Another email. Another newspaper/news article. Another horse rescue gone 'bad.'
How did it all go wrong? I'm sure it all started with a needy horse and someone who thought they could take care of it. I can see taking in one or two, maybe 4 or 5. But 33? 24? 11? 77? 112?
I, personally, don't know anyone that can afford more than 10 horses, max. The one couple who come to mind have grown children (out of the house), both have very good jobs (off the farm) and half the horses on their farm are boarders or are there for training. Usually it is only two or three horses or ponies, with at least one being a geriatric who is spending their last days in luxury.
How does it all go wrong? Do they just get up one day and loose their job? Their credit starts sliding with the farrier, the vet, the grain store? And, once it starts slipping, just keeps snowballing down a huge hill toward destruction? Don't they have anyone they can ask for help? Do we make it too hard for them to ask for help? Are we so busy counting the forests that we forget to take care of the trees?
I realize that all the rescues are swamped. Dogs, horses, cats, rabbits, birds, you name it. The economy - for some people - truly sucks. And they don't have the skills or resources to apply to another career to take up the slack for what they are missing.
Or, their donations dry up, again, because of the economy, or they don't have their 501c3 and they aren't a 'legitimate' rescue in the eyes of the IRS. Or they start skimping on things and the volunteers and people who support them bring their money elsewhere to someone else who does do the things that are necessary and required for their horses.
Maybe some of them do have illusions of grandeur and think that they are as rich as Bill Gates.
I would absolutely LOVE to have 10 horses. And a groom. And a barn manager. And a big new truck with a big new aluminum stock trailer with a dressing room in it. And a rich Daddy Warbucks who can pay for it all so I don't have to work, clean the house, take care of the kids, run the business and pay all the bills so I can just play with the horses all day long, every day.
I do what I can. With what I have. I work for my horses. Literally. My horse needs something? I do a few extra hours of work every week to pay for it. My husband, luckily, has a steady job. Not always working for the same person, but always seems to have enough work to keep the house and home afloat. Only one teenager left in the house. The oldest two are grown up, graduated and going about the business of their lives.
It would be very easy to take on three or four horses in desperate need and get in way over my head... not only financially, but emotionally and physically. I try very hard to keep my head and my heart in time with each other so as not to do that.
Ok, you don't remind me that we have Amos and Andy here. That is a very small scale compared to a horse. And Andy and Amos have had all their vetting done - with the exception of their dentals and neutering - before they came to me. And that will be done as soon as they have enough weight gained to make it safe for them. And that is only a matter of a few pounds, as opposed to a few hundred pounds with Tommy.
Taking on an emaciated pug is much cheaper and easier than taking on an emaciated Quarter Horse. I've done both in the last year. I have the vet records to prove it. The grain bill. The farrier bill. The hay bill. The worming bill. Amos and Andy are a cake walk. I can feed Amos and Andy for 4 days what it cost me (on average) to care for Tommy for one day.
But what makes these other rescues wait so long when they are in over their heads? And the animals start to suffer because of it? Do we make it so shameful to say "I need some help" that they wait until they have animals so neglected that they die??? Do they ask for help, and, because we are all in over our heads (or just treading water) that we tell them just to hang on because extending our hand to them or taking on another of their horses will pull us under, also?
I don't think we will ever have an answer to this question. I don't think (very sadly and unfortunately) that this will ever end. As long as we have animals, we will have rescues. As long as we have rescues, we will continue to find animals who are not being cared for properly and need to be saved. From a rescuer, from a regular joe, from a hoarder.
Not just horses. Not just dogs, cats or birds. It happens, continuously, with the human race. We can't even take care of our own children. Our neighborhood children. It's a very sad, sad world we live in these days.
Is it the fact that we don't necessarily have MORE problems happening or just more PEOPLE are willing to say that what they are seeing is wrong and needs to be fixed? I think the mentality of 'what happens at your house stays at your house' has changed (for the better) in the past 10 to 20 years.
Thank God for my snoring pugs under my feet, the ones that got another chance at life and love and happiness.
Now, off to bed so I can work, again, tomorrow!
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