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Body: ----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Martha
Date: Jan 29, 2008 2:52 PM
Reposted with thanks to:
Deborah~apis sive eloquentia~Praying for Peace
Bill Bryant
Mama Serene
Thanks for the heads up...i sent a message in reply so I can now save these instructions in saved messages and refer to as needed......big ty Mama Serene
Sistapray
Patriot Coins
Date: Jan 29, 2008 2:41 PM
Cursory Cleaning of your computer from Myspace~~REPOST
FOLKS: DO NOT COME BACK AND BLAME ME IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY (ESPECIALLY DELETING FILES IN THE %TEMP% DIRECTORY)
*****DO NOT DO THAT STEP IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH COMPUTERS.*****
That happened to mine everytime I tried to warn people about viruses and spelled out the virus.
It was actually picking up on the fact I was spelling the virus out like photobuck....e...t... (DOT) com (spelled normally and together).
This is cursory cleaning of your system that you should do often.
Greg Jayhan
Thank Our Veterans and Heroes Program
****************************************
Myspace clean cookies and temporary internet files
Get out of Myspace completely.
1) Delete your cookies.
2) Delete your temporary internet files.
3) Log back into Myspace and change your password.
4) Get out of Myspace.
5) Clean Cookies and Temporary Internet files again.
6) Run a "cursory or selected areas" virus/spyware/spamware scan on: My Documents and Documents and Settings folders. (although myspace hacker/viruses don't always show up)
7)Restart computer to flush a virus if in memory (shutdown-power off is best)
8)When your computer come back on Relogin into Myspace again and change your password again.
There is a pretty good free Anti-virus program: Google~ AVAST.
****************************************
THE NEXT IS FOR ADVANCED USERS ONLY:
****************************************
ALSO IF YOU KNOW COMPUTERS:
1) click ..==>Run,
2) type %temp% on the run line and click OK
It will open a window THAT SHOULD END IN "TEMP" ~~ MAKE SURE IT ENDS IN ..temp;
The entire line should be similar to:
C:..DOCUME~1..GregJ..LOCALS~1..Temp
(BEFORE DELETING THE "TEMP" FILE~~MAKE SURE IT ENDS IN ..temp).
3) Delete all those files on the right hand side of the screen.
(click on one file to "shade" it, press (at the same time) CTRL and A ~ (for all), and press the delete key on the keyboard, answer Yes to "if you want to delete all these files".
***My system normally has between 20 and 120 files in the Temp folder. I've seen systems with over 4000 files in the Temp Directory.
4) Restart the computer and
5) Relogin to Myspace and change your password again. Keep changing your password daily (or a couple times a day to begin with—then daily for awhile).
Greg Jayhan
Thank Our Veterans and Heroes Program
From: Fighting.4.Freedom.Designs™
Date: Jan 29, 2008 11:12 AM
It keeps saying that my account has been phished! Even after I change my password! 5 TIMES!!!!! What the hell do I do????
(of course this doesnt apply to any of MY horses......)LOL
Hock: Financial condition of all horse owners.
Stall: What your rig does at rush hour in an unfamiliar city on the way to a big horse show
A Bit: What you have left in your pocket after you've been to your favorite tack shop.
Fence: Decorative structure built to provide your horse with something to chew on.
Horse Auction: What you think of having after your horse bucks you off.
Pinto: Green coat pattern found on freshly washed light colored horses left unattended for 2 minutes.
Well Mannered: Hasn't stepped on, bitten, or kicked anyone for a week.
Rasp: Abrasive metal tool used to remove excess skin from ones knuckles.
Lunging: Popular training method in which a horse exercises their owner by spinning them in circles until dizzy.
Gallop: Customary gait a horse chooses when returning back to the barn.
Nicely Started: Lunges, but not enough health insurance to even think about riding him.
Colic: Gastrointestinal result of eating at horse fair food stands.
Colt: What your mare gives you when you want a filly.
Easy to Load: Only takes 3 hours, 4 men, a 50lb bag of oats, and a tractor with loader.
Easy to Catch: In a 10x10 stall.
Easy Rider: Rides good in a trailer; not to be confused with "ride-able".
Endurance Ride: End result when your horse spooks and runs away with you.
