Why is this okay?

While at the auction yesterday I saw countless riding horses. For the most part they seemed pretty "broke". From a far all seemed okay with the horses, but if you took the time to look at them hanging out in the pens un-tacked you could see the truth. Horses with bloody mouth corners, sores in the cinch area, spur marks, and it goes on. One horse had no hair left where the cinch was at. This wasn't just a few horses with injuries from the tack, this was the majority! It is amazing what horses will endure! If we saw these type of injuries on dogs from our equipment it would be considered animal cruelty! But lets face the cold hard facts...hitting horses is considered an acceptable training method. As long as it is acceptable to whip them in public it will be acceptable to use any force necessary to get what you want out of them. Why is this okay? Why is creating open sores on them considered an acceptable training method. Is it because they are big and can hurt us so we must hurt them first?? Dogs are capable of injuring a human, but it is still considered cruelty to use excess force with them. Our views on training dogs has changed over the years, just maybe it will change in the horse world too! I don't know that I will ever get the answers I am looking for. I find that as the years go and as I learn more I am more in tolerant of what is even considered nice training methods in the horse world. The thing I find interesting about training,  is that I am considered an outsider and get ridiculed by professional horse people because I use food while training my horses. In fact it took me a long time to figure out I didn't really care what other people thought of my methods because they work for me and my horses. Why is it that I get weird looks for not hurting my horses, but the guy hitting his horse over and over gets applause when the horse finally does whatever it was supposed to do. Nothing will change until the majority of people change their mindset of what is considered acceptable training. The funny thing is is that a lot of people will tell me it isn't acceptable, but they aren't willing to change their ways. If faced with a horse that wouldn't do something for them they would up the pressure until they caused enough pain for the horse to do whatever was required. In fact I was that person, when push came to shove I reverted back to old methods with Navi. Once I stepped away completely though and said no more I have a much happier more willing horse. It was hard to take the leap, not because I feared it wouldn't work, but because I feared what others would think. I knew it would work, but I also knew I had to be ready to defend my stance and my methods.  I am not perfect, but everyday I set out to be a better horse person and trainer. And everyday I hope someone will see my pain free way of training and want that for their horses. Someday maybe we will see horses as an animal that feels pain just as we do. 

Too Many Horses

Yesterday was a cool rainy day in our area, so we decided to spend the day at the horse auction. Nothing like making the day a little more depressing, right!? Actually I have always enjoyed visiting the auctions because it was something my grandfather and I did every summer when I visited.

Now of course they aren't nearly as fun as when I was a small child running around just enjoying the all the horses. Now I see more. I see the hurt and fear in some of the horses eyes. I see just how bad the market is. I see just how many horses we are breeding only to send to slaughter. (Again my disclaimer on slaughter. I am for slaughter, but I feel we should have slaughter in the US so it can be regulated.) Speaking of breeding, I feel that is where the problem is at. Too many back yard breeders thinking they can make money off the babies. When the truth of the matter is we have too many horses! There are not enough homes even for the good ones. I saw some extremely well broke nice looking horses go for around 1,000 dollars. There were weanlings and yearlings going for 50 to 70 dollars. Now of course there are the exceptions. A few extremely well bred weanlings went for around 400-700 dollars, and some really nice adult horses that could work cows went for around 5-6,000 dollars. The average seemed to fall in the 1,400 dollar range for a trained horse. I suppose the market is slowly getting better since last year most babies went for 1-25 dollars. Regardless of price, the fact that they had around 500 horses to sale in a one day sale is a lot especially when they will have another sale in 4 weeks. Once a month nearly a thousand horses are sold in a two day period right here in my town. Now lots of people do come from out of state to sale horses here. However, them traveling all the way here tells me our market must be better than theirs to make it worth the time and fuel.
All this combined tells me the horse market is flooded just like dogs,cats, and other small critters. Too many horses, not enough homes. They have become throw away animals like cats and dogs. If you don't want it any more just loose sale through the ring and go buy another one. Now obviously not every horse that goes through the loose sale goes to slaughter. Some go to great homes, other goes to just okay homes, and some go to slaughter. Just as not every horse that is consigned to the main sale goes to a great home, some of those go to slaughter. Some times slaughter is the most humane option for them. Well actually just being humanely euthanized would be the best option, but people are too cold hearted for that.

This horse should have been euthanized long before making it to the yard. Shame on its owners for allowing this! Now it must endure the long trip to Canada for slaughter.

Hopefully one day people will stop breeding indiscriminately so just maybe there will be less horses neglected, abused, and thrown away.

Here are some pictures from my day. We left around 3pm and it was far from over.

Weanling

Same weanling as above just showing the number because that is all she is now...just a number. She loved having her butt scratched!

Horse in the main sale

Another in the main sale

Pen of loose horses sold. Every color and age imagined.

consigned to main sale

Loose horse pen

more of the loose horses, most went to slaughter.

more loose horses

Even mini horses are finding their way into the loose horse sale ring. The bigger one was blind in one eye. 

Off Roading

Our view once we climbed the hill.

Willow ready to head out

So yesterday my friend T and I decided to hit the trails. It was a last minute decision on my part. I knew there was a good chance we would be out for at least 2 hours, so I decided I better eat my beef jerky before we headed out since I was getting hungry and it was 9:30am. Neither of us had a game plan therefore we just started riding. We went out a ways and decided to take one of the trails up to the top of the ridge. Except part of the way up T says to me I think we are still on the road, and as I look around I realize we are on a cow or deer path, but not the road. No biggy it was still a good path and we were headed the direction we wanted to be. Soon enough our path comes to an end, but the top is in sight. T who is ahead says it looks like we can make it if we angle up the hill. Okay I am good with that, so we start up avoiding logs, branches and rocks. Willow was doing a great job getting us up safely. It was proving to be harder than we thought. T and I both decide about half way up we better get off and walk the horses the rest of the way as the terrain and hill is just getting to hard to ride up. We get off and start up very slowly. At this point turning around wasn't really an option as going down looked a lot scarier than just getting to the top. It was probably the hardest thing I have ever done with my horses. Willow almost fell once when she slipped on a rock it scared me to death, but she recovered and we continued on our way. Once we made it to the top we let the horses eat grass and I caught my breath. I told T I needed to make sure I hit the gym more often if I rode with her, or maybe I don't need the gym if she keeps taking me on rides where I have to hike more than ride, lol. Willow was a champ, she got us through that together and I couldn't have been more proud of her.

The clouds had cleared by then and it was a beautiful view of the mountains.

Once on top of the ridge we found the road again :)