Happy Trails Farm

I'm always delighted when I hear of an animal refuge that's well run, with lots of love to spare for the residents. Such a place is the Happy Trails Farm Animal Sanctuary in Ravenna, Ohio. Their mission statement is well worth reading. Here it is:

Happy Trails Farm Animal Sanctuary Inc. is a non-profit (501c3) organization that rescues, rehabilitates, and provides an adoption program for abused, abandoned, and neglected farm animals such as horses, ponies, pot belly pigs, farm pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, sheep, goats, and cattle. Happy Trails serves the entire state of Ohio, and works in cooperation with county humane societies, animal protective leagues, and local and state law enforcement officers. Our criteria for accepting a farm animal or horse into our rescue program is that the animal has been removed from it's current situation by a county humane officer, sheriff, or other law enforcement representative. Happy Trails does NOT accept owner surrenders. We do not accept farm animals or horses from owners who simply no longer want their farm pet or wish to sell their farm pet or horse. Happy Trails provides the rescued farm animals and equine with medical care, proper nutrition, clean and safe housing, and as much TLC as possible. We work in cooperation with a variety of other rescue groups, both local and out of state, to network and help find homes for the rescued farm animals. Our adoption program allows for the rescued farm animals to be adopted as a family pet only. Once a farm animal is accepted by Happy Trails, they are no longer allowed to be placed back into food production, nor are they allowed to be bred or used for exploitation in any way. The Happy Trails Amish Horse Retirement Program, an extended part of our original rescue program, accepts Amish-owned buggy and plow horses that can no longer serve their Amish families. The acceptance criteria is that the horse is surrendered directly from it's Amish owner, and that it is donated to the Amish Horse Retirement Program. These horses are then given an overall health and wellness medical examination, updated with vaccinations and a consistent worming schedule, have their hooves trimmed, and are made available for adoption.

Readers, take a look at the delightful pictures of these animals on the web site. Every time I look at them, I wish I could adopt a horse. Or maybe a pot-bellied pig! ( http://happytrailsfarm.org/about.htm)

My correspondent Julie first called my attention to this wonderful farm. Here's what she has to say about her visit there:

Last Saturday, my husband Kip and I visited the Happy Trails Farm Animal Sanctuary in Ravenna, Ohio. It was fantastic! They had horses, pigs (both potbelly and standard), chickens (including roosters rescued from cockfighting), ducks, geese, goats and miniature horses!! (We learned that the Amish use miniature horses to pull farm carts. ) They are also expecting a set of sheep to arrive shortly.

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed spending time with the farm animals. The pigs were especially fantastic. One followed me around like a dog, rubbing on me when I petted her and falling over to expose her tummy for more patting and grunting with pleasure. I climbed right into the pens with the full-grown hogs (one was 1,400 pounds!) and they were extremely gentle and friendly - came trotting right up to me to look me over and be petted. The sanctuary director, Annette Fisher, says pigs are just fine - not at all aggressive - when they are not made aggressive by being kept in the horrible conditions that are standard in the hog-raising industry.

The horses were great. Sadly there were some there whose previous owner had abandoned them in a barn in stalls with the stall gates NAILED shut. And neglect cases are up a lot due to the economy. Annette says many foreclosed country property owners are moving away and just leaving their farm animals behind, still in their barns, sheds or fields - or even abandoning them by the side of the road.

The fighting roosters were a sad sight. They have to be kept in special individual cages where they can't reach each other or they will fight to the death even through the wire mesh. But the sanctuary director took one out of his pen and I got to pet him - he was completely gentle and friendly to people. The cockfighters strap razor blades on their legs for them to fight with and cut off their combs so that the blood won't run down into their eyes when they fight. They also shave off all their feathers so their wounds will show better when they are fighting. Many have damaged or cut off beaks so they can't groom their own feathers any more. So even with their feathers mostly grown back now, they were a bedraggled sight - but still lively and interested, looking around and liking being petted. (How to pet a rooster: scratch around the base of the feathers at the back of the neck and he becomes blissful).