Hives: What you get when you receive the vet bill for your 6 horses, 3 dogs, 4 cats, and 1 donkey.
Hobbles: Walking gait of a horse owner after their foot has been stepped on by their horse.
Feed: Expensive substance used to manufacture manure.
Dog House: What you are in when you spend too much money on grooming supplies and pretty halters.
Light Cribber: We can't afford to build anymore fencing or box stalls for this buzz saw on four legs.
Three Gaited Horse: A horse that. 1) trips, 2) stumbles, 3) falls.
THE 12 "MOST IMPORTANT" THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW IF YOU OWN A HORSE.
-To induce labor in a mare? Take a nap.
-To cure equine constipation? Load them in a clean trailer.
-To cure equine insomnia? Take them in a halter class.
-To get a horse to stay very calm and laid back? Enter them in a liberty class.
-To get a horse to wash their own feet? Clean the water trough and fill it with fresh water.
-To get a mare to come in heat? Take her to a show.
-To get a mare in foal the first cover? Let the wrong stallion get out of his stall.
-To make sure that a mare has that beautiful, perfectly marked foal you always wanted? Sell her before she foals.
-To get a show horse to set up perfect and really stretch? Get him out late at night or anytime no one is a round to see him.
-To induce a cold snap in the weather? Clip a horse.
-To make it rain? Mow a field of hay.
-To make a small fortune in the horse business? Start with a large one.
"I've spent most of my life riding horses. The rest I've just
wasted." -Anonymous
By WILL GRAVES, AP Sports Writer
January 29, 2008
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- The image of Barbaro blazing down the stretch at Churchill Downs, all four hooves off the ground as the powerful bay colt crushed the field in the 2006 Kentucky Derby, is seared in Roy Jackson's memory.
It's the way Jackson prefers to think of Barbaro, whose thunderous surge left a field of 19 fellow 3-year-olds in his wake and whose courage after a breakdown at the Preakness two weeks later made him an icon.
When it came time to decide how best to honor the horse, who was euthanized on Jan. 29, 2007 from complications of the breakdown, there was only one place Roy Jackson and wife Gretchen felt Barbaro would feel at home: a short gallop from the site of his greatest triumph.
Barbaro's ashes and a bronze statue will be placed in front of an entrance gate at Churchill Downs sometime in 2009. The Jacksons announced plans for the memorial on the one-year anniversary of Barbaro's death, a day they called one of the most difficult of their lives.
Yet there was no sadness on Tuesday, only relief and joy.
The Jacksons agonized for months on where to place his ashes, which are currently in a closet in the family's Pennsylvania home. Ultimately, they chose place a where the public that inundated Barbaro's stall at the New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pa., with get-well cards, candy and gifts during his rehabilitation could pay tribute whenever they wanted.
"After the Derby and then when he got injured, he really became America's horse," Roy Jackson said. "We sort of felt an obligation that his remains and statue be erected some place where the general public could pay their respects."
As spectacular as the colt's career was -- his 6 1/2 -length win in the Derby was the widest margin of victory in 60 years -- it was Barbaro's battle to survive following the breakdown that made him an emotional touchstone for so many.
"His accomplishments as a racehorse are certainly rivaled by the courage and resolve he displayed after his injury," Churchill Downs president Steve Sexton said.
The Jacksons say they continue to be amazed at the outpouring of support for Barbaro, much of it from non-racing fans who were captivated by images of him wincing on the track at Pimlico Race Course following the injury and his heroic attempts to deal with the myriad of setbacks that ultimately proved too much.
"I don't think any of us know how widespread the interest was," Roy Jackson said. "We've gotten a tremendous amount of response and we continue on almost a daily basis to get some correspondence and very articulate art on what he meant."
As painful as Barbaro's battle was, the Jacksons say it was not in vain. His plight drew attention to the laminitis, an often-fatal hoof disease that Barbaro contracted in both rear hooves before his death.
More than $2.7 million has been raised for the Laminitis Research Fund. The laminitis initiative will foster training programs and studies for new treatments of equine diseases. The fund includes a $7,000 donation received Monday from the Fans of Barbaro, a group of people spread across the country who met over the internet in support of the colt.
