’t be Amber on “Teen Mom.”
4. NOW you can have coffee. Take it with you and go take care of the outside animals. Again, fresh water for everybody, remove old nasty food, supply fresh tasty food. Clean up poop. It is not OK to skip days with stalls or have bunnies who are getting closer and closer to the top of their cages. That’s disgusting, unsanitary, and not good animal husbandry. Even if an animal is a meat animal, it deserves proper care while it is alive.
Same as the indoor animals – now is the time to look at everybody. If you catch abnormal behavior quickly, like being off of food or having balance issues, you are much more likely to be able to fix it. The vet is not a magician, and cannot be expected to do much when the horse has been deteriorating for days, and you only notice when it goes down and can’t get up. (Or you call for help AFTER it lays there for FOUR days…Habitat for Horses just had that one. No, he did NOT survive.)
Everybody properly cared for? OK, now you can go about your day. Is what I described really that hard? I have lived at a cat rescue and I got 25 cats done in about an hour twice a day. You know, you just get off your butt and do it.
So let’s discuss just for motivation for people who apparently need some: What do YOU do in the morning (many of you BEFORE going off to a j-o-b too?) to make sure YOUR animals are healthy and cared for?