Annette is trying to get the state to make the penalties for fighting all kinds of animals the same (fighting dogs is punished more strictly than fighting roosters). She says that cockfighting is associated with underage drinking, drug sales, illegal firearms, and a host of other ills so it should be as serious a crime as fighting any other animal.

The sanctuary folks are going to bring some of the fighting roosters, some ducks and one of the miniature horses to our Blessing of the Animals [at our church] next Sunday! I am so thrilled. I have already sent a press release out about it to the local paper.

Only a Teen-Age Face

I read in The Miami Herald post of 9.23.09 that a nineteen-year-old man has been arrested and charged with butchering horses, probably for their meat, at two ranches in the Miami-Dade area of South Florida. I stare at the picture of Santiago Cabrera--short, neat haircut; gold earrings; red and blue shirt; sketchy mustache--and try to reconcile the image with the brutal details of the crimes to which he has confessed. But the face reveals nothing of what he did to the horses at the Lazy L Ranch and another place. It's merely a teen-age face with a tentative expression. The police have charged Cabrera with killing two horses at two different ranches. Among the charges are armed burglary, killing a registered breed horse, and animal cruelty.

While I'm glad that two killers have now been arrested (Luis Miguel Cordero, 18, was the other one), police are still looking for other suspects. No one should be relaxing yet. If you have information, call Crime Stoppers, 305-471-TIPS.

To read more about the arrest, go to http://www.miamiherald.com/486/story/1246788.html.

$300 to Butcher a Horse

A teenager was arrested by the Hialeah and Miami-Dade police when he was taken with incriminating evidence and confessed to having butchered a horse in company with another man. The details of his act, for which he was paid $300 by someone as yet unknown, are so gruesome that I can't bring myself to put them into this entry. You can read more at the September 17 posting of The Miami Herald: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/1237437.html.


Sadly, a September 10 posting at the same newspaper site tells us that a racehorse has been slaughtered. The police are investigating thoroughly to see if these two crimes are related and of course to find out who else is involved. Read more, if you can stand it, at http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/1225961.html?asset_id=12248.

If anyone has any information, please call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.

Meet Me at Killer Nashville

A reminder that Killer Nashville, the mystery writers and readers conference, will be held Friday, August 14 through Sunday, August 16. On Friday from 2:30-3:30 PM, I'll be discussing "Animals in Mysteries" with my fellow panelists. For all the important details and to register, see http://www.killernashville.com/.

Mindless Atrocities

Ellyn Robinson, Vice President of the South Florida SPCA, wrote to ask me to tell my readers what is happening to horses in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. Pet horses, the official number is now 17, are being hacked to death for their meat. The details of how Geronimo, Bonita, Linda, Comanche and others were butchered are so sickening that I can only think those who are doing it are in the same class of human criminals as Caligula, Herod, Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin Dada. They are amoral, cruel, greedy, and remorseless and they are always with us.

In this case, Ellyn tells us, the horse meat is being sold on the black market. Various estimates of the profits range from $7 to $40 a pound. Richard Couto, investigator with the S.F.S.P.C.A., says "Miami-Dade and South Florida is a melting pot....We have a lot of people, we have a lot of international people, from Asia, Europe, South, Central America and the islands. A lot of these countries, horse meat for consumption is legal. These people grow up eating this meat." (It is legal in Florida for owners to kill and eat their horses on their own property but the meat cannot be sold to others.) Ellyn mentions the irony in the fact that the horse meat is contaminated from antibiotics, de-wormers and other drugs that loving owners pump into their horses to keep them healthy. It's a case of the biter being bit when buyers are willing to purchase this illegal, ill-gotten meat and then get sick and possibly die from eating it. Some think that the killings are a result of the recession, that people need cheap meat. There is even a theory that there is a cultural belief that maintains that horse meat cures diseases.