It's a fund that grows a little bit each day. Jennifer Campbell of Louisville stuffed $20 into a donation box for the fund on Tuesday while the Jacksons autographed pictures of jockey Edgar Prado urging Barbaro across the finish line at the Derby.
"You just see how they persevered under those circumstances, and how the horse persevered," said Campbell, who was wearing a green Barbaro hat. "He's an inspiration and I think it's great that they chose to share him with us."
The Jacksons have also helped raise $1.3 million for the Barbaro Fund at New Bolton. The money will go toward expansion of the George D. Widener Large Animal Hospital, and the purchase of equipment like a new operating table and recovery raft.
Tuesday, however, was about remembering the horse who captivated the nation.
Pictures of Barbaro from both his racing career and his rehabilitation at the large animal hospital at New Bolton flashed above a stage before the Jacksons spoke. The Jacksons smiled while watching a short film featuring local schoolchildren talking about Barbaro and showing pictures they drew of the horse following his injury.
Barbaro will be the first Kentucky Derby winner to be buried on the grounds at Churchill Downs. Four previous winners -- Sunny's Halo, Carry Back, Swaps and Broker's Tip -- are interred at the Kentucky Derby Museum, which is adjacent to the track.
Being placed outside the gate means fans will be able to visit the memorial without having to go inside the museum or the track itself. It will be accessible at all times.
"There was a sense of wanting to make the correct decision," Gretchen Jackson said. "It took a heck of a long time ... but we're relieved that we're moving forward."
Body: HOW MUCH HAVE YOU CHANGED
--------10 years ago----------
1.) How old were you?:
21
2.) Where did you go to school?
No School
3.) where did you work?:
Casino Morongo, in Cabazon CA
4) Where did you live?:
Hemet, CA
5.) Where did you hang out?:
my apartment, went to some clubs
6) Did you wear glasses?
No
7.) Who was your best friend?:
Julie, Lenycha (i think thats how she spelled it) and Regina
8.) How many tattoos did you have?
2
9.) How many piercings did you have?
Just my ears
10.) What car did you drive?:
1971 Ford Mustang black and chrome....and drove my ex's ford ranger
11.) Had you been to a real party?
Oh Yeah
12.) Had you had your heart broken?:
YES
-----------5 years ago-----------
1.) How old were you?:
26
2.) Where did you go to school?
Kaplan University
4.) Where did you live?:
Mentone, CA
5.) Where did you hang out?:
Home or with friends
6.) Did you wear glasses?:
no
7.) Who was your best friend?
Julie, Tammy
8.) How many tattoos did you have?:
3
9.) How many piercings?:
13
10.) What did you drive?:
Blue Pontiac sunfire
11.) Had your heart broken?:
Yes
12.) Been to a real party?:
Ahhhh Yes ALOT
13.) Were you Single/Taken/Married/ Divorced?:
single, taken, divorced some of each
------------2 years ago--------------
1.) How old were you?:
29
2.) Where did you go to school?:
no school
3.) Where did you work?
at home and volunteer as a firefighter/emt
4.)Where did you live?:
Gabbs, NV
5.) Where did you hang out?:
home & with the horses
6.) Did you wear glasses?
yes
7.) Who was your best friend?
Julie and George
8.) How many tattoos did you have?:
3
9.) How many piercings did you have?
Ears
10.) What did you drive?
Ford explorer
11.) Had your heart broken?:
Oh yeah
12.) Were you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?:
taken
----------------Today---------------
1.) How old are you?:
31
2.) Where do you go to school?
No School
3.) Work?
HeartSavers EMS
4.) Where do you live?:
Cambridge City, IN
5.) Do you wear glasses?:
Yes
6.) Where do you hang out?:
At home, and with the horses
7.) Do you talk to your old friends?
Yeah some of them , especially Julie
8.) How many piercings do you have?
just my ears
9.) How many tattoos?:
3
10.) What kind of car do you have?:
Ford F350 truck (go Blifford!!) and Ford E350 ambulance and Chevy ambulance
11.) Has your heart been broken?:
NOt in a while!
12.) Single or Taken?
Married
Changes proposed to horse transportation rules
Body: ----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Beth in Illinois Fighting to End Horse Slaughter
Date: Dec 6, 2007 3:02 PM
Changes proposed to horse transportation rules
http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/d
Changes proposed to horse transportation rules
The Department of Agriculture' s Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service is looking to close a loophole in its regulations on the
commercial transport of horses to slaughter facilities.
