Posted on 03/12/2008 5:29:47 PM PDT by SJackson
A few weeks ago, The Country Today carried a photograph I had taken of a cute little girl petting an unattractive horse as it lay in a pasture near Beloit. What I saw was a child who could see the beauty within her friend and ignore the lack of beauty on the outside.
One of our readers saw something different.
The owner of the boarding stable where the picture was taken called me to say she had received a copy of the photo with an attached note accusing her of abusing and starving her animals and a comment to the effect that the sender - "Pat" by signature - would NEVER entrust her with the care of a horse.
The accused, Sue Knueppel, thought it was a joke at first, because someone had called the police a few weeks earlier for having a happy horse flat on its side sound asleep in the sunshine in the same pasture. The do-gooder thought it was dead. It was probably someone who thinks horses only sleep standing up.
Just to set the record straight, Sue has eight to 10 horses on the property, some hers, some boarded, all of them well fed, all well cared for and all visited by the farrier and vet on a regular basis.
The mare pictured is one of those gangly animals that is all angles with unattractive features that just never seems to fill out no matter how much she is fed, but her owner loves her just the same. It is sometimes easy to forget that we all know people who are gangly, all angles and unattractive, but we don't charge the landlord with abuse or starvation.
I'm giving "Pat" the benefit of the doubt by assuming that he/she had the animal's best interests at heart, but at what point do "Pat's" good intentions pave the way to abuse of another kind?
I've watched 4-H and FFA students at goat shows being verbally admonished for cutting off their animals' ears. The fact is, God saw fit to design the LaMancha breed without ears.
In the dairy barn, it's the visitor complaining - usually loudly - about all the bones sticking out on those poor, starved cows. I wonder if those same folks notice what happens to their own hip and shoulder bones when they get down on all fours.
With the sheep, someone is generally ragging to anyone who can hear about the metal ear tags that look so uncomfortable. Never mind the fact that animal identification is one of the elements in safeguarding our food supply and that the complainer probably has a pierced ear or two.
I had a farmer tell me once that a passerby came roaring up his driveway wailing about some wild animal having attacked a cow "and her guts are all over the place." When they got to the field, there was a nice little calf wobbling to its feet while the cow sniffed the afterbirth.
I've had a frantic woman insist that I get my goat's head unstuck from the feeder at a county fair, only to have the goat back up on its own power with a mouthful of hay and look at me like, "What's with you?"
There are normal ups and downs of herd management, and an outsider isn't going to see the big picture.
There are farmers who have sick, dying and unthrifty animals that can look pretty sorry to an outsider. Nevermind that the vet is making regular visits, and that humans in the same situation would look just as bad.
There are farmers who get a call from the local Humane Society for having a scruffy, sway-backed, loose-jointed collection of bones out in the pasture. Nevermind that the owner chose to let the ancient family pet graze through its remaining days in sunshine instead of languishing in a dark barn.
There is the farmer whose name is tossed around the coffee shop for letting his steers stand around an empty round-bale feeder in the pasture. Never mind that he wants the feeder empty so it can be moved and that the animals filled up on hay at the barn.
We've all heard uncomfortable, horrible or laughable stories about how other people misinterpret our work as stewards of land and animals. The not-so-picture-perfect horse and her little girl is just another one.
The whole affair makes me wonder what kind of damage is done when people who want to "do the right thing" get it all wrong. I don't want abuse to be ignored, but I also don't want the ignorant to be abusive.
If you’d like to be on or off this Upper Midwest/outdoors/rural list please FR mail me. And ping me is you see articles of interest.
Good article. Thanks. I’d like to be on your list, please.
You should see how excited they get when I explain to them how we “throw the cow over the fence some hay.”
Never attribute to malice what can be assigned to simple stupidity.
ping
Interesting article and right on the money.
I do always get a little worried someone's going to stop or call animal control when all three of my horses are layed out flat in the pasture. It looks like a scene from The Plague. ;~)
Beaker ping :~)
"But he's doing it...in fits and starts!"
"Every single boy pig I've ever known has done it that way."
Cheers!
Go visit any center city Government Indoctrination Center ('public' school) and you'll get your answer. Then understand that those folk are the main inhabitants of our legislatures.
I was curious about that, too. I’d love to see the picture.
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