The Response from speecees.

What an amazing group of readers I have! *warm fuzzies*


I wish I knew how many there are of you out there! I *KNOW* there's more than 22 of you that read at least occasionally, I wish I could see who you all are. 


I love what this blog is becoming. Its staring to grow and become a vehicle for things. Things such as this whole outrageous Big Lick Walker Shirt Design. Things I can't yet talk about - which frustrates me but is also very good because those things need to stay confidential to the authorities involved.


I woke up this morning to a response from the owner and ceo from speecees. What with being scheduled to open this morning, I didn't have time to post anything here without the risk of being late. 


I also see in the comments of yesterdays post that one of you also wrote and got a response. I will give kudos to the owner for her quick responses. However, thats almost all I'll give her kudos for. 


Without further ado, here is the response. 

dear beth*

thank you so much for your email. i am the speesees owner/designer/long-time horse lover and
had a relationship with a natural gaited tennessee walker. i had never heard of the *big lick*
horse or *soring* practices when i made this design, and am deeply saddened to know of these
practices.

the image was used out of love for a particular horse who was treated humanely. speesees in no way condones the abuse of any animal, and we are sorry for any offense this image may have
caused.

sincerely,
rachel pearson

Now, while I appreciate the sincerity in her response, I'm not really sure if I believe it completely. 

I can easily see how one would not be aware of the soring practices in the TW breed. I have come across a LOT of people that have never heard of it, including people that have been in the horse industry a long time. 

What doesn't make any sense to me is once she found out about the practices, why didn't she change or modify the design so the outline of the horse wasn't the same, exaggerated motion of the Big Lick horses? 

How expensive can it be to change the design? I understand that you have marketing people, you have manufacturing contracts, shipping deadlines - I get that stopping a huge order in the midst of being produced is in most cases nearly impossible for some companies. The cost to stop often greatly outweighs the cost of production. I *GET* that. 

Yet this company continues to produce the same design even after being informed about what the image stands for. 

I am curious to see what you all think on this issue. How far should a company that has the start of what COULD be a semi-large PR nightmare on their hands go to please the public? This image was obviously based and inspired from a horse she knew and loved - that I think is rather cool. 

Yet - I'm sorry Rachel, but your excuses don't fly with me. If you really stand behind your statement that you would never condone the abuse of any animal, why do you continue to print the design - AND USE IT AS A COMPANY LOGO - especially after you learned about what a horrific practice soring is???

There are plenty of other similar Tennessee Walker breed outlines you can use instead if you wish to use the TW form. Outlines that DON'T include the horribly outstretched front leg movement of the Big Lick Horses. Outlines that reflect the natural movement of the TW. 

Self edit here: Ok, well after spending the last 20 minutes searching google images for variations of "tennessee walker clip art", turns out that most of what is out there for TW's is the more outstreched front leg, with the hind leg wayy underneath the body. This IS NOT THEIR NATURAL GAIT! 

The ONLY image I could find without spending (wasting) more time looking is the Friends Of Sound Horses website Logo. 

This image is more of what Rachel and speecees SHOULD use, if they still want to use a Tennessee Walker for their 'horse'. I'm sure FOSH would be more than happy to be contacted about possibly allowing the horse part of the logo to be used. 

Sorry, but your company gets a giant "F" from me - For "FAIL". 

You fail to meet your own company standards and objectives by continuing to use this image to advertise your own earth and animal friendly products. 

The right thing to do Rachel is to research and design a better horse logo that doesn't bring up images of pain and torture.

*************************

In the land of google results, its amazing what you can get sidetracked with. I found myself on youtube, watching this video...it really makes the difference between the Big Lick Horse and a regular gaited or 'natural gaited' horse obvious. (I'm not going to make the link live, so the audio doesn't start every time the page loads.) This video was produced by HSUS, and is highly informative. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkyC1Fq6Msg

I have to say though, during my employment with the Paso Fino barn, and during all of the mixed breed gaited horse shows we attended, very rarely would I ever go down and watch the Walker classes. You could always tell when they were in the main ring by the noise generated by the crowd too. We learned to stay away from the Walkers while they were warming up before the shows because quite frankly, they'd run our little Pasos OVER without a second thought. Or rather, their riders would. No concern for anyone else working in the ring at all either. The really sad part is that we'd see very few of the natural gaited horses, and I'd always make a point to at minimum watch THEM in the warm up rings, or if possible, walk up to them and always, always, compliment them on their horses. Seeing the Big Lick horses in the warm up rings with the trainers... *gah*. So many times we'd have to leave the arenas - my boss and I - because we'd run out of patience & self-control because the temptation to go over to the trainers, riders, and owners and just slap the absolute hell out of them was way too great. 

