I am still laughing about the evils of microwaving. I am imagining someone out there, somewhere, with their head wrapped in aluminum foil to protect them while they use the scary, scary microwave...I swear the comments here are just comedy gold sometimes.
(Why hasn't anybody written a sitcom about horse people? I mean, they are so crazy...you wouldn't have to make shit up! It would write itself!)
All right, you knew I had more fodder coming about questionable rescues, since your e-mails come in daily on this topic. Let's start with this Australian rescue which claims it has "feral ponies." I'm going to copy their post and insert my comments on it. Try to follow it from beginning to end and you'll see logical holes big enough to drive a truck through.
"These are correctly managed feral ponies. They are checked daily, they are brought into the yards regularly so they have no fear of being confined, any animal that is not well gets a vet immediately, they are all in superb condition and the people who own them know each by name, know their history from the moment they came into their ownership and you won't find healthier horses anywhere in WA."That sounds good, doesn't it? OK let's continue.
"The 'mostly' mares & geldings is because there are 3 newborn (well, within the last couple of months) foals. That are colts. The remaining mature-age entire males (I think there's 3 or 4) actually have the Vet coming to perform the castration this week. The reason that these couple of stallions haven't been castrated prior is because guess what - you can't castrate without sedation. Ever tried sedating a mature unhandled stallion??? It is stressful and terrifying on the horse and potentially dangerous for the poor Vet that has to do it."
Gelding is a procedure that takes, what, 15 minutes maybe? Let's look at this. 15 MINUTES of stress for the horse as opposed to creating three foals that someone is going to have to be SIXTY TO NINETY YEARS OF CARE INTO. Ever look at it realistically like that? Three foals times a normal lifespan of 20-30 years is SIXTY TO NINETY YEARS OF CARE, total. OK, Aussies - you can see what those ponies look like, conformationally. Where are the homes that will invest all that into one of these badly conformed, non-show-quality fuglies?
Now let's go on. If you can't give it a SHOT, I am guessing you can't do it's FEET. That sounds logical, doesn't it? And how exactly would you do something like treat an injury? Wrap a leg? You claim in the first paragraph they're getting vet care. EXACTLY HOW? They are unhandled and you claim potentially dangerous.
"The family that owns these horses has them running on hundreds of acres. Rather than stress and frighten her ponies with a mass round-up and enforcing immediate acceptance of humans to mature age stallions she has spent the last couple of years gently getting them used to a routine of being brought up to the yards and accepting a certain level of handling. As each stallion has accepted human interaction without fear she's had them castrated."
Folks, I have worked with completely unhandled horses. It does not take YEARS to get them tame enough to give a shot to. It just doesn't. Who watched that $25,000 Mustang Challenge? I rest my case. If you do not have the skills or the time to train wild horses, STOP ACQUIRING THEM. By the way, I have had horses who never accepted shots without fear. Hey, shots hurt. I don't accept them without fear! Sometimes you have to be responsible and do what is best for the horse even if the horse would prefer you didn't. Who is making the decisions here?
"THEY ARE NOT BREEDING WILD HORSES and should any foal be born next year it will be the last. "
No, they are breeding fugly unwanted ponies in captivity. That is much better. And they're all "living as nature intended" - no training, no attempt made to make them usable or give them a future. Great.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~OK, now let's talk about one of my favorite wacko rescues - SWAP. These people are NUTTERS. You can go to their web site and read their crazy "black list and legal troubles" page. Or you can just read this letter they recently sent out to all of their supporters. Sweetie, can you say and/or spell "unprofessional?" No one wants to hear about your personal drama! NO ONE! I don't know what happened with you and Ed but if I believed every man who ever told me he was going to support me and my horses forever while he was drunk, I'd be living in a refrigerator box right now and my horses would be on a plate in France! How stupid can you be?
As you read this, I want you to think about the advice SHE has posted for OTHERS on the main page of HER OWN WEB SITE: "Make a plan for emergencies or financial bumps along the way for your horse."
"Dear Friends,
SWAP, our executor, the barn manager, all the horses, dogs, cats, all office equipment and supplies, all the barn supplies, all the hay we have stored, all the executors stuff in the garage and house.... over 38,000 lbs of household goods and equipment, not counting the horses have to be out of this property by 1 March 08.
