We Are Where We Are--So Let's Face It

It's never been my intention for this blog to turn into yet another place for people to argue their positions about horse slaughter. As a debate subject, it's never-ending, often disintegrates to name-calling and finger-pointing, and doesn't achieve its intended aim: No one from one side ever changes anyone's mind on the other side.

So instead of throwing more logs on the passion bonfire, let's face up to some facts instead. Here's where we are; let's just start dealing with it.

* There is little likelihood that any kind of factory-processing of live equines into useable byproducts will ever return to this country. South Dakota legislators added fresh evidence to that statement just last week, when they rejected a proposal--S.B. 170--to build an equine processing plant in that mostly rural state.

* Legal exportation of horses for this purpose is likely to come to halt as well. "The killers"--those who attend horse auctions, or who answer ads for free horses with intentions of shipping and selling the animals to meat processors--are about to be eliminated as a horse-market layer.

* This will leave horses without their traditional, by-the-liveweight livestock value--which is close to being gone already. This will create paradigm shifts with far-reaching consequences--some predictable, others not so predictable. But you know what? Humans are an adaptable species; we'll adjust, because we'll have to.

* As part of the adjustment, we'll each become more familiar with the ways and means of equine death and disposal--because the responsibility for it will rest with every individual horse owner.

* When all's said and done, this singular fact will remain: Every horse, with or without a loving home, will someday become a carcass that needs to be dealt with.

* So let's move on from slaughter as a subject, and open up a new one--that of individual disposal plans. You consider yourself a responsible horse owner, right? You're not one of those who'd just turn a horse loose to fend for itself, or dump it onto some unsuspecting person's property. You're not going to pretend that your horse will never die, or ever need to be put out of its misery. What are your plans? What method of euthanasia will you choose, and what will you do with each of the bodies?

Donate Your Horse, or Have It Killed: Same Price

In my area (maybe yours, too?), I'm noticing an increase in the number of horses advertised as free for the taking. And as the paradigms of horse ownership continue to shift in America (see some of my previous blog entries), I guess this isn't so surprising. Especially when you consider such pieces of information as the following:

* My area's also home to a major land-grant university, with a veterinary teaching hospital and a research herd comprised of donated horses. But guess what? Donating a horse there is not free to the donor. Instead, the university charges the owner $250 to take the animal off his or her hands. When the research herd is at capacity--and I'm told by a longtime worker there that it's now PAST normal capacity--donated horses are sold for a rehoming fee paid to the university.

* The university also offers on-demand equine euthanasia and disposal services. Perhaps not coincidentally, the fee's the same as the one for donation: $250. The same worker says more horses have been brought in this winter for this E/D service than he's seen in his almost 30 years of employment at the vet school. "It's still cheaper than having a vet come to your place to put a horse down, and to pay a renderer or backhoe contractor to deal with the remains," he pointed out. "I never thought I'd live to see the day, but we're turning into a disposal station for horses. And even though we've raised the prices, demand is not slowing down. Instead, it's going up."

Your thoughts?

Some Things I See Coming

Ever since I made my previous post about the U.S. horse economy veering toward uncharted territory with the moves to stop all routes to slaughter, I've been fixated on what may be coming next. So for what it's worth, here are some of the things I see coming as a new infrastructure is forced into being, to replace the one society now finds repugnant:

* An annual tax per head on every horse we own. This is how the government will seek to fund the equine holding facilities, "re-homing" operations, and disposal stations it will see a need to build as the unwanted-horse crisis continues to build. The Seattle Post Intelligencer just ran an editorial calling for this very sort of tax.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/347789_erbe18.html

* Mandatory microchipping of every horse. These ID chips will be used for multiple purposes, including ability to track down and fine/prosecute any owner who abandons a horse. As the rate of abandonment accelerates, this will come to pass sooner rather than later.

* Mandatory facilities registration, accompanied by inspections. Horse owners will pay fees toward these measures, too. This already has a name: NAIS, for National Animal Identification System. The general public will buy into this as a way to protect itself against a form of bioterrorism.

http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/index.shtml

* Mandatory application for and payment of a "transport voucher," any time you wish to move a horse to or from your property. This will be used as a way of funding reinforcement of a federal ban against transporting a horse for the purpose of slaughter, once that's been made illegal.

* Federally built, regulated, and funded equine euthanasia/disposal stations (see my first point). Whether people care to acknowledge this or not, every horse eventually ends up as a half-ton carcass that needs to be disposed of somehow. If not turned into usable meat/hoof/hide byproducts, it becomes garbage--buried or composted on private property, incinerated, dumped in a landfill, or dragged off for wild animals to feast on. I just read a statistic, published in the New York Times, stating that 138,000 fewer horses were processed in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in 2007 compared to 2006.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/us/11horse.html

If all 138,000 head were "humanely put down" instead, that'd add up to around 75,000 tons of horse carcasses to be dealt with in some manner. Or, put another way, that's over 7 million cubic feet of dead-horse mass to be disposed of in some fashion. A year. How long do you suppose our "not in MY neighborhood!" society will put up with that before getting the government involved? Especially when you consider that the carcass of a horse killed with barbituates is considered to be toxic, and a threat to the environment?