Current regulations protect horses that are being commercially
transported directly to slaughter. A proposed rule in the Nov. 7 Federal
Register would amend those regulations to extend protection to horses
that are bound for slaughter but delivered first to an assembly point,
feedlot, or stockyard.
The USDA-APHIS stated it believes "that equines may be delivered to
these intermediate points en route to slaughter for the sole purpose of
avoiding compliance with the regulations. "
One reason for the updated regulations is to curb the use of double-deck
trailers for the transport of horses. The trailers are currently not
allowed to be used to transport horses directly to slaughter facilities.
But APHIS noted that it has received numerous reports of truckers using
the trailers to transport horses to assembly points, feedlots, or
stockyards, and then reloading them onto straight-deck trailers for the
final leg of the trip to the slaughtering facility.
The proposed rule came just under two weeks after a double-deck
semitrailer carrying 59 horses overturned in northern Illinois. The Oct.
27 incident left 18 horses dead and dozens more injured. As of early
November, the driver was reportedly charged with traffic violations and
investigators were looking into whether additional charges were warranted.
Meanwhile, legislation was introduced in Illinois shortly after the
accident to ban the use of double-deck trailers to transport horses in
the state, no matter what the destination. If passed, Illinois would
join New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Vermont in outlawing the
trailers for transporting horses.
While the AVMA doesn't have a policy regarding the use of double-deck
trailers, the Association was supportive of the phaseout of the trailers
for transporting horses to slaughter when APHIS established the
transportation regulations in 2001.
The USDA-APHIS will accept comments on the proposed rule until Jan. 7,
2008. To submit comments electronically, visit www.regulations. gov,
select Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service from the agency
drop-down menu, then click Submit. In the Docket ID column, select
APHIS-2006-0168 to submit or view public comments.
Comments may also be submitted via mail to Docket No. APHIS-2006-0168,
Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8, 4700
River Road, Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238.
To submit comments electronically,
visit
http://www.regulati ons.gov/
select
Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service
Body: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1199671
Leaner Pastures: As Horses Multiply,
Neglect Cases Rise
MICONAPY, Fla. -- The Arabian horses grazing outside Holly Perea's window were once worth tens of thousands of dollars. Then the horse market crashed, and before long those 19 horses came to the attention of Morgan Silver, founder of a Florida equine-rescue association.
Driving last May to the edge of Ms. Perea's property, Ms. Silver used a telescopic lens to photograph the horses. The photos showed sunken hides and visible ribs, prompting sheriff's deputies to confiscate the animals and charge Ms. Perea with misdemeanor cruelty to animals.
Morgan Silver weighing Princess, a horse that she recently took in.
"They were in awful condition," says Ms. Silver, the 48-year-old founder of the Horse Protection Association of Florida. But she has seen worse. "You've got all these owners out there who thought it would be easy to keep a horse, and their incomes aren't keeping up with even their own cost of living."
Ms. Perea concedes her horses were "thin." She says she became ill, then involved in her mother's battle against cancer, leaving her with little time or money to care for the herd. Efforts to sell the horses failed "because the market just bottomed out," she says, adding that the deputies "came at a really bad time."
Across the U.S., the number of horses whose owners won't or can't properly care for them is mushrooming. Spurred by retiring baby boomers and their penchant for second homes in the country, horse ownership boomed in the U.S. over the past decade. Americans own more than nine million horses today, up from just over six million horses in the mid-1990s, according to the American Horse Council, a trade association.
Along with the boom came backyard breeding, as owners without the discipline or financial muscle to obtain award-winning genes settled for whatever nature produced. More than two million Americans own horses, and more than a third of those owners have a household income of less than $50,000. As the horse population soared -- and the economy ceased to gallop -- selling the animals became more difficult. Some owners could no longer afford their investment.
WSJ's Paulo Prada travels to Florida's horse country where the growing popularity of horse ownership has created a herd of neglected or abused horses. He meets Morgan Silver, founder of an organization that nurses the horses back to health.
"People are stuck with horses that don't meet certain breed or buyer requirements and it is getting more and more expensive to care for them," says Tom Lenz, a Kansas veterinarian who is chairman of the Unwanted Horse Coalition, a recently formed organization, overseen by the American Horse Council, which estimates over 100,000 such animals exist.