Honestly I have no idea how we are going to do this as we have 29 horses, 12 dogs and 3 cats on top of all the equipment. Obviously this is a major mistake as we trusted and believed that Edward P. Hogan would be caring, honest, certainly not a drunk and at the very least do the right thing for our program. He has been just the opposite. We have realized our worst fears, even more so because our trainer, Trina and her family of 6 are living in the house at the old farm, so the house is not even vacated to move into. Indy will probably founder more and have to be put down and two of our older dogs will never survive another move.
FHOTD in: I do wish I could insert sounds into this blog. Like a little violin playing!
I don't know what else to do but ask for help to get moved. We have about $100. right now and of course, nothing coming in from adoptions.... I mean who is adopting in February?? We don't even have the money to drive somewhere to get boxes. Every penny anyone can spare will be applied to getting us moved home and set up there. You can send paypal donations to this email address and send donations through the mail to the address below. As soon as I get the address moved I'll let everyone know. Every penny will help. Also, any day, weekend or week anyone can give us to help. Please, please, please come and help us get packed and move and I swear I will never believe another man who will tell us anything to get me to move in with him.
How you can help:
1. Donations paypaled to
2. Donations sent to the address below
3. Help packing, trucking stuff over to our old farm, moving horses/dogs/cats
4. We are looking at getting a modular home for our trainer, anyone know of one or a trailer for sale, please let us know. Right now her family of 6 has no place to go now.
5. Adopt one of our horses, we will have a huge adoption special coming up on the next day or so, probably even better than our Christmas special
6. Adopt one of our rescue dogs. We really need to reduce our numbers there as well.
7. We are looking for a lawyer licensed in WV that can do some pro bono work to go after this guy.
I am going to attach to you all what I wrote to my lawyer/the courts so you can see all the stuff we have had to live with. Ed gave me 4 long pages explaining how great he is, he told me he would move me and cover everything, that he would be me on the deed here, put me in his trust, be loving, honest, caring and supportive and give the program a no cost lease for life, even after we died. He has reneged on everything because he is an alcoholic and a liar. He actually put in an order of protection against me and had the nerve to say he was scared of me. Ludicrous!! We have court for that protection order next Thursday, I don't expect much change. The lawyer is charging us $1000. just to have a lawyer for this court date which will probably not change anything except allow me to go into the house.
Thank you all, I'm very sorry I let everyone down. Celeita"
Oh well, what do you expect of someone who's got crazy shit like this all over her web site: "Get used to using favorite mantra's and visualizations every day, simple ones that are easy to remember, like 'I can do this, I will do this', 'this isn't going to get the best of me' or even, 'I deserve the best' or 'the gift of love, caring, and support always comes back' and take two minutes every morning as you wake and at night as you go to sleep to visualize the life you want, the you you want to be." OMFG! People like you make me CRAZY! Stop visualizing and GET A JOB if you want to fix your problems. Visualizing money doesn't make the hay truck arrive - believe me, if it did, I'd be chantin' and dancin' all the live-long day!
GET A DAMN JOB! TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR ANIMALS! STOP BEGGING! AND STOP GUILTING EVERYBODY ELSE! According to your amazingly egotistical bio on the site, you've got a PILOT'S LICENSE and you're a FARRIER. There is no excuse for you to be destitute with $100 to your name except laziness, addiction, or mental illness. Which exactly is it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Finally, if anybody is near St. Louis and up for a challenge, this is really bothering me. I would love to help with this one if I could but he's just too far from me. Sounds like this person is just a concerned citizen TRYING to help, SO PLEASE DO NOT FLAME HIM/HER. I'm sure all the poor horse needs is a few months of turn-out and to get gelded and he'll be a perfectly reasonable animal ready to be trained.
Horse - URGENT !!
Reply to: comm-581115794@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-02-20, 7:44PM CST
Need a rescue group or someone that can save a thoroughbred stallion from being put down due to owners inexperience in handling him over the years. He is approximately 13 years old , was in training at the track , but because he has been kept stalled all his life, he has became hard to handle. I am hoping for a group that specializes in rescuing thoroughbreds and will know how to handle him. His time is up on Friday the 23rd , so if anyone can help , please let me know ASAP . I have contacted 2 organizations already , still waiting for a response. And I know people will email and say he would be better off due to his nature , but I have been around this horse since he was born and I remember when he was able to go outside and run , his attitude was a whole lot better . Now , he stays cooped up in a small stall standing in waste and looks out the window all day . He is humanely treated as far as food and shelter goes , so he is not considered "abused" . Please help with suggestions if you can ! THANKS !!