* As an answer to the toxic-carcass problem, a new service provider will appear: The person willing and able to euthanize your horse by gunshot. In my area, such a service is already available, if you know the numbers to call. However, those who provide the service will be forced underground, once those in the general public get wind of it. The idea of horses being put down by gunshot, commercially, will be as repugnant as that of slaughter.

* Federal taxation on every breeding. I don't think I need to explain this one. Just see all the above.

Into Uncharted Territory

You probably know that last year's closure of the U.S. horse slaughter plants did not keep U.S. horses from being slaughtered, but instead outsourced slaughter to Canada and Mexico.

You also may know that Congress is considering legislation that would ban transport of horses bound for (or even suspected of being bound for) slaughter in foreign countries--closing the doors, in effect, to abbatoirs.

What you may not know is that this would make the U.S. horse economy the first and only one in history--dating back to the dawn of man's deliberate taming and employment of the horse--to be forced to operate with no floor in value whatsoever. The FREE horse would become the new base standard against which horses offered for sale would compete (something that's already underway). The horse would become the only form of livestock to have no salvage value for meat, hoof, hide, horn, or feathers. (Ever see ads for "free cow"?)

There's a huge paradigm shift in that. None of us has ever experienced, or even heard stories told, of a horse culture and economy, that not have this level of value as its basis. For horsedom, the world has always been flat.

Unchartered waters...right up over the horizon. Where the New World will have an utterly different shape than the old.

I've often wondered what it must have been like to have been a horseperson in the early years of the 20th century. Then, the explosive spread of the automobile made horses obsolete, plunging the horse population from 20 million to 2 million in less than 20 years. Whole branches of the horse industry--from harness and carriage makers to wheelwrights and livery stable owners--lost their livelihoods and disappeared. The horse was scorned as antiquated, not deemed to be worth keeping around by any but a relative few. Hands-on horse knowledge disappeared from the American experience, to massive extent. Horses went from being assets to liabilities.

It took a whole reinvention of the horse industry, from utilitarian to recreational, to bring it back from the brink.

I may not need to wonder much longer about what it was like to have age-old conceptions about horses and their perceived value turned over and sunk like one of Magellen's ships, nor to see what might bob back to the surface after the wreck. It's beginning to look more and more like I'll get to find out, first-hand.

Name Your Favorite Training Tool

Not long ago, my fellow Horse & Rider editors and I had a dialogue about our favorite training tools. "Basic snaffle," said one person. "My work saddle," said another. "Couldn't get by without the riding arena," said someone else.

Those are meaningful training tools to me as well. But my favorite training tool, the one I use each and every day, without fail, didn't make anyone else's list.

It's a heavy-duty eyebolt, screwed to a framing upright in each horse's stall, and used as a place to tie him. Each one is centered on a wall, so the horse can move from side to side. Each horse spends some time tied to his stall wall, almost every day. And is the better-trained horse because of it.

How so?

* He learns to accept a form of restraint--one that's pain-free, but that nevertheless limits his options for doing as he pleases. This is an important lesson for any horse to learn, if he's to be handled safely throughout his life.

* He acquires patience. He can fuss and paw all he likes, but I won't untie him until he's standing quietly and acceptingly, with a hind foot cocked. This reinforced skill comes in extremely handy any time I need to tie him somewhere, whether it's alongside the trailer at a horse show, or during some kind of emergency on a trail ride.

* He learns to respect and obey my commands that move him out of my space. Since he can move freely from side to side, I expect him to step away away from me with his "rear wheels" whenever I cluck to him and step toward him. I reinforce that each time I groom him, adjust a stable blanket, saddle him, or clean his stall. He learns that stepping TOWARD me with his rear end is unacceptable, under any circumstances. It makes him respectfully safer to handle even when he isn't tied to his eyebolt.

* He figures out that I'm the equivalent of a herd's "boss mare." I can control his access to food, water, and freedom of movement. I have the keys to his ability to meet those simple needs, which in turn engenders his respect.

* The final beauty? I can get much of the effect-value from my simple training tool while doing OTHER things around the barn.

Of course, like any training tool, my stall-wall eyebolts do nothing if they aren't put to use. The fanciest training tool in the world can't train a thing if it's left to gather dust.

Which is why, if you were to drop by while I was out doing things in the barn, chances are you'd find several placid horses, tied up in their stalls, and having their learning reinforced without their even knowing it.

The Upward $$ Tick Continues

Our farrier was just here, and before he left after this latest appointment, he let us know that his prices would go up between now and his next visit. Not by a lot--$5 per horse--and I'm certainly not complaining. He does wonderful work, and I know it's not cheap to run that vehicle of his up and down the road.

Still, I can't help comparing what I'm about to be paying for work on our horses' feet to what we paid just five years ago, before a steady series of upticks took place:

Trims: $20/head then, going up to $35/head next month.