The price of hay, the main source of horse nutrition, has more than doubled over the past year because of drought and record-high costs of fuel needed to grow and haul the crop. Though horses naturally graze on grass, they need hay and other feeds, especially in winter when the growth of pasture grass slows or stops. A 50-pound square bale of horse hay, a two-day supply for the average horse, costs more than $6 in most states, up from as little as $2.50 in 2005. Even a small horse farm must buy hundreds of bales each winter.
Until recently, a little-advertised market for unwanted horses existed at equine slaughterhouses, which in 2004 killed an estimated 65,000 horses, largely for human consumption in Europe and Japan. But the last three such plants closed in 2007, under pressure from animal-rights groups.
"Animal lovers with big hearts and no idea what's required to take care of a horse have shut down slaughterhouses that were needed," says C.J. Hadley, publisher of a cowboy magazine called Range, based in Carson City, Nev. Calling horse lovers who oppose slaughterhouses "innocent," Ms. Hadley says, "Ranchers love their horses enough to put them down when the time comes."
Now, some unwanted American horses wind up at Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses. But others linger and starve, often ending up at rescue homes and other charities.
"It's scary," says Jennifer Hack, the executive director of the U.S. Equine Rescue League, an Indiana-based organization that shelters horses in five states and is struggling to accommodate them all. The group took in 186 horses in 2007, up from 56 in 2006.
Some owners aren't bothering to look for new homes. Laurie Waggoner, executive director of the South Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, says the group recently rescued five horses that had been abandoned on the eastern edge of the Everglades swamps. The state of Georgia last February seized 99 starving horses from a farm and sentenced the owner, who pleaded guilty to animal cruelty, to five years in prison.
Ms. Silver, the camera-wielding horse protector in north central Florida, works in what should be green pastures. The land around north central Florida's Marion County, where abundant aquifers and limestone bedrock enable grasses to flourish, became a hub for horse husbandry in the 1960s and is now home to about 50,000 horses. Equine paintings hang in the hotel lobbies of Ocala, the county seat, and garden shops sell lawn sculptures of animals grazing, bucking, and bounding. A horse farm at a state prison gives inmates and retired thoroughbreds a "second chance" to learn other skills.
It also became a hotbed of amateur breeding. Now the 149-acre ranch that Ms. Silver's association operates here, nestled amid live oaks draped with Spanish moss, is burdened with more neglected and abandoned horses than its staff of nine employees is equipped to handle.
Ms. Silver, a sturdy woman with a weathered face and close-cropped ash-bond hair, moved to the area in 2001, when a wealthy businesswoman, who helps finance the association, paid $600,000 to buy the farmland the group uses. A Miami native, Ms. Silver grew up riding horses and as a 13-year-old convinced her father, a life insurance salesman, to buy her a sickly horse so she could nurse it back to health. She started the association in 1990 as a sideline to her work as a horse trainer and put the animals she rescued in the backyards and pastures of friends and other horse lovers.
Eking by on a salary of $16,000 per year, she relies on donors to finance the association's annual budget of about $250,000. In addition to money for medicines, veterinary care, and feed -- hay alone costs over $6,000 a month for the 57 animals currently on the farm -- she pays employees hourly wages of about $8.50. Ten volunteers help in chores ranging from shoveling manure to putting together a newsletter.
Because Marion County employs only two investigators to manage animal-cruelty cases, Ms. Morgan often gets the call if a case involves equines. "She knows way more about horses than I do," says Evelyn Tiencken, one of the two investigators.
Ms. Silver became involved with Ms. Perea's 19 Arabians last May after the horses' owner placed an ad for a roommate who could also help care for the horses. After answering the ad, one would-be boarder called Ms. Silver and reported feeling troubled by the horses' condition. Ms. Silver drove to neighboring Alachua County, photographed the horses and filed a report with the sheriff.
Ms. Perea, unemployed since a back injury in 2005, says she lives on the proceeds of a court settlement after her accident and what she could make breeding and selling horses. To settle the animal-cruelty charges, Ms. Perea agreed to pay a $4,000 fine and submit to future inspections in exchange for getting her horses back from county custody.
