By now many of you have heard about the horses rescued after they were abandoned in the woods on a packing trip. Globe and Mail story. 
This is basically the same story as those scum-sucking Heydons, except with snow and subzero temperatures. Amazingly, 25 volunteers went out in -40 -- you heard right, -40 weather and dug a kilometer-long trench to get the snowbound horses to safety and food. And they didn't get in there with machinery. They dug with shovels.
They are better people than I am. I have been whining all week because it actually got into the 20's here and I've had to drag hot water from the house to the barn to thaw buckets. I will shut up now.
It's a great story and it bears noting that it involves one asshole and a whole lot of wonderful people who cleaned up after him and saved the horses' lives. This being FHOTD, we're definitely gonna talk about the asshole.
"An Edmonton lawyer who told CTV News that he was the owner said the horses were delivering supplies to hikers on the mountain in September when he got separated from them. He said he returned three times to get the animals, twice getting stuck in the snow and finally, when he located them, unable to get them out of the snow.
But the SPCA says there is a duty to at least alert authorities. “Even to humanely euthanize them would have been better than to let them starve or freeze to death,” Constable Wiltse said."
Again, WTF? You know, when you see these dumb-as-dirt idiots on Animal Cops who look like they're not sure how they got pregnant, much less their horse, it is irritating but somewhat understandable. When we see intelligent, educated people do things that are unspeakably selfish and cruel, it is not. The two veterinarians trying to pull a car out of a ditch with an emaciated Thoroughbred was bad enough, but here we go again! This guy knowingly walked away and left those two horses to fend for themselves. He just gave up and walked away! Only two kinds of people do things like that: people too ignorant to know it's wrong and people who are sociopaths and don't care. Oh, I guess there's always people too high to know what's wrong, too! Wonder which of those last two he was? *eye roll*It's not like you come home from a trip and, oops, you left your watch in the hotel room. You don't just forget two 1,000 pound animals. Those poor B.C. SPCA employees. Between dealing with the vets from hell and now Satan's personal attorney, they must be about fried this holiday season. I hope they get some well-deserved vacation time after all of this!
By the way, it's believed there were originally three horses. One of them is either still missing or already dead. I'm guessing the latter, since it'd be very strange for a horse to split off from his herd under those conditions.
In cases like these, it's not enough to push for cruelty charges. I would argue that this kind of behavior shows severe mental defects that are not appropriate for a professional like a doctor or lawyer. The veterinarians should be stripped of their licenses, and this attorney should be disbarred (or whatever they call it in Canada. I think it's something else but I'm blanking out at the moment). Cruelty charges often lead to nothing more than a hefty fine, which a successful individual can pay. I say take his law license away. Maybe that'll keep him too busy earning a living to go on vacations and leave a trail of dying horses behind him. Now he's offering to pay the bills. Yeah. 'Cause he knows he's busted. He didn't spend a dime trying to get those horses to safety when he thought they were going to cooperate and die up there, undiscovered.
So my question to you today is - is there any way to reduce the number of these incidents? We all know intelligence and goodness/good judgment do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. Every year, professionals with high IQ's shoot their spouses or beat their children or drive drunk and kill someone. I've talked a lot here about educating kids and trying to raise up these good little horse owners, but it's more than just imparting the knowledge...it's also about imparting a sense of what's right and what's wrong and it's pretty obvious some of these people are not getting that information from their families. How do we prevent the creation of an adult like this attorney? Can we, or are we destined to always have a certain percentage of sociopaths who lack empathy for anybody who isn't themselves? I know I'm going off track here, and it's more of a psychology question than a horsey one, but I'm always interested in discussing how we can reduce/minimize these incidents, and I'm interested to hear what you think.
Huge kudos to all of those who participated in this rescue - most of whom were not even horsepeople. You are amazing people. You are the kind of people who restore our faith in humanity. May all good things come to you for your incredibly selfless actions.