A note about the wonderful South Florida SPCA and Ellyn Robinson: In one of the killings, a mare was killed but her foal spared. Ellyn and others are trying to get the owner to allow the SPCA to take the foal to its rescue ranch until the foal overcomes the trauma of witnessing his mother's horrible death. Ellyn says he's only about two months old. She has volunteered to pay the expenses for his care.

There is a reward fund being set up so that the police can get more citizen information. If you would like to contribute, please send your checks to:
South Florida SPCA
15476 NW 77th Ct #440
Miami Lakes, FL 33016
The memo line on the check should read: reward fund.
The check should be payable to the South Florida SPCA

Or:
Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers
Attn: Maureen
1030 NW 111 Ave.
Miami, FL 33172
The memo line on the check should read: Dade County Horses
The check should be payable to Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers

For more on this situation, go the the Protecting Horses link on my website at www.http.mmfisher.com.

Here are some helpful links:
www.http.helpthehorses.com
http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/1161684.html
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/search/dispatcher.front?Query=horse+slaughter&target=article&sortby=display_time+descending
http://cbs4.com/local/horse.butchered.burned.2.1104065.html
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Another-Horse-Cut-and-Killed-For-Meat.html
http://www.justnews.com/video/20203309/index.html

Killer Nashville Coming!

To all mystery and suspense junkies, writers and\or appreciative readers of same: Killer Nashville is rolling into its third year with three days of fun, Friday, August 14 through Sunday, August 16.

J.J. Jance, the popular and prolific mystery writer, will be the honored guest at Killer Nashville 2009. Author of so many thrillers and mysteries it makes your head whirl to read all her titles, she has written 3 thrillers and 34 mysteries (the latter includes three series). I can't wait to hear her speak. But there's a lot more: the web site promises over 40 panels and discussions. For example, the writing craft is well covered, and what you learn in the writing workshops and panels can be applied to all types of fiction and nonfiction and also specific genres.

To read a lot more more about the feast, go to http://www.killernashville.com/.

Zaporizhzhia!

The movie "Taras Bulba" (1962) has a score by Franz Waxman for which the composer received a twelfth Academy Award nomination. The story was adapted from Taras Bulba, the novel by Gogol. It's about the Cossacks of the Zaporizhzhia region in the Russian steppes. The music Waxman wrote for the ride of the Cossack tribes to Dubno to finally extinguish their enemies the Poles is so exciting and so exhilarating, and builds to such a crescendo as the Cossacks ride all-out on their vengeful mission, that I never get sick of listening to it.

The ride was choreographed with a horse-movie convention I always like. How many of you have ever seen this kind of scene? In the western, it's the "we're going to town to destroy the bad guys." The movie "Silverado" has one of these. In "Taras Bulba," Yul Brynner and his two sons start the journey to Dubno early in the morning, with the music starting softly. Then the music gets louder and louder as tribes of Cossacks join them from both sides yelling what sounds like "Zaporizhzhia!" until a great host of reckless, fierce, vengeful Cossacks is galloping all-out to Dubno. The music builds and builds and by the time the music ends triumphantly, they're riding into Pole territory and you know what they're going to do. If you've ever ridden a galloping horse, you wish you'd been in on the making of that movie.

I listen to it as I walk the track at my local rec center. Invariably, as "The Ride to Dubno" blares in my ears, I speed up. Regrettably, when this happens, I am compelled to pass the person in front of me, can't help it. Under the influence of this music, I've sped past people who are younger than me, even high school students on the track--and all due to this wonderful music.

Although the movie is cheesy in parts, it's worth buying the DVD for that scene alone. "The Ride to Dubno" is also known as "The Ride of the Cossacks," and has been played all over the world.

Searching for Henry Stull

Part of the fun of writing my latest novel, Painted Stallion, was researching Henry Stull, American equine painter (1851-1913.) Henry figures largely in the novel.