Since winning back her horses, Ms. Perea has given away 11 of them. She criticizes Ms. Silver for "talking smack" and calls her "the woman who's been harassing me." Ms. Perea says the government should make it easier for troubled owners to find pastures, get tax breaks, and help set up a cooperative so small-time horse owners can buy feed and other supplies in bulk.
Ms. Silver scoffs at the idea that amateur breeders like Ms. Perea should get government help. "A horse is a luxury item," she says, bristling. "You have no business owning them if you can't pay for them. Are we going to give tax breaks to yacht owners, too?"
Some rescues are wrenching. One recent Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Silver drove across Marion County to pick up Princess, a gray thoroughbred that a truck driver and his wife could no longer keep because the animal, plagued with diarrhea, wouldn't gain weight. Outside their mobile home, as two young nieces and a barefoot neighborhood boy stood crying nearby, she explained to the couple why Princess was sick. Probably raised as an athletic racehorse, the thoroughbred could not subsist on the low-calorie diet of hay and capsules they had been feeding it.
Scott Corson, the husband, nodded, reached through the side of the trailer, and patted Princess on the withers. "You have a good life now, mama," he said, as Ms. Silver climbed into her pickup.
Write to Paulo Prada at paulo.prada@wsj.com
----------------------------------------
Horse Cruelty- LAPS Celebrates 20th Year
Posted by: "Equine Protection Network, Inc" EquineProtectionNetwork@comcast.net equineprotection
Mon Jan 7, 2008 1:34 pm (PST)
The Large Animal Protection Society is celebrating its 20th year of
protecting animals.
Visit LAPS website & see the results of their efforts to hold owners
accountable. LAPS needs your support.
PA law prohibits the sale of sick, lame & debilitated horses. The law
is being violated at New Holland & NOTHING is being done. LAPS needs
your financial support so they can handle cases from New Holland.
People want to save horses from slaughter? Than support LAPS so they
can enforce the law at New Holland horse sales.
LAPS works in Lancaster, Chester, Berks & Delaware Counties. There
are a lot of Amish horses in those counties that need LAPS help. LAPS
goes to court with attorneys. Attorneys cost money. LAPS does not
have attorneys who work for free. You need an attorney if you are
facing a defense attorney. Humane agents in PA are not lawyers and it
is rare that a district attorney would handle a summary case & unless
they are up to speed on animal cases they are not going to do a very
good job for the animals.
In New Holland District Court LAPS has won the maximum fine -
$750.00. LAPS has another case in the works, help LAPS win & SAVE
AMERICAS HORSES!
www.largeanimalprot ectionsociety. org
----------------------------------------
Body: John Holland continues to expose the disinformation campaign by the AVMA and the horse slaughter industry in their effort to support horse slaughter and defeat the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act.
http://www.animallawcoalition.com/h
From: Beth in Illinois Fighting to End Horse Slaughter
Date: Dec 19, 2007 9:50 AM
http://www.eagletribune.com/punews/loca
December 18, 2007
Girl, 11, saves horse from slaughter house
Drake Lucas
Anastasia Beechin, 11, of Wakefield feeds her horse, Hunter My Hero, at Windkist Farm and Equestrian Center in North Andover. Anastasia saved all her money from her paper route and gifts to buy her own horse and ended up saving Hunter from the slaughterhouse.
CARL RUSSO / Staff Photo
NORTH ANDOVER — Hunter has seen his share of bad days.
The horse’s withers, the bones where the neck and back join, have been broken. His hair is just now covering the scars from various cuts and scratches. Last year he was headed for slaughter.
But to Anastasia Beechin he is the most beautiful horse she has ever seen.
The 11-year-old from Wakefield saved up every penny from birthdays, Christmas and her paper route for more than two years to rescue the horse from slaughter and keep him for
her own.
“I love him even though he has scars,” she said. “I didn’t want a new horse. There are horses that cost up to $30,000, but I just wanted him.”
Anastasia learned about the horse through
Dora Ferrari, a dressage instructor at Windkist Equestrian Center in North Andover where Anastasia has been taking riding lessons for three years.
Anastasia had saved $2,100, but horses, especially well-trained ones, cost more than $10,000. So Ferrari steered Anastasia toward Another Chance 4 Horses, an organization in Pennsylvania that saves horses who are headed to
slaughter.
