Thursday, February 18, 2010

Thursday thoughts

The week got away from me. Somedays even I don't know how I get it all done.....heck, somedays I don't know IF I got it all done. I am always busy.

But some things stay the same.......phone calls and email inquiries........can we take an old horse in?
Can we take a three month old filly in?
It drives me crazy.
What the heck were you thinking when you bred your mare?
Three months old and now it is too much work......?
HUH?
Three months old and now you have to move and can't take the horses?
Have you had an IQ test?
Did you make a plan?
NO..you didn't and now a baby will suffer for it. You heap guilt on me on the phone.......if I don't take her, you will take her to the auction.
She doesn't have a chance.
They slaughter babies too you know.
Especially unregistered garden variety babies with no handling.
I am not the guilty one here....
YOU are.
I work my butt off everyday to provide and care for horses who didn't get a chance due to folks like you. These are living beings folks......not some stuffed furniture......not a bicycle to simply discard.
Here is a news flash for you.........I cannot take in every horse who is no longer wanted....not because I am heartless but because I have a plan..I have a limit........I have a threshhold.......rescues cannot just "solve" your problem when you lay a guilt trip on them. The responsible thing........that is what you should do........put the blood on your own hands where it belongs.

Somedays it is hard to be positive about rescuing horses. You feel overwhelmed....helpless......there are just so many. It never stops. Just when you think you have seen the worst of the worst.....something else comes along that leaves you speechless and empty. Empty......that is how I feel when I see a starved horse. There is no making any sense of it.............

Horses are expensive, for those of you thinking about horse ownership........write a plan, budget, plan again...........the cost of the horse is the cheapest thing about horse ownership.........vet bills can slay you........food bills are continuous, shoeing/hoof trimming is a regular expense, saddles, bridles, supplements, board bills........de-worming, dental work.........
and a foal?
plan on two to three years of raising, training, feeding, vetting.......HANDLING.........let's not forget handling. Ill mannered horses are the first on the slaughter bus. Nobody wants your unhandled large yearling and especially if he is a garden variety back yard bred "just plain" horse who is still intact.

I will toss and turn tonight thinking of ways to help unfortunate horses.....I will have heartache tomorrow about the filly that I cannot save.....and I will feel extreme sadness for the old horse who is turned into the auction yard because he can't keep up anymore. There is only so much I can do.
Somedays it doesn't feel like enough.

Pony Up fortune for tomorrow;

Hold your head high so you can see beyond the crowd.

1 comment:

Drillrider said...

I don't know how you do it, but remember that it makes a HUGE difference for the horses you "DO" save. You just can't save them all.