Part Deux...

In the last post I mentioned an email I had received regarding one of my past posts. The ad in question was for the HYPP H/H gelding out of the H/H stallion Wincredible.


When I first got the email, the writer stated that she owned the horse in the ad. She was not clear on when she had purchased the horse, and I instantly wrote that she had purchased the horse after the ad.


Well.....


She was not the purchaser, but rather the seller. She apparently STILL owns the horse after attempting to sell the horse over the last several months.


So, to the owner in question, THAT I will apologize for. We all know about the statement about the word 'assume', right?


Now that thats out of the way, lets get to the real issue here.


She's claiming slander, libel, and defamation because I put her publicly accessible craigslist ad and YouTube video on this blog, along with the show picture of the gelding and her trainer.

"No I purchased this horse in 2009 (you can pull up the AQHA record if you don't believe me) Yes you are there is a pic of my horse and my trainer up so you are mentioning a person! and i will remind you that i am PROTECTED by a LAW called Defamation, Libel and Slander.  I do not want a fight or to have to involve the law im am just asking nicely to please remove my horse from your blog.  I don't care if you keep your opinions up about the HYPP just please remove my horse, my horses video an my trainer from it.  Feel free to contact me via phone if you wish.  Like I said I'm just asking to please remove my horse, my trainer and my horses video from it. "

I have no idea who the trainer is, etc. The video was mentioned in the craigslist ad, and the picture was ALSO included in the ad. I didn't search them down, etc. It was posted on a public free classified ad site. 

If anything, maybe I should start listing copyright info for the pictures shown on this blog. Never do I ever claim those, that I took them, that I own them, any of that. 

But I want to break down what she said for a min. Just briefly. 

*slan·der

 [slan-der]  Show IPA

–noun

1.

defamation; calumny: rumors full of slander.

2.

a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report: aslander against his good name.

3.

Law . defamation by oral utterance rather than by writing,pictures, etc.

 I would literally have to go up to all of you readers and stand in front of you and speak untruths that I believe are true and are malicious in nature. 

Which I didn't, couldn't, or can't do as most of you don't even live in the same state as I do. 

*li·bel

  [lahy-buhl]  Show IPA
noun, verb, -beled, -bel·ing or ( especially British ) -belled, -bel·ling.

–noun

1.

Law .

a.

defamation by written or printed words, pictures, or inany form other than by spoken words or gestures.

b.

the act or crime of publishing it.

c.

a formal written declaration or statement, as onecontaining the allegations of a plaintiff or the grounds ofa charge.

2.

anything that is defamatory or that maliciously or damagingly misrepresents.

Now this one is a little bit more tricky, as this blog IS written.


There was a case that went all the way up to the US Supreme court last year that dealt with this very issue. The case was Cohen Vs. Port (Google), and the argument was this: A google blog named "The Skanks of New York" was written by Port. The blog had a total of 5 posts on it, all centering around one person, Cohen. Cohen sued the blogger and Google, on the grounds that she was a victim of Libel. The Court upheld Cohen's side, and changed the idea that a blogger can say and do anything under an 'anon' name on the net.


But how does this affect me? That particular blog was a rant against ONE single person, named by name, with multiple pictures taken in stalker-like fashion. I have read a lot of articles on the topic of Libel in Blogging since this email was sent to me. What I've learned is that where a true Libel case comes to play is when the blogger does several things.


The blogger has to name names. The blogger has to make up or grossly exaggerate events, stories, or incidents regarding a person, entity, or group of people, and most of the time claim what they write is TRUTH. Calling someone, an entity, or group of people vicious names is also part of it.


So what DID I say exactly?


Link to the blog post in question. 


The post is 90% information regarding HYPP taken from different websites, which I documented and listed sources on. I didn't make ANY of that up.


Then I got into her ad.


(And this is why the halter industry keeps breeding these sick, doomed horses, because AQHA, at the top showing levels, will NOT stop pinning these horses top ten!!! Dont believe me? Check out this link! She goes into the finances behind breeding HYPP Positive horses, and goes on to list on the site Well Known Currently Breeding Stallions that have owners NOT disclosing their Postitive HYPP Status. Oh, and Wincredible is one of them. His owner will gladly accept a $2,500 stud fee though!)


No mention of the horse in question there, just the sire, and thats a comment that is easily proven.


