So, I'm just now getting started on my blog. I decided to create this to make it separate from my personal website and from the affiliations I have with various anti-soring groups. So please bear with me as I work on this. I hope you will find it worth the wait!
~ Andrea
"Today, Tennessee Walking Horses are known throughout the industry
as the breed that shows abused and tortured horses."
~ Jim Heird, Ph.D., Do Right By The Horse, February 2010
"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity,
you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."
~ St. Francis of Assisi
5 comments:
Andrea
As usual you are brilliant in your approach and dedication to these horses who cannot defend themselves.
I cried again seeing the pictures of the abused horses. I remember seeing worse. Horses held up by chains slung over wooden beams because they couldn't stand at ALL; but were still going to be shown. The purpose of keeping them strung up was to save their energy just so they could last through one damn class. When these atrocities are done to a human being it's called Torture.
Readers need to know that horses actually die on the field during classes. When they first collapse a fire hose with its tremendous pressure is used to try to get the poor beast to stand up. But some have already mercifully passed on and never feel the sting of the water.
God bless you for putting up this website.
Jean Oliver - proud owner of two naturally trained TWH's
P.S.
I think we should get an article in here that also discusses Stewarding. I would guess most readers and owners don't even know about this additional abuse endured by these noble animals.
Andrea,
The new Blog is wonderful. What a wealth of information you are sharing. I will be a frequent visitor. Thank you!
I have never heard of Stewarding.??
Sorry--I screwed up on my original post about stewarding!
Stewarding is a horrible practice to "train" the horse to stand still while being inspected by the DQP. The horse cannot show signs of flinching or pain when being palpated. So the idea is that if they make the consequences of flinching worse than the pain of being sored, then they won't flinch.
Horses are stewarded at home or on the show grounds before being inspected. Someone stands to the side while another person palpates the horse. That person has something REALLY brutal--such as a baseball bat--to hit the horse with as hard as they can when it flinches. The horse has to be hit really hard but not so hard that it damages the horse. Some "trainers" will steward by burning the inside of their nostrils with a lit cigarette or hot farrier's tool. It's a scar that isn't visible. At the shows, DQPs will even tell exhibitors that their horse is showing too much pain and they need to go steward him some more and come back for reinspection (reinspection is not allowed per the DQP rules). It's another horribly painful practice, all in the name of money....
OMG, will it never end! I had heard of the practice of 'training" them to not respond to the pain of exam but did not know it was called stewarding. The ways in which it is enforced are so totally sickening, I can hardly stand the thought. These poor animals. This MUST STOP!
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