Last year we were up at Westworld during the annual Charity Carousel Show, a show run every March here locally in Scottsdale. Carousel is sponsored by the state Saddlebred club, and is a mixed gaited breed show - though the last few years the Saddlebred group has invited the Friesian barns out as well to piggy back on the Saddlebred shows. Which is really rather awesome. However, we weren't lucky enough to get placed in the barn with the Friesians, nope, we got a barn of Big Lick Walkers opposite our stalls. 

That was a week I'll never forget, for sure. I'd never, ever seen a barn put up curtains in the middle of a community type barn before - which was extremely rude in of itself. We complained to show officials, but since there are no rules against it, there wasn't much we could do. They didn't put the curtains up until the middle of the second full day though, so we got a front row view of private, behind the scenes stuff. Stuff that would make any person not involved absolutely insane. They brought their own farrier with them - they had 6 horses. The farrier worked on every horse, every day. What he was doing, I'm not sure I want to know. The pads were as high as their show regulations would allow, which to me was about 9 inches too high. 

That first night around 1 am, long after everyone else left for the night, and right as I was leaving to go home, I walked down to their stalls. I wept because of what I saw. Horses just absolutely crying out with their eyes for release from the torture. Two of the mares came up to the stall fronts trying desperately to touch me with their muzzles - I'm sure they were begging me to help them in whatever way they could. Every single horse had their legs wrapped to their knees, and one of them had managed to worry the outer cotton off so you could see the inner plastic wrap. As I watched, he was biting hard at his leg, trying to get the plastic off. At one point he heard me and looked up at me, and that look he gave me was absolutely heartbreaking. If horses could cry, he would have been bawling. He didn't come up to me at all, but didn't shy away either. He just stood there in the middle of his stall, biting at himself, muscles tensed up, nose wrinkled, unhappy ears, and just looked so afraid to move. 

That same gelding the next day nearly killed his rider. That little accident happened before they got their curtains up - but it wasn't very long before they were. The farrier was doing something to his front right hoof, and the rider was standing at the geldings hip, facing the farrier, and looking at the hoof/shoe. The farrier touched something on the hoof, and instantly the horse just exploded in 16 directions at once, knocking the rider flat on the ground and in his panic, came literally within inches of stepping on her head with one of his hind feet. You all know how most horses will do everything they can to avoid stepping on a human in a similar situation? He tried SOOO hard but because of his front legs he had no balance, and very little control of where his hind legs were going. He NEEDED his hind legs to keep HIM upright, or he would have flipped onto his back, due the lead rope tied to the stall door, and literally no place to go.

Of course when something like that happens, the entire isle full of people rush in to help, but when his handlers saw myself, my boss, and another person with us moving over to help, we got yelled at to stay away - and a shouted out threat to harm our horses if we did anything to help. Again, nothing was hand done by show officials when we reported the what happened.

Their groom was rude and refused to make anyone else's job in that barn isle easy. They demanded that they always have the right of way up and down the isle, and if anyone else had a horse out getting them ready, they'd scream for the horse to get moved out of the way. The riders would mount up in the barn and ride out in full gait - totally unnecessary. 

I ended up sneaking horse cookies and bits of carrots to the ones that would come up to me when they were all down at the ring for their classes. The mares especially were extremely friendly and as sweet as sugar to me - but just as mean and nasty as hellhounds when around their 'trainer'. Couldn't figure out why! *roll eyes*

The whole experience was one that I'll not ever forget, and not in a good way. While this was no where near my first encounter with the shady side of the gaited horse world, it was certainly the most memorable, and definitely one of the more disturbing. If I ever had any doubts as to the accuracy of the reports of what really goes on behind the scenes, they were completely shattered apart for good.

*************************

I know today is Friday, and normally I'd post the Fugly Friday Stallion. I wanted to harp on this subject a bit more today - this is way more important. I'll make sure the stallion post gets up this weekend. 

If any of you still decide to write to Rachel at speecess, PLEASE, be mature, be polite, be intelligent, use common sense, and don't demand unreasonable things! I think its perfectly ok to ask that they reconsider using that logo in the future, that they consider recalling their merchandise with the logo, and that they discontinue the use of it in the future. 