(What magikal medicine is this? There are several drugs that can help prevent attack, but its like taking Vitamin-C to prevent ever getting a cold or the flu. You can take massive quantities of VC and eventually you will get sick. A HYPP H/H horse is eventually going to have an attack. There is nothing any vet can do to prevent that. Its just managing the horse as best as we can to put it off as long as possible.)


I didn't mention it originally, but I did HOURS of research on the net trying to find out what this medicine was. When I finally found the drug I thought it was, not once did I find anything saying that the drug was a cure. There IS NO cure for HYPP. So the above is my opinion based on a lot of research done on my part. Again, no mention of a trainer, horse, or the owner.


 (This is the sad part where some unknowing parent is going to seriously look at this poor gelding and consider purchasing it for their up and coming 4-H'er,  not having a clue what HYPP is, and what it does to the horse...not even mentioning what it does to the poor child who has to watch his/her beloved horse suffer through an attack! There are several experiences recounted on bringinglighttohypp.org that tell of parents unknowingly buying HYPP horses for their children, and the horror their children have to witness when the horse goes down. Some children never recover emotionally from the devastation and sheer helplessness they feel toward the horse/attack, and never ever go back to horses again. Thats then one more child that doesn't grow up to defend horses against abuse or breeders of HYPP. One more child that will not save a horse from nearly being slaughtered. One more child that will spend their hard earned dollars outside of the horse industry.)


Again, same thing. My opinion, based on hours of research.


 (Nearly all HYPP horses are easy keepers because they sit there in their stalls and their muscles twitch and grow and it looks like they put on weight from air!)


Ditto.


(What can I say here except what I already have said? This bloodline has a genetic defect that will kill this gelding. End of story.)


(Possibly because you have witnessed this horse experiencing an attack and maybe someone said something to you about having/breeding a H/H horse? Or maybe you are just looking to dump him because the owners don't want to deal with the disease?)


HERE is the first mention of anything to directly do with the ad itself. When I write these answers, I use "you" to mean whomever is selling the horse/writing the ad. Sometimes is the same person, sometimes its not. Its not always the owner either. I never know who is writing the ads, and frankly, I don't care. And again, there are no facts here, just my opinion.


 (um, NO he wouldn't!)


And now I will take a block copy from the rest of the post.

So why is it that not once on his entire ad, did the seller mention his show name? If he was that accomplished, that well shown, and I had to sell this horse (sans the HYPP), I'd be blasting his name everywhere to attract those other competitors that saw him compete, hoping one of them would remember him and remember how much they would have liked to have own him themselves. Wanna bet that the owners don't want to be attached publicly to the sale of this horse?

(Quick Self Edit). I am guessing this horse's name is "Sir Wincredible". As I have been writing this, I've been following links all over the place, and checked out the you tube video mentioned in the ad. 

This is the video.  It appears they have had him up for sale for some time, and have dropped the price down quite a bit... the video lists it as $8500 OBO, the CL ad is $2500 OBO. Owners must be getting desperate to dump this poor gelding, wonder how long it will take for this guy to find himself at the local auction, paperless and amazingly enough, HYPP-status suddenly unknown?

Apparently, Wincredible's website, wincredible.com, has also been pulled, no where could I find any website for him. Now I did find the currently listed owners on the  quarter horse directory, but as you can see, Wincredible is no longer listed on their website.

Owners must be getting desperate to dump this poor gelding, wonder how long it will take for this guy to find himself at the local auction, paperless and amazingly enough, HYPP-status suddenly unknown?




Ok, I was harsh on this one. Some would say a bit too harsh, but again, Libel by definition is claiming something malicious that is false, as TRUTH. 


Never once did I claim to say that anyone to do with this horse was going to do, without a doubt, anything with this animal that would be sketchy, immoral, or unethical. (IE, dump paperless at an auction or feed lot.) What I said was my opinion of what could possibly happen based off of the thousands of horses yearly that DO get dumped into auctions and feed lots without papers - and yes, the majority of the time its by THE OWNERS of the horse being dumped. That was a generalized statement that can quite easily be proven as true very quickly by lovely google. However, I did NOT make a definitive statement that the owners of this horse were going to actually take the horse and commit to that type of activity.