“A lot of people don’t realize that perfectly good horses are in slaughter pens,” Ferrari said.
It’s a mystery why Hunter, a bay thoroughbred gelding, ended up in a slaughter pen. The horse is trained to be ridden and does well with children. It’s a gentle horse that doesn’t mind people and petting. He’s 16 hands tall, a large horse even though his ribs are still visible. The horse, which has been recovering for about six months, still needs to gain more than 100 pounds.
Horses end up in slaughter pens for various reasons — a family can no longer afford them or the horse becomes injured or sick and the owner doesn’t want to pay for rehabilitation. Mary Martin, who works with New England Equine Rescue, which helped bring Hunter to Massachusetts, said sometimes families don’t even realize the horse is headed to slaughter when they sell it to someone.
When Hunter was found at auction, he was so weak that several people had to pick him up and help him out. Ferrari said he was just “skin and bones,” and needed to gain at least 300 pounds. He rehabilitated for four months before making the trip to North Andover six weeks ago, arriving two days before Anastasia’s birthday last month.
The two are a perfect match.
“It happened instantly,” said Anastasia’s mom, Cindy. “Like magic.”
After being at Windkist for six weeks, the horse is settling in. Anastasia spends four nights a week and all day Saturday at the center, spending as much time as she can with the horse outside of homework and her paper route.
When she isn’t taking him into the indoor arena for a ride, she is brushing his thin skin with the softest brush she could find, kissing his nose and nestling in his neck.
Anastasia has loved horses since she could remember, filling her room with posters and checking out every horse book she could find from the library.
Hunter, whose full name is Hunter My Hero, is her dream.
“I always wanted a horse of my own,” she said.
Body: Horse owners need to pony up to responsibilities
Tue Dec 18, 2007 3:29 pm (PST)
http://www.madisoncourier.com/main.a
12/18/2007 3:00:00 PM Horse owners need to pony up to responsibilities
Peggy Vlerebome
Courier Staff Writer
REGAINING ITS HEALTH: Dennis Watterson, below, took over the care of this horse that he said came to him malnourished and uncared for. The horse is severely underweight, and he is trying to bring the horse back to health. Watterson said there will likely be more horses in the same shape as feed becomes more expensive and scarce this season. (Staff photo by Ken Ritchie) CONCERNED: Dennis Watterson talks about the neglect that some area horses are receiving. (Staff photo by Ken Ritchie)A skinny new resident of Dennis Watterson's horse pasture is symbolic of what some say is an emergency statewide: An abundance of horses whose owners cannot afford the hay to feed them.
Watterson gave the Tennessee walker horse a home on his Jefferson County farm after learning from a friend that the horse appeared underfed. He went to the home of the horse's owner and offered to take it. He doesn't know for sure how the horse got so thin, but he suspects the cost of hay.
The horse's former beauty is apparent still, but it came to Watterson's farm west of Hanover weighing about half of the 1,200 pounds Watterson said it should have weighed.
All across Indiana, hay prices have at least doubled, causing owners to make hundreds of horses do without hay or with less than they should be eating.
The price increase is attributed to the drought during the growing season, which resulted in less hay and therefore higher prices. The cost of fuel to transport hay also has added to horse owners' costs of feeding their animals. Some equine experts also think demand for hay has increased because more is being used for livestock feed while corn is being diverted to make fuel.
Horse adoption centers in southern Indiana report more horses being abandoned by owners who say they cannot afford to feed them, but that is only one reason horse owners cite for giving away or even abandoning horses. Sometimes a family is unable to provide shelter, or a horse grows old or sick and needs costly medications, or a family gets tired of the work involved in horse ownership.
Some people have released their unwanted horses in state parks, where they are gathered up and taken to shelters, a shelter operator said, while others leave their horses in a pasture until the authorities come and take them away, often turning them over to shelters to find new homes for them.
"Indiana is going to be staggering within 60 days," said Bill Whitman, who owns Horse-Angels Ranch shelter with his wife, veterinarian Sue Whitman. "There's no hay. ... We get 10 calls a day from people wanting to give up horses."