I'd first seen a Stull painting in a magazine and finding more on the Internet, was drawn to his glossy horses with perfectly depicted anatomy and jockeys with brilliantly patterned silks. The horses were often famous winners and the silks were accurate. But it also delighted me to see the "rocking horse" posture in which he often painted his running horses, front and back legs fully extended. I've learned since that many owners asked for that posture for years, even though it was unrealistic. It was a well-loved artistic convention.

I wanted to find out more about Stull and in my travels, visited the Horse Park and Keeneland Race Course libraries in Lexington, Kentucky; the Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville, Tennessee; and the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York. And my research for the novel paid off: it was in Saratoga Springs that in August 2008 I finally saw one of the rocking horse pictures. I'm sure the other artgoers thought me silly. I was grinning like a fool.

The Winners: Mullins and Lanzan

When I watch horse races like the Triple Crown, I marvel at the beauty and swiftness of the horses and the expertise of the jockeys who ride them. I always wonder how the riders keep their perfect, immovable posture on top of those madly galloping, plunging horses, and how a 115 pound jockey gets a 1200 pound animal to do his or her bidding? Horse racing, with all its issues, is still fascinating today because we get a chance to see the most accomplished athletes in both the human and horse worlds engaging in a contest of skill that is dangerous and thrilling and beautiful in its execution. But racehorses must be protected from possible injury by their handlers. And that's why I was so glad to see "I Want Revenge" scratched from the Kentucky Derby because trainer Jeff Mullins and owner David Lanzan found a hot spot on the horse's ankle. This is responsible racing. Read more at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30533737/.

Temple Grandin's Wisdom

Temple Grandin's chapter on horses in her book Animals Make Us Human is filled with such valuable advice on working with horses that if I were training a horse I'd memorize what she says. Here are a couple of examples: "The real secret of horse whisperers and expert horsemen is that they understand the behaviors associated with different emotional states and they have also figured out that a reward or a cue has to be given within one second after a desired behavior occurs for the horse to make the association." And "Behavioral trainers never talk about vices and depravity. Behaviorists are some of the most 'optimistic' . . . trainers there are, because if . . . an animal isn't learning, a behaviorist is trained to examine what he is doing wrong, not what the . . . animal is doing wrong. This means that behavioral . . . trainers don't blame the student."

The Writing Life

I'm writing my second novel right now, the further adventures of Connie Holt of the McCutcheon Equine Insurace Agency. It's tentatively entitled, "The Painted Stallion." This time it's trouble in the dangerous world of the steeplechase and a new love affair. Usually when I exercise by walking, usually at a track or down the road to my town, I line things up in a row mentally, so to speak, about the current plot situation. Thus prepared, I go confidently to my computer to write my self-imposed 1200 words per day. But in the process of putting my thoughts into words, I find often that my mind says, "That won't do!" And all my preparation was for nothing. This morning for instance, I found more research was necessary about the race course described in the book, I ended up suddenly dissatisfied with the heroine's race attire and made it more characteristic of her personality, and I heightened a bloody scene with--yes--more blood.

Wild Horses in Trouble

The February 2009 National Geographic magazine, both paper and online, has an excellent but sobering article about the plight of the wild horses in the ten Western states where they are trying to survive. Writer Alexandra Fuller gives a little of the history of the horses and mentions "Cattle Annie" who was largely responsible for federal protection of the horses. (See my article about Cattle Annie in the "Protecting Horses" section.) Fuller points out that the wild animals have been besieged by stock men and their cattle and sheep, machines on their range, helicopters, cars, and trucks, and now the added insult, the struggle to find oil under the Western ground where these animals live. The Bureau of Land Management is supposed to see that they are safe and that they are kept at workable, manageable levels on the Bureau's 258 million acres. The Bureau oversees about 30,000 horses. At prescribed intervals, a number of horses are rounded up (called a "gather") by helicopters and cowboys and the animals have uncertain fates. A particularly interesting part of the article deals with efforts to try a contraceptive solution to reduce the numbers of the fertile mares, but Fuller says that the Bureau is cool to the idea. What's going to happen to these horses who many feel represent the spirit of America?