Did I ever ONCE say anything that I claimed to be a fact? With the exception of the selling price of the horse, No. It was me ranting about a gelding that I felt was being advertised in the wrong manner, to the wrong crowd, and EXPRESSING MY OPINION on that matter. As for the selling prices, I was simply restating what was on the multiple ads for the horse, at the time of writing. The people that were selling this horse, no matter who they are in relation to the horse, obviously thought that they would start with a specific price, and they changed that price several times, lowering it with each newly posted sales ad WITHOUT changing the previous ads to reflect the newer, lower price. Thats not libel either, because its not malicious in nature, I didn't make it up, and its easily proven to be true. 


The YouTube video is still active, though the comments have been shut down. I don't remember if there were any comments on the video when I first posted this, nor do I remember what they said, if there were. 


Either way - here's the gist of all of this. 


If you sell a horse on the net, like so many people do, and the horse HAS a major flaw, one simply cannot expect for others to ignore the flaw. This gelding's flaw is that someone bred his sire to his dam who were both AT MINIMUM N/H, and the resulting horse is now H/H. 


They posted sales ads everywhere they could, I'm sure. Craigslist, YouTube, who knows where else. Thats normal, expected, and boring.


YouTube is a public domain. Craigslist is a public domain. I did what millions of people do everyday, and linked something I wrote on the net to a YouTube video. Big deal. Don't want people to link to your videos, talk about them, share them, and VIEW THEM? Then don't POST the video in the first place. Or, send it out via email to people that ask, or spend the money on some cheap DVD's, and mail / give them out. But to demand that I remove the link to a public video, on a public site? Nah. Take the video down if you're that unhappy about it. 


As for the trainer, where exactly did I post his name? Oh, right, I didn't. Hell, the video has more pictures of the trainer with the horse in it, PLUS his name and contact PHONE at the end of it. 


BTW, if a horse trainer has a horse he's representing for sale, and gets pissy about what some two-bit, joe blow says about the horse in the internet some half a continent away? Then maybe its time to find a new trainer, yes? Ya think? Professionals SHOULD have much thicker skin than that, and quite honestly, if this trainer is good with having H/H horses being actively campaigned in his barn, then there's a pretty good bet that trainer has heard much worse than anything I can ever say here. ESPECIALLY at the highest levels of the sport, where you get some VERY vocal people on the subject of HYPP. 


I guarantee that there have been a lot worse things said about other horses and other ads. But hey, guess what, don't post it if you can't deal with it! This gelding is just ONE example of why people against HYPP, are against HYPP. I personally believe that every horse that has HYPP needs to be sterilized and amazingly enough there WON'T BE ANY MORE HYPP HORSES. 


Thankfully, as I have said before, this one is a gelding. So thats a non-issue here. He's a gorgeous horse otherwise, and he's probably the darling of the barn. I sincerely am thankful that at least he's GOT a home, clean warm barn, hay, scritches, carrots, hugs, etc. In the video he sure looks happy, healthy, well taken care of, etc. Thats more than we can say about so many more out there.


Did I cause Defamation by my post? I have no idea. It would be rather difficult to prove that JUST because of my post the horse hasn't sold yet, wouldn't it? I really don't think I have that many readers, nor that much influence. Fugly over at Fuglyhorse might - but not me. And she's said MUCH worse about HYPP horses than I have.


Well, just for fun, I did a google search on the horse's name, and my post on HYPP with him in it comes up as the number one hit. What that means, again I have no idea. 


So, to wrap this all up, I'd love to hear thoughts, views, opinions on this. No Slandering, defaming people, or committing Libel though kiddies! We don't want to get in trouble, now do we!


*definitions taken from dictionary.com


P.S. After publishing this post, I got curious, and googled wincredible.com. The site is still taken down, but I did find an 'In Memoriam" page to Wincredible that listed him as deceased as of Jan 2008. No mention of cause of death, of course...

Why I started this blog.

So I open up my email and have a email from a person who purchased a horse who had been in one of the ads featured on this blog. The email says that if I don't take the blog post down, authorities will be contacted. 


Hmm. 


Ok.


Yea, I REALLY don't think that's gonna happen.


Isn't this blog, and millions of others, basically considered to be the opinion of the writer? I never claim to say anything on there as fact, indisputable, undeniable, etc..... Its just me blowing my hot air over things that irritate me, and I use CL ads as the foundation to blow that air out. 