The Whitmans grow hay for the horses they take in at Horse-Angels, but with the drought this year their crop was only about one-third of what it normally is, he said. They bought hay, but much of it was low-quality, he said. And the cost was triple what it normally is, he said.
Still, they have horses to feed.
"We're at capacity," he said. The Whitmans started the horse shelter in Owen County northwest of Bloomington in 2002 for injured, abused, neglected or unwanted horses. They had five or six horses at the beginning, and have since had as many as 65, he said.
With all of their space taken, though, they still are able to place horses by matching horses with people to adopt them without the horse ever going to Horse-Angels, he said.
"When you consider there's 250,000 horses in Indiana, and that probably 100,000 are what you call grade horses - not registered - and of those 80,000 are owned by low-middle to low-income people, and you tell them it will cost $100 a week to take care of that one horse ... it's just a matter of economics," Bill Whitman said.
Last year, he said, 8,000 horses were sent from Indiana to Illinois for slaughter, but now slaughtering horses has been banned. With that avenue closed and more unwanted horses, "it's going to be a nightmare," Whitman said, saying he isn't taking a stand for or against slaughter.
"I think we have the Legislature' s attention," he said. If there's no statewide law dealing with unwanted horses, he said, "it's just going to get dumped on individual counties. Some counties do not have the money to do anything."
Without the state taking the lead, he said, able to intervene, some horses have starved to death because local sheriffs, alerted to their condition, have refused to do anything on the grounds that their counties cannot afford to feed them, Whitman said.
Another horse adoption shelter, Indiana Horse Rescue South, reports on its Web site that it, too, receives several calls a day at its rescue shelter for abused, neglected and unwanted horses.
Horse Rescue South, which is in Harrison County north of Corydon, is at capacity, according to the Web site.
The increase in the number of unwanted horses in Indiana mirrors a nationwide problem that has been building. Two years ago, national horse owner associations, veterinarians and other groups formed the Unwanted Horse Coalition as part of the national Horse Council to educate the public about what it takes to raise a horse. The member organizations were looking for ways to deal with horse owners who don't take care of aged horses or do not have the time or money to properly care for a horse.
The coalition Web site, www.unwantedhorseco alition.org, says the coalition was formed because the Horse Council "is concerned that some horses may slip through the various safety nets within the equine industry. Too many owners are unaware of, or do not give enough thought to, the available options, services and assistance available in the industry to help them ensure that their horse has caring and humane support throughout its life."
The coalition's motto is "Own Responsibly. "
Bill Whitman thinks one reason horses become unwanted is the culture of the humans who buy them.
The culture, he said, has "changed so much over the past 40 years" and hay might be the scapegoat.
Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:13 am (PST)
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/ blt/2007/12/common-sense-ho.html
December 18, 2007 Common Sense Horse Lobbying We frequently mention the comings and goings of new trade associations in Washington, though inevitably the process is much more about the former than the latter -- it's a rare thing to find an association has decided that it no longer needs an agent in the capital.
But that's what the American Quarter Horse Association has done. First arriving in Washington in 2004, the racing and riding horse group initially registered on "legislative issues related to the equine industry," before branching out in subsequent disclosures to horse slaughtering, agricultural appropriations, and the right to ride on federal lands. The AQHA was a modest spender, dividing around $170,000 a year between its own in-house lobbyists and the Macon Edwards Company.
Last week, however, it filed its lobbying termination. According to Barbara Linke, the association' s director of public policy, "We didn't really have an issue we had to lobby for anymore."
Horse slaughterhouses had been the issue closest to the group's heart, and while Washington debated a possible ban, the last domestic slaughtering operation was shuttered by state mandate. Even though horse lovers have recently been in a furor over American horses being shipped to Mexico for slaughter, "there's not a lot of control we have with what happens in Mexico," Linke says. "The issue became kind of moot."
But, at least so far, there's been no sign that the opposition has decided to go home. Beltex, a Fort Worth company with an expertise in horse meat and other specialty animal products, is still registered to lobby through its in-house operations as well as the firm Olsson, Frank & Weeda, though under a different name: apparently "The Common Sense Horse Coalition (Formerly Beltex)" has a better ring. Beltex couldn't be immediately reached for comment.
Posted by Jeff Horwitz on December 18, 2007 at 07:00 AM in Lobbying | Permalink