New set of shoes: $65 then, going up to $95 next month.

We have our horses' feet worked on every six weeks, or about eight times a year. The math adds up an additional $120/year for a horse without shoes, and $240/year for one that's regularly shod.

Just one more reason why we've pared our little herd down to three head, as opposed to the five or six on the rollcall only a few years back.

Does Horse Person Equal Dog Person?

Have you ever noticed how the people who have horses also tend to be people who have dogs? And how their dog breeds of choice tend to run in trends that change from time to time?

There's been the Blue Heeler trend...the Jack Russell trend...the Australian Shepherd trend...the Miniature Australian Shepherd trend...the Corgi trend...and most likely, more that I managed to miss.

For the last 20 years or so, my dog breed of choice has been the Schippeke, that small black dog with the fox-like face and tail-less silhouette. They're highly intelligent; long-lived; big enough to take care of themselves around horses, but small enough to fit easily into the truck (and at the foot of the bed); relatively inexpensive to feed; pretty much self-grooming; and useful as watchdogs and vermin hunters. Not to mention highly personable.

I've had up to three at a time--always an amusing sight, as they surge forward in public on their leashes. (They have that sled-dog urge to tow things when they're harnessed up. Though it would take about 40 of them to get the job done, I've always thought they'd do a remarkable job of moving loads on a sled.)

How 'bout you? Are there pooches as well as ponies in your personal picture? Brag rights officially offered here!

My Socks Are Officially Blown Off

In a casual email exchange yesterday, a West Coast horse friend mentioned that she'd just taken delivery of a new load of hay, and that she'd had to pay $16 a bale for it.

She didn't say how big the bales were, but I did some math on my own:

* 50-pound bales @ $16= $640/ton
* 65-pound bales @ $16= $492/ton
* 80-pound bales @ $16= $400/ton

Maybe I've just lived in rural Idaho too long, but having to pay those prices in order to support one's horses is inconceivable to me.

If this is an example of what's happened to the supply side of our horse economy, it's no wonder that the rescue organizations are crying the blues over the exploding number of unwanted horses ending up at their gates. Nor is it any wonder that ranchers are complaining about the horses being abandoned on their land.

Wow. Hay at $400 a ton or more.

There went my socks.

Let's Get Past the Band-Aid Mentality

This is a period in which many of the horse-world's stakeholders are worried about its future. And for good reasons.

Most of horsedom's trackable numbers--registrations, transfers of ownership, show entries, association memberships, horse prices--are in decline, while the costs of horsekeeping are rising. The pinch on individual budgets is ballooning upward to have negative effects on the budgets of breed and sport groups. With less money coming in, there's less money to get things done, and that tends to breed dissension in the ranks--which only complicates the task of figuring out how to get along on less.

Might as well come right out and say it: The horse world is in recession. And I sure wish we were seeing more evidence of big-picture thinking when it comes to survival strategies.

Instead, we're being overrun by the Band-Aid theorists who think that the way to fix the horse world's woes is to tape more show classes, more futurities, more donated belt buckles (or other prizes), more registration categories, more ill-thought incentive schemes, and more nickle-and-dime-ya fees onto its ailing body.

The belief that more toys and entitlement programs are the answer is like adding trendy appliances and a home-entertainment addition on to a house with a leaking roof and crumbling foundation--with the idea of making it more valuable and attractive to buyers. Ain't gonna happen.

The indicator-numbers are showing us that our problems lie not with the bells and whistles we offer, but with an infrastructure that's too big to be supported by the numbers of people who can still afford to stay in it. This is a shakedown period, in which people have real bottom-line issues that'll determine whether they ride out the storm or jump ship.

How can we blame those who choose to jump, when the proposed solutions to the leaking boat amount to nothing but adding more cargo?

Quick Question for You

I'd like to know how you found my blog. Did you read about it in Horse & Rider? Click on a link from equisearch.com or from HorseandRider.com? Get a referral from someone? Stumble on it somehow?

just curious, I guess--so fill me in, if you would.

Our Horse Dreams and Goals for 2008

Naturally, I can't let the first day of the new year go by without doing some musing on how I'd like the year to shape up for me, horsewise. You may be having similar thoughts.

On my dreams list:

* That Tiffany, who had stifle surgery three weeks ago, will defy her prognosis and be sound enough to have a useful life.
* That Riley, who spent two of the last three riding seasons laid up with stupid-horse-trick injuries, will stay out of trouble well enough to get more than a few saddle miles on him in 2008.
* That Tank, who officially turns 29 years old today, will be blessed with another year of good health.
* That Gussie, if we decide to breed her one more time, will get in foal as easily as she's done before and have an event-free pregnancy.

On my goals list:

* To make time to ride Riley at least twice a week.
* To do at least one horse activity that's outside my usual realm and comfort zone.
* To inventory all my horse equipment and either sell or donate the items I no longer use frequently.
* To finish scraping and painting the rest of the three-board arena and pasture fence!

You?