This subject has been a thorn in my side for almost as many years as I have been back in horses as an adult. So… quite a few. I’ll admit that I never really thought about it as a child. I read a ton of horse books and had horses of my own but I had a very skewed view on end of life for horses. I had this rosy view that all horses were loved by their owners, ridden or used however they saw fit and then when they couldn’t be ridden they probably passed away in their sleep under a sunny oak tree somewhere and were buried by their loving owners. I never thought about chronically lame horses, sick horses, horses that were untrainable and/or unusable in any way.
Since then, I’ve been on all sides and had experience on all ends of the spectrum. I have rescued horses from bad situations, I have adopted horses from a rescue and I have sent horses to known kill buyers. I’m sure it sounds like I am the most confused horse person on the planet, so let me explain how and where I am coming from and how my personal viewpoint has changed over the years.
When I first got back into horses as an adult, I started following horse rescues and seriously considered adopting. As many of you know from reading my blog, I’m kind of a soft hearted sucker for a sob story. And a lot of these horses have some real sob stories. I followed several different rescues and ended up adopting 2 ponies, 2 horses and 2 donkeys from rescues. Here’s my take on that situation: Both rescues had adoption contracts where they owned the animals for 5 years after adopting. Adopters had to turn in yearly vet check forms, with photos, and prove that they had been getting the horse regularly visited by farriers. If the rescue felt the horse wasn’t being taken care of properly, the equine could be repossessed. The adopter agreed to never sell said horse.
Sounds wonderful right? It’s a fairy tale. Most horse people live on a limited budget. And I would guess that most horse people want to use their horses for their personal hobby of choice; riding, driving, whatever it may be. What happens when that horse is no longer rideable and you can’t afford two horses? What happens when that horse’s vet bills start creating a strain on the monthly family budget? A person may consider selling, rehoming or putting the animal to sleep. Not when you adopt. Your only option is to return the equine to the rescue, IF they will take it back. If not, you are required to keep it and provide for its care. And if they do take it back, prepare for the barrage of hate mail from the people who can’t believe you are so cold and heartless as to want to RIDE your horse.
I also watched the two rescues I interacted with soak their “followers” (as it truly is like a cult) out of thousands of dollars each year to feed their own personal horses. People donated every spare dollar to hay drives and spring vet check drives and “we want an indoor” drives. And all the while I was thinking, maybe I should get my 501c and see if people will build me an indoor arena too? Or even just pay for the hay my horses eat all winter long? It was like watching a sinking ship and people so blinded by doing the right thing that they couldn’t even do basic math. I decided that the best thing for my family would be to return our adopted equines and wash our hands of rescues forever. It was heartbreaking and unbelievably hard to drop them back off with the rescues that were overcrowded. I watched as an older gelding I had adopted was one of many put down to “tick related illness”. Seemed to be a real epidemic at that rescue. Another older pony I had returned went from being 21 years old (according to the paperwork they gave me when I adopted him, blind and with cushings btw) to being 40 a couple years later when he was returned. Of course, 40 sounded a lot better and they were able to soak a few more people for donations for his care. His sob story was worth so much more at 40 then 23. After watching these rescues for several years, I vowed to never be sucked in by a horse rescue or horse “rescue mentality” ever again.
And it is a definite mentality. There is a large number of people that want to be seen as rescuers, heroes, saviors and they will go to great lengths to get that title and perpetuate it. I do understand. It feels great to take something that needs you and improve its life situation. It was always so rewarding to take the ponies/horses that we took in get fatter, better feet, and some training. But I never claimed to be a rescue or thought of myself as a savior.
The current way I see this happening, day after day is with a local sales barn’s “rescue page”. The owner of the sale barn is a known kill buyer but came up with a much more profitable solution that sending those unwanted horses on the long truck to Canada or Mexico. He posts select horses, donkeys and minis for sale in a “rescue” pen and offers them for sale. Often times these horses have lameness issues, are partially blind or unknown training. They do evaluate the horses to the best of their ability in a tiny pen and ride some of them before putting a description up on their website. I don’t blame this gentleman at all. He’s a smart businessman. I just can’t believe how ridiculous some of the suckers are who fall for his scheme.
He purchases these horses at rock bottom prices. Horses no one at the auctions want for some reason or another. He slaps a couple extra hundred on, puts a short description on a website and tells people they have until Friday or “OMG!” they will ship to slaughter. And the bleeding hearts come out by the thousands. Again, I don’t have a problem with it. It’s your money, or is it? You guessed it, lots of these people can’t afford the few hundred dollars it costs to “bail” out the horse. So they ask for (and get) donations. And people donate to shipping costs. And people donate to quarantine costs - because most of these horses will leave the sales barn with some sort of sickness.
Here’s what blows my mind:
- If you need a donation for a horse that costs less than $1000 (and they all cost less than $1000), you shouldn’t be buying a horse. That purchase price is just the TIP of the iceberg for you in the coming lifetime of owning a horse.
