My Neighbor's Cherished Horses

Snow. All day yesterday. The tall trees left in the backyard along the fence (the ones still standing after a tornado hit a couple of years ago) looked black from my back kitchen windows. On the other side of the fence, the empty, white, snow-covered pasture stretched back to snowy farm buildings. Everything black and white with a leaden sky. As I came into the kitchen to make tea, I happened to glance out the windows just as five horses--black, white, brown--galloped along the fence in a perfect line, one behind the other, head to tail. They were moving in perfect rhythm and complete abandonment through the cold air and thick, falling snow. I thought how beautiful those cherished horses were in motion: strong and free and joyous.

More About Soring

At http://www.hphoofcare.com/lick.html, the writer points out that abuse of the horse's feet and legs is not the only way the animal suffers. The horse may wear a cruel bit to increase leverage on his or her head, and a tail set, that forces the tail into an arched, extremely high carriage. The tail set must be worn almost all the time. And the way the horse is ridden is all wrong, a bizarre form of equitation that does not suit the horse's natural gait. Indeed, sometimes horses fall over as they try vainly to do what the rider wants. The rider may resort to using spurs. Read more at this excellent web site, that also contains powerful and heartbreaking images and videos, illustrating far better than words what the horse endures.

It's no wonder then that The Humane Society concludes that "many Tennessee Walking Horses die at a young age from colic, believed to be caused by the extreme stress placed on them in training and by exposure to the toxic chemicals used for soring." http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/tenn_walking_horses/facts/what_is_soring.html

More to come soon.

Terrible Facts about Soring

Soring is about the worst torture that can be inflicted on horses--short of killing them, that is. Rational people in the horse industry who love and respect horses, cannot understand why owners would maim their own beautiful animals in ways designed to inflict the most pain possible to the horse--all to produce the grotesque Big Lick gait seen in Walking Horse events. (Or for that matter, at shows where other gaited horses like Spotted Saddle Horses or Racking Horses perform.) The big money, name recognition, and blue ribbons are certainly not worth ruining a horse physically and mentally.

In the accompanying image, you see the results of damage to a horse's leg and hoof. (Thanks to the USDA, United States Department of Agriculture.) The following are techniques used by unethical trainers to achieve the Big Lick, the artificial movement where in reality, horses are lifting their legs high to somehow avoid more pain. Owners and trainers often pretend that these poor horses love to perform this way and nothing bad has ever happened to them to achieve this movement.

Reality coming, though. Here is what unscrupulous trainers do to the horses.

• Apply corrosive chemicals that blister the horse's legs, like kerosene, mustard oil and diesel fuel, and then wrap plastic wrap around the legs. Leave the horse in the stall for days at a time to suffer.


• Pressure shoe the horse, that is, cut the hoof almost to the quick and tightly nail on the shoe.


• Stand the horse for hours with the excruciating part of his sole on a raised object.

These methods induce the most equisite pain imaginable to the horse. But it doesn't stop there; the pain must be prolonged to be effective, so when the horse moves in the future, trainers put chains around the ankles, which slide up and down, aggravating the painful ankles.

But the trainer is not done yet. To emphasize the Big Lick, the performing horse wears a high, heavy stack of pads. To those who witness a show like this, the horse appears to be standing at a bizarre angle. And sometimes trainers put foreign objects between the hoof and the stacks to induce more pain.

More to come. In the meantime, go to http://www.hsus.org/horses_equines/tn_walking_horses/what_is_soring_fact_sheet_.html to read more.

In Tennessee: Horses Recover from Great Cruelty

Remember the great Tennessee Horse Rescue of 2009? (See Tuesday, December 8, 2009 in Blog Archive.) Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nveFOcnRuVQ to see the results of the outpouring of love and care by volunteers who worked so hard to bring as many of the horses back to health as possible. You'll smile all day! Guaranteed!

Hooray for My New English Class

As a teacher for a long time, I think there's nothing like starting a new class. I've now met with my spring 2012 class twice, and already I see potential in the students: I'm thinking there will be good discussion and smart thinking. I'm using the same textbook but redesigning lessons. I'm incorporating technology into the classroom by huddling with the IT man. I'm thinking about what I could bring into class from my own reading: maybe an essay from David McCullough's Brave Companions. I think they'd like the one about the short-lived "wild west" and Teddy Roosevelt. Or maybe the script of Avatar, available electronically, in which we see things left out of the movie. We'll see. What fun!