However, threats of violence, vulgar language, extremely emotional rhetoric, and other similar forms of "communication" will only backfire on you, and cause more damage than good. 

Final note: I want to make it very, very crystal clear that that my beef is NOT with Rachel personally. I'm sure she's highly intelligent, runs a great company, and is doing wonderful things to help the planet. The rest of the clothing on her website is extremely adorable, and I did find several things that I would consider buying in a heartbeat if my kids were still babies. She was very quick on her answer, very polite, and I appreciated her honesty in her answer.

I feel that this one decision was a very bad one, and I'd really love to see the logo changed or just discontinued. Please keep that in mind if you contact her via phone or email. 

Have a good weekend everyone! I'll be back with the FFFS post, so check back for that.

NOT Again! & The Big Lick Ad

I just *HAD* to post this right away. 

I get home from work... which by the way had a bit of a eye opener for me, but more on that later... and did the normal take shoes off - feed screaming thinks shes going to starve to death kitty - scrub off dirty from day - sit down check email routine. 

And found this email sent to me from Indi Randol (is that a canadian email btw? If it is... how cool is that I have Canadian readers!!!). 

She sent me an ad that... well... I thought the lovely image of the gelding this morning was bad enough. This one takes the "bad picture to sell your horse" cake!

I have to tread somewhat lightly here with what words I use - again. Google's bots are indiscriminate, and I don't want to get found by the p0rn bots.

So, the ad. 

I'm gonna make it nice and big for you all today. 

By the way, the translation for "carta" is apparently "paper" - so its "he has paper". 

HOWEVER. 

Thats not the worst part of this ad. 

THIS is the worst part of this ad. 

Yes, the picture to the left is the stallion getting good and ready to service that... um.... mare? 

At least I *THINK* its a mare?  Its rather hard to tell though, because that mare hit the 100 foot fugly tree on every single branch coming down. 

I'll let the words of Indi 'spew' forth here... 

We had to do a little translation since it appears that Spanglish is the poster’s native language and spelling isn’t their strong suit – “he has carta” = he has papers.  Wish someone would let these folks know that showing the stallion’s penIs is completely unnecessary and irrelevant to selling the mare.  Maybe horse p0rn works for selling over-priced, under-accomplished horses in Norco. 

(please note that I had to make a few minor edits to two of the words to avoid this blog appearing on key word searches for those particular words.)

I will whole heartedly agree with Indi on this one... 

There is absolutely NO need to actually show your horse being bred, or your stallion getting ready to service a mare publicly. This is gross and nasty, and quite frankly, just attracts those that get personal enjoyment out of watching it... which in itself is gross and nasty. 

I personally think this is so far the worst ad I've ever seen. 

***********************

I mentioned at the start that I came across something at work to day that really opened up my eyes. 

I work retail... mundane, boring, migraine inducing retail. (In this economy, its a paycheck. So I'm not really complaining that much.) The store I work for has made me sign some sort of agreement that says I will not talk about the company in any way on the net, in a blog, website, or other such public forum online. 

In reality... I could care less. I work for Babies "R" Us. 

Part of my job is running the baby registry desk. That was where I was today. We got in one of the thrice weekly trucks in today, and I was given a bunch of boxes of 'stuff' to replenish the new registry goodie bags. One of these boxes was the new May 2010 Baby Talk Magazine, a free mag that is one of the items included in the goodie bags. 

I took one look at the cover, and literally froze in my chair. 

Now, it can't just be me that immediately see's a HUGE problem with this cover. In case you DON'T see the huge jaw dropping problem with this very very cute kid I'll spell it out very clearly for you. 

WHY THE HELL IS THE KID WEARING A SHIRT WITH A BIG LICK TENNESSEE WALKER ON IT?

The t-shirt is sold by speesees.com. Link to shirt page. Link to ALL OF THE OTHER PRODUCTS THEY SELL WITH THIS STUPID IMAGE ON IT!

This company obviously prides itself on selling organic, earth friendly products. THAT I don't have any issues with at all. Its their choice of image for the HORSE I have a MAJOR MAJOR ISSUE WITH.

From their front page: welcome to speesees. we believe in being fun, fair, and organic in the products we make, the way we conduct business, and the baby steps we take towards creating a more sustainble future for the animal, plant, and humanspeesees on our children's planet.

