“shocked with a prod that can deliver what he described as much 6,000 volts of painful electricity.”
Well...I’ve got an electric fence around some 8 or 9 acres of pasture for my eight horses. According to the manufacturer it’s charge is up to 10,000 volts, on a fence up to five miles in length. At some point, every one of those critters has actually popped his or her nose onto that wire. They jump and dart away pretty quick; they squeal in surprise. But, none of them have EVER been injured by the fence...the amperage is far too low to be injurious. Citing voltage only is a scare tactic used by the PETA folks and their wannabe imitators to raise peoples’ hackles and rouse the rabble.
Folks who supply critters to rodeos, in my experience, are much more humane and conscientious in their care than many one- and two-horse families.
In fact, the family horse is under greater threat of cruelty now, thanks to the folks at PETA and the others who were successful in stopping horse slaughter operations in the US in recent years. Now, many older horses are being simply turned out, turned loose in national forests, state forests, or just turned loose, because their owners have no idea how to manage the geriatric needs of older horses.
The real criminals, here, are PETA and their imitators...
I worked at several horse farms over the years and I was the unofficial electric fence tester. It was never intentional but I was constantly touching the fencing.
That kind of zap is no worse that a hard tap with a whip or a jab with a spur and it gets the equal amount of attention. Heck, my dog has an underground electric fence and I still occasionally zap myself carrying her collar off the property. Same voltage, no biggie.
And nearly 20,000 ohms.