Rescue Realities

In the rescue / adoption cycle there are several things that do not make sense.  Repeatedly you see on rescue sites across the Internet the old, lame and “Pasture ornament” horses being saved from slaughter. The young, healthy horses are going to slaughter too! But you don't see too many of them available.

WHY?

If you were watching a John Wayne movie and the scene was a plane crashing, only one parachute left, and on the plane remain: John Wayne (the young virulent one), The little old lady from "Where's the Beef fame" and Shirley Temple (from back when she did Animal Crackers in my soup), who would you think would survive?

The KID, because she represents the future, and no good filmmaker would kill off the future! Now this being a movie, and John Wayne being there, he would fix the plane and save them all!!!  I WANNA BE JOHN WAYNE to the horses! BUT since I can‘t be I ask, WHY aren't more efforts being made to save the young horses?

There isn't a parent among us who wouldn't gladly give their life for their child, many who would trade their life for that of another child if the situation arose. In the sale barns of Ohio, where a high percentage of the horses make the trip to the slaughter houses in TX or Canada, I have seen MANY Foals, yearlings and two year olds being purchased by the "meat man". They deserve rescue too, until we can all be John Wayne and save em all, we can only save a few. The plane HAS been going down, weekly. Why have so many "Shirley Temples" not been offered a parachute?

I think the answer lies in the fact that so few people want to deal with a young, injured or ill and malnourished or abused horse.  When rescues do take in the foals, they are often left in the rescues care until they reach maturity. Folks just don’t want to take the time to raise one; they would rather get the horse that is ready to go. I don’t know HOW many applications for adoption I have reviewed that go something like this:

 I want a sound, gentle horse between the ages of 6 and 10; good with kids and not spooky so we can trail ride him. Would like to be able to show lightly, maybe a little jumping.

Most rescue is NOT the same as purchasing a horse. No more than adoption is the same as purchasing a child. You get the problems along with the joys in each instance. You would condemn a person who wanted to adopt that only would accept a blue eyed, blonde haired baby, with a guarantee of health and high IQ. But we do not feel the same when it comes to our horses.

To me there are two primary aspects of rescue. Removal of animals from situations that are horrendous, starvation and abuse their daily fair. And the “recyclers”. Now I mean this term with no disrespect. To recycle means to take an item that is being thrown away and to put it to use again. This is a good thing! In this category you would have the PMU babies, the slaughter bound horses purchased from the feed lots or auctions and the off the track Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds.  These are all equines “thrown away” by our society.

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