Some how, somebody didn't exactly get the message that selling a t-shirt made from organic materials that has the silhouette of a type of horse that can't GET that nice, big "pretty" Look without things like PAIN, ABUSE, AND HORRIFIC TRAINING PRACTICES.

That doesn't exactly fit with their nice 'earth friendly' image, now does it? I'd say their research department SUCKS. 

I've NEVER been one to write letters to companies. However, this just really Pissed. Me. Off. 

Would any of you like to assist me in contacting the company to let them know how hypocritical this is? 

Not only are they showcasing that t-shirt on the front cover of a magazine that is handed out to literally hundreds of expectant women monthly, I seriously doubt that they'd want to be associated even by IMAGE with one of the BIGGEST Embarrassments in the entire Horse Industry. Do you really think they know that the "Big Lick" horses suffer abuses and atrocities that NO animal should ever suffer? I seriously doubt it. 


Their website even has a small version of the same picture as the logo placed next to their name at the top of the web page tab!!! 

The other thing that I was thinking about on the way home, was all those women will look at that shirt and see nothing but a 'pretty horse'. They won't understand what that image symbolizes to all of us. 

And THATS the sad part in all of this. Its a case of "you don't know what you don't know".  

The inside cover of the magazine, the little blurb that lists who the cover model is, what the label on the clothes is, etc., also states that the clothing line is sold through select Whole Foods Market Stores. There just happens to be one across the street from BRU, so I went in and checked out the store after work. I'd never been in one before, and while it certainly is impressive, its a little to pricey for my budget. I checked out the clothing section of the store, and while they carried the line of clothing, didn't have that exact t-shirt. Which was good. Cause I would have blasted THEM too. 

Contact Info from the speesees website: 

speesees hq

2475 third street suite 252
san francisco ca 94107
toll free: 877 552 5808
line 2: 415 552 5808
fax: 415 552 5809
info@speesees.com

 Remember to play nice, no nasty language is needed, facts and professionalism gets more flies than anger and attitude does. :P

Can I Have Some Of What He's Got Please?

There are good pictures, so-so pictures, funny pictures, pictures that make you sad, and then there are pictures like this one...

My best guess was that this lovely picture was taken just shortly after this gelding finished having a pee. Note the outstretched back legs, the... um.... appendage featuring quite prominently,  and his expression/ears focused backwards. (I'm really going to try to avoid using words that will cause this blog to come up on an... adult... keyword search in google :P I really don't need those type of comments, you know?)

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaa, ok. And - what is UP with the lavender background? 

This looks like a really bad cell phone picture, that was taken at just the WRONG time. 

Unfortunately for this poor ill-presented gelding, he's for sale.

Ad Text: 3 yr. old Quarterhorse Thoroughbred Gelding for sale - $6000 16.5 hands and still growing. ground training done, basics are done, ridable for experianced riders. Good possiblities for further training in different events, very fast, loves to run. Very very gentle. Bloodlines are avilable all the way back to 1891. Bred for racing by a well known race track breeder. Serious inquiries only. Please call Tom at 928-xx-2265. 

Seriously???!!! $6000???!!!

NOW I understand why the background is purple on the picture. This guy is hallucinating. He's hallucinating badly. And apparently, is convinced that the rest of the world needs to see things the same twisted and warped way he does. I'd like to know what Tom is on, cause, MAN, it MUST be some good stuff!

Oh... and the last time I checked a QH/TB cross was called an appendix Quarter Horse? 

I'd like to know exactly what bloodlines this GELDING has thats worth $6000? Why aren't they worth mentioning by name if they are so great? I just can't see any other reason why he'd put that high of a price tag on this horse. The horse isn't finished, he's just 3 years old, he goes fast, aannnd..... he's got bloodlines that go back a hundred years. Theres not a damn thing in that list thats worth $6000! 

Do I really have to say that all horses have bloodlines that go back a hundred years. Otherwise, the horse, like, wouldn't exist? DUH! Horses don't exactly appear out of thin air anymore. Maybe during the Roman Historical Period when they worshiped Gods like Poseidon who created horses out of the sea... But... Yea. No. 