- Most of these horses need expensive vet care. I just bought a bottle of antibiotic to help our horses get over a little bug, it was not cheap. A regular farrier call for a horse with zero issues is $30 - $40 a visit. These horses need dewormer, feed, shoes, corrective work, etc… That $500 bail fee is going to be a drop in the bucket for your new “rescued” horse. Most of the people rescuing them don’t have a clue about that or even regular vet/farrier care.
- Training. A lot of these horses completely lack training and the people buying them have no clue how to go about training them. Much less handle a horse that is pushy on the ground or not handled at all. So they will hire a trainer down the road when the horse is feeling better. In the meantime they will love and hug and pet their new horsie, if they can even get close to it, and turn it into a bigger raging monster than it already was. This is evidenced by the number of posts from people on a sister Facebook page about “saved” horses.
Here people like to share their stories. Of course many of those stories, and I say stories because they are just that much fictional garbage, are that the horse must have been abused because it has a scar here or there and just looks at them with that certain scared and abused look in their eye. I tell you, some of these people have futures in reading minds because I have been around horses for well over 30 years and I’ve never seen “I’ve been abused but I know you’re here to save me and I can’t thank you enough” in my horse’s eyes. I’ve seen scared eye, pissed off eye (which we lovingly refer to as “side eye”), “you’re bringing the food and I love you eye” and relaxed eye. I must be doing it wrong.
I love that people think because a horse is scared it must have been abused. Sometimes horses are scared because, uhh… they don’t know people aren’t scary? Like why isn’t that obvious. Horses are flight animals, prey. A clinician once put it this way, “horses in flight mode can go a quarter of a mile with no thought”. Anyone who has ever been on a bolting, scared horse knows how true that is.
We recently got in an unhandled 2 year old. Unhandled, not abused. And one day I was an idiot in her stall and she got me. Struck me with her front foot on the back and calf when she was scared and felt threatened. Did I pet her and soothe her and say, “it’s okay baby?” No. I whooped her ass. Because I am boss mare and if you ever saw what a boss mare does when an uppity baby tries to establish dominance, you would know that our 2 year old got off, easy. I didn’t use my teeth and I don’t have hooves. There wasn’t a mark on her. And she wasn’t more scared of humans after. She was exactly the same EXCEPT she respected me and my space. In fact the more we work with her, and that sometimes means she gets her butt or shoulder spanked, the better she gets. No tiptoeing around her. We treat her like a horse, the big strong animal that she is, and demand respect. Which, if you know anything about horse psychology, makes her actually feel safer. Horses don’t want to be in control. They want you to be in control and be able to trust that you’ve got shit handled. When you’re all lovey dovey and hugs and kisses, they know you can’t protect them from a barn cat much less a cougar so they have to take their own safety into their own hands. That means spooking at shit and getting the hell away from anything scary. So way to go making your horse think you’re a pansy and they have to protect themselves from that Walmart bag which is of course hiding a horse eating boogie monster.
Me, being me and not knowing when to keep my mouth shut, I felt the need to finally post about it on the Facebook page. Last I looked over 220 folks either liked or loved what I had to say. Of course one lady had to remind me that a horse can be your friend. Umm… you lady, are part of the problem. Partner yes, friend no. Last time I tried to get China to sit down, watch a movie, drink wine and talk about our sex lives, it was a complete bust.
- For the love of PETE! Most of these horses in the rescue pen are not going to scary old slaughter houses. Slaughter houses do not want minis. Or donkeys. And especially not mini donkeys. You also can not ship blind horses. Or mares and foals. Or heavily pregnant mares. Or emaciated horses. There are fines, steep ones, for that kind of crap. Fines that make it so not worth it for a kill buyer. Stop being a sucker. You might as well brand a scarlet S on your forehead. Kill buyers typically won’t even BUY these horses, unless they have an avenue to dump them. So kudos to you for giving them one.
- If you are so worried about horses in these situations, get your ass to a local auction. Horses like those in the pen go through EVERY single auction at every single auction house. Get there, buy one from the seller and stop funneling more money into the pocket of the kill buyer you supposedly want to stop from taking horses to slaughter. You’re doing it wrong. Or better yet, buy one of these horses that Farmer John has been trying to sell on Facebook, Craigslist or Dreamhorse for the past year and no one would even click on his ad for the $500 yearling. But once it goes in the rescue pen and “OMG it’s going to ship by Friday”, you’ll pay $625, plus quarantine, plus a hauler and a vet check.
In conclusion, you are not rescuing a horse. You are buying a horse. If you are choosing to buy a horse, it is your responsibility to improve that horse’s chance of not ending up on a kill truck again. I have a few friends who have used the pen to get in decent horses that need a little extra work. They buy them, train them up and sell them. They are doing it right. Get that horse healthy, get it trained and do something with it. Stop telling everyone you rescued a horse. Stop telling everyone that your horse has been abused. Stop treating your horse like it has been abused. And you will be doing the right thing for you, the horse industry in general and the very horse you think you’re saving.
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