Note to seller: Lets try picking a much better,(maybe non-urinating?), time to take that picture of the horse you are selling? He looks pretty shiny and well kept, so I'll not slam you for not grooming the horse. However, next time you might actually want to look at the picture you just took to make sure the horse isn't going to embarrass himself by appearing in front of the world with his shl0ng hanging down! I know most horse people don't really care about that, heck we've all heard of the sheath cleaning song, but when trying to present your horse in the best possible way to potential buyers, you'd think you'd maybe edit this one out of the possibilities pile? Between his "happy state" and the horrible color in the background, this picture gets a negative 20 on my scale of good picture taking!

(thanks Cut-N-Jump!)

WTF Wed: Lookin for Love In All The Wrong Places....

I was lookin' for love in all the wrong places
Lookin' for love in too many faces
Searchin' their eyes, lookin' for traces
Of what I'm dreamin' of
Hopin' to find a friend and a lover
I'll bless the day I discover
Another heart lookin' for love


*Ahem* Excuse me. Had a brief flashback to my younger days, when country music was, well, country and we didn't have the mess in the horse industry that we do today. 


Nope I'm not off my rocker, I promise you. Simply that the song is a fitting theme song to serenade us while we enjoy todays WTF Wed Ad. 

Its too bad that stallions can't write their own personal ads. I can imagine that they would go something along the lines of: "Lonely stud seeks filly to frolic with. I'll supply the wild oats, you bring the magic grass. We'll nuzzle each other all night long, and by the light of the moon I'll promise never to leave your herd."


Or, well, something along those lines I suppose. Maybe not quite so cheesy. Then again, its a stallion's love life we're discussing here so who knows how cheesy they can be when nobody's looking? 


*Shakes head*. I would certainly hope any love ad placed by our fictional lovelorn steed would be MUCH better than this one. 


Ad Text: Looking for Walker broodmare (addison)
I'm looking for a broodmare that is free or cheap . I may be willing to trade a breeding or two for the right mare . I have a smokey Black tobaino stallion which will be standing at stud in 2011. Also I have a grulla yearling ponie filly that I may be willing to trade for the right mare. Doesn't have to be sound to ride but must be sound to breed and easy to handle. 


Ok, so they're calling any future stallions' girlfriends cheap! Not only that, they didn't list a single quality that a decent, hardworking stallion should be looking for! Thats just so wrong. Oh wait, sorry. What if the stallion isn't a hard working stallion? What if he just loafs around the barn all day and doesn't have a job? Wonder why the stallions' employment status wasn't mentioned? Hmm. I wonder if he even knows what a saddle is? This could be a deal breaker for some hot mare out there who really needs to hook up!


They're looking for free mares just so they can breed to stallion. Nope, no need to RIDE the mares! As long as they have a working horsey uterus we're good to go! And also, how does the human know if the mare is the 'right' one if its up to the stallion to decide if he likes the mare or not? Human could easily go through several 'wrong' mares in the process... and what would happen to them? They sure wouldn't be kept as part of his posse! Oh no! They'd be shipped down the road and dissapear into the night, never to be seen again!


I'm sure MR. Hot Stuff's waiting not quite so patiently in the pasture too - who knows maybe he's giving pointers on what qualities in a mare the humans should look for! He's got the Krayzy Kolor goin' on, so I'm SURE he thinks he's hot stuffs! Its like the guys you see at the gym that are all muscle and no brain. Sure they THINK they are the Gods gift to women, but really... other than a quick roll in the hay, I'd sure prefer brains over looks any day of the week! 


Where's Wilbur the talking Palomino when you need him? I'm sure HE could write a decent singles ad and really get the attention of a few mares!


Seriously - between it being really late at night, the inclusion of several Coronitas, and the end of my one week vacation from work - AND This ad being so stupid - I just had to have a bit of fun with it. :P

Gonna Give You All A Headache Today!

Barbed Wire Fencing.


Three words to make any responsible, knowledgeable horse owner squirm in discomfort and instantly suffer from a panic attack while seeing visions of torn bloody skin, shattered bones, puncture wounds, dead horses, and horrific vet bills. 


Today I ask the question... 


Who the hell still uses barbed wire fencing to surround their horse pastures?

I guess some people in North Kentucky haven't yet gotten the message about how stupid they are to still be using barbed wire. 

To the right is the mare being sold in the ad. The ad states: 3 year old quarter horse - $600 (nky) Great 3 year old filly has had extensive ground training and is ridding very well no vices or problems best mannered young horse I've ever been around comes up to you in the field you dont go to her smooth light trot and canter will consider trade for TWH


NOW, if you lovely readers can actually manage to look at that picture without screaming at the horse to get away from the fence (Its a picture.... she can't hear you. I Promise.), you will see that we have a semi-fugly, nondescript quarter horse mare that might very well be on the lower end of the herd totem pole. 

Why is it that we usually see this lower level of care out in 'the sticks'? OH WAIT... because its almost always people that quite frankly don't have a lot of money to spend. 


But they ALWAYS have farm animals. AND that is what makes me want to scream. I can't help but wonder how they treat their KIDS if its ok to put an animal behind something that is now mostly used to keep federal prisoners within ranks!!! 


How many times have you seen a horse just happily playing in his/her pasture? I have video of a mare I no longer own running in a smaller arena, and slamming on the brakes reining slide stop style at the fence. She USED the fence to help her stop. 


I don't WANT to imagine what would happen should any of those horses do the same thing with this fence. I don't WANT to imagine what would happen if one of those horses in the background were to suddenly get terrified of a leaf blowing at them, and *KABOOM* go headlong into that deadly wire. I say leaf because I'm also a sarcastic biotch, but you ALL know its the silliest, stupidest things sometimes that send our horses into freakazoid mode.


I have to start giggling a bit here to myself because I am suddenly reminded of a now hysterical story a college equine science instructor told in class one day. She was the prior Stallion Manager of what was Chauncey Arabians, was while out in the pasture, doing her daily check on the pastured horses. Her habit was to bring some basic medical supplies with her, to treat on the go, so to speak. Included with her kit was one of the large rolls of basic cotton, (the kind to wrap legs up in) with the paper outer wrapping. She told the story with great enthusiasm, describing the events quite vividly, and with a great sense of humor about the situation. 


There was a yearling Arab, in the pasture, (can't remember if it was colt or filly), and thus being curious critters, this particular one decided to try to eat the purple paper outer wrap of the cotton bandaging. As you can imagine, immediate chaos occurred, as the yearling took off like a bat out of hell spooked by the crinkling purple paper that was *all of a sudden* trying to eat its chest and legs. Yearling would stop running for a few minutes, and then the breeze would suddenly move the paper, and off the horse would go again, terrified of the flapping thing that just wouldn't go away!


The poor foal ended up running itself to a lather because it never once realized that it had the paper in its mouth, the same paper that was trying to attack it from the front. It took several workers standing in the field to make sure that the yearling didn't run itself into the fence in its blind panic. They didn't attempt to try and catch it while in panic mode, just waited until it ran itself out, and then tried to calm the horse down enough to approach and try and pull the paper out of its mouth. The story was originally told to demonstrate that horses don't open up their mouths very easily during a discussion on proper bitting techniques.


I mention the story now, not just because remembering it is amusing to me, but because if it weren't for the 5 or 6 stable hands that got called to watch the foal to make sure it didn't run smack into a fence there could have been a very different ending than what it was. So- Lets just all imagine that same situation, but modified to fit our quarter horse mare up there. 


Horse sees something its curious in, lowers head to sniff it, maybe even see if its edible. Suddenly the strange object MOVES! (Doesn't matter what the strange object is. Use your imagination. Paper cup, plastic bag, a odd shaped tree limb, heck maybe even a downed bird or animal.) Horse spooks, and runs. Some horses have sense, and go only a foot or two away. Others, don't have sense. And they are the ones that go running madly into fences. The LUCKY ones have horse safe fencing that don't massacre your horses! The unlucky ones run into barbed wire and get unnecessary and potentially life threatening injuries that cause at minimum the ruin of their entire riding career - and thus leaving the mare for breeding use only.


See a pattern yet?


Why hasn't this fence been replaced yet? I'm sure the seller can come up with all sorts of fascinating excuses. Would I be willing to listen or believe them? HELL NO. 


These backwoods rednecks (and yes I CAN say that because I LIVED in South East Texas, about 45 minutes from the LA Bayou/border with some of THE most ignorant that live among us. Not everyone that lives near Beaumont qualifies for that label. Yet.... wayyy too many do.) can't spend a few afternoons putting up even a cheap rail fence. I'd rather see THAT then this uneducated, outdated, and dangerous crap.


Again, we have another example of a horse owner that is too damn cheap and lazy to get off their ass and take care of their horses properly. 


*passes out Tylenol/Advil/ibuprofen/whiskey/whatever to those that need it after that ad*

Monday Madness: The Mysterious Stomach Ailment & A Walk For Valora

I'll start off with a brief mention of Valora, and a happy picture of her. The above picture is Joey, (founder of LUV Shack), and Valora, going for a walk on Saturday. For a mare that had never been out of her stall for the vast majority of her 13 years, it sure looks like this whole 'outside' thing is pretty cool to her! She is healing well, and as you can see in the picture, has some bumps, scrapes, and the wrapping on her hind leg is a protective bandage for a few stitches. The rescue group and foster family that are taking care of her are letting her take things nice and easy, and at her own pace. 


If you all are unfamiliar with her story, check out the previous two posts... her story has caused quite a sensation here locally in Phoenix. She's attracted a lot of attention in the news, and LUV Shack is just FLOODED with requests for volunteers and whatnot right now.

Not much happened over the weekend regarding the possible legal case against the accused abuser, Wayne Tolliver - at least nothing has come up in my RSS feed. It is currently unclear if he was actually seen punching her in the face (as was originally accused of doing to cause the damage to her head), but it has been confirmed that he was picking up the mare to 'put her down' and then take the body to a rendering plant. Whether he was doing it for his own profit or to really help out her prior owner is also to be determined. 


I'll keep posting news on her case as I get it, I know you all want to know what happens as much as I do! 


__________________________________________________________________________________


Our Monday Madness Post was sent to me via email last week, and I have to admit, I had to really read this one a few times to figure out what the sellers were trying to say. 

Ad Text: 4 YEAR OLD PAINT GELDING - $500 (MILLERSBURG) I am looking for a good home for this very sweet and gentle 14.0 hand gelding. He is 4 years old. He has very good ground manners, with no bad habits. He has a puppy dog presence to him. And love attention. UTD on all shots including negative coggins. He is on a regular farrier and worming schedule. He has front shoes on. His teeth were done in Aug. 2009. 


I would like to place him in a new home as a Pasture Buddy or Possibly a Pony Ride Home. He has some type of a stomach upset that keeps him from wanting to do anything faster than a walk. He is good under saddle at a walk, stop, and back up. Just for some reason when ask to go faster than a walk he refuses. He has not been seen by a vet for this issue. I cannot afford to dump money into him to see what his problem could be. I am a big trail rider and he is not working out for that type of job. 


He is a safe and trustworthy little horse that I would put children on for pony rides. 


Due to his unexplained issue I am FORCED to sell him As Is. 


I don't want this nice little guy to end up at a auction someplace. I like him way to much for that. 


I am asking $500 or Best Offer. If you could give Cochise a loving home please come to me with a offer. 


The ad reads pretty well for the first paragraph. Its when you read further into it that things start making your head spin...


Its one line that I had to go back and read two or three times because I nearly missed it. I could not figure out why the ad had been sent to me. Once I finally realized what the 'issue' was, things made perfect sense. 


He has some type of a stomach upset that keeps him from wanting to do anything faster than a walk.

HUH? 

Most horse people would do something crazy about that like, Oh, I dunno... CALLING THE VET? 

But nope! Not these intelligent wonders!

He has not been seen by a vet for this issue. I cannot afford to dump money into him to see what his problem could be.

Yet...he's UTD on all shots. Does that mean they are giving their own shots? I am aware that there are some feed and tack stores that will sell the most common vacc's over the counter. I've bought them for my dogs and cats. I would have done so as well with my mare when I had her, but by the time they were due again, I no longer had her. 


They paid to have his teeth floated, but won't pay to have this mysterious 'stomach ailment' checked out?

UNBELIEVABLE! Not wanting to 'dump money' into a horse that they claim they like 'way too much' to see him dumped at an auction makes absolutely NO FREAKING SENSE!!! Don't wanna dump money into him.... no its not because you don't want to, its because you're too damn cheap and lazy to get up and call the damn vet! 


Or maybe, just maybe, this pony is smarter than the sellers, and has figured out if he acts sick, he gets out of work! 


That to me sounds like a pony I'd LOVE to have!


He's really cute too! 

They obviously didn't take much time in cleaning him up, but thats at least to be expected for Craigslist. To me he sure looks bright eyed and healthy, but looks can sure be deceiving.


(OK, after playing around with the size of the first photo, it looks like there is something messed up with his front legs. I assure you that its just the photo, and the way that blogger made it bigger. I can't reverse it, and after deleting and re-uploading it several times, it does the same thing each time. Oh well. Just thought I'd throw that out there, because his legs do look really messed up LOL! )