This is the written equivalent of me standing on a street corner on a soap box, screaming to people about what I believe. It just so happens that a LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE think the same darn way I do! 


I don't have to take down anything I don't want to on this blog, because this blog is my OPINION. I ripped on this ad because the horse was by a known HYPP Positive Stallion, and they were trying to sell this horse as a YOUTH HORSE when it was HYPP H/H. 


So, go ahead, contact whomever you want to contact. You can disagree with what I say, but its still my OPINION.


Do I need to say it again? 


I sure hope not. 

I am alive, I promise.

I apologize for the cliffhanger last post. I simply have not had the time to sit down at my computer for more than 5 minutes a day for the last several weeks. The model horse prepping/customizing side business has just completely taken off, and I am surrounded by plastic ponies that don't belong to me. I just finished one to be mailed out the week before halloween, and I have another that has to be done and mailed out by Nov. 20th thats a semi-time consuming job. 


So, while I am very sad that I can't quite make it here daily, or even weekly it seems like, I am still holding on to the idea that one day I will be able to come back to this blog like I was. 


I still welcome guest writers - it doesn't take that long to copy and paste and whatnot - so feel free to rent and rave and I'll post it and give you the writers credit. 


However, until things slow down - which very well might not be until after christmas with the way things are looking, this blog will be silent. 


If anyone is interested in seeing what I'm up to otherwise, check out the art blog link on the right side, as that is buisness related, that will get a bit more attention for now. 


Until then!


Beth

Gonna Change Things a Little Bit...

Things have gotten more than a bit insane here at my house and Things. Just. Won't. Let. Up. Big giant capitol letters on that for sure. 


My model horse prepping services are taking up most of the free time I have. Which is good, but it just doesn't leave much time for other things. Once I get past the crush of what I have to do and send back out, I'll be a bit more conservative in what orders I take in. However when just starting up a new business, you take what you get, when you get it. There is NO room to say "No". 


But be still fluttering anxious beating hearts out there reading this that might have automatically thought that this blog might be going away! Oh no my friends, I'm not shutting it down. I'm simply just going to start posting once a week, with multiple ads. One big post a week instead of daily posts. I Love the daily post format, and one day I might go back to it. But until then, or at least until the holidays are past once a week is all I can do. I think Jan/Feb sometime I'll resume daily because I *DO* work for the "R" Us corporation, and even though I wear the Purple side of things (Babies "R" Us) and Purple doesn't really have a crushing holiday shopping season like Toys does, because I started out working for Toys during the seasonal months I am very sure I will be asked to help out and go back to the 'Dark' side, and wear Red for Toys once more. 


That means Midnight opening on Black Friday (which is something I SWORE I'd never do again, and here we are a year later almost....) and midnight closing times. 


On top of that, October means three Girl Scout meetings, my daughters birthday, MY birthday, making halloween costumes, and finishing/shipping deadlines for the model horses sitting in my living room right now. 


ME BUSY? 

Nah.


So, tonight I'm going to go through my lovely glorious beautiful stack of emailed ads, and tomorrow I will post for you all to enjoy. 


See ya then!

I need a giggle, what about you?

Sooo..... as my car is sitting in the driveway with a broken water pump and a non-functioning timing chain, I thought it was high time we shared a bit of a giggle. 


I just went through my email and I can't seem to find the original message, so forgive me that I forgot who sent it in to me, but I simply can't resist this. I also cross posted it in a few places as well for the laugh!

Serious buyers only need reply to a flaccid anatomically correct equine toy? Doesn't THAT put a picture in your head? 


Bet its nowhere near the truth..... 

Its a Schleich Horse Toy that retails for about $5-$6!!!


Here, look for yourself! 


Toys R Us has him in Grey for $6.99 + shipping.

I really can't help but wonder if someone really paid $10 for him?


My question is why advertise it as 'anatomically correct" yet use the word 'flaccid'? 


Really got to wonder about people sometimes..... 

The Catch Up Post

I'm going to do something rare - as in I've never done this - just to try to get things caught up a bit. 


I'm going to directly post some links to some ads I was sent, and hopefully they will stay active long enough for you all to read them. 


Rare Color POA mare!

The 'rare' color is reddish roan - is it just me or is this really not a rare color / pattern for a POA? Besides, check out the pictures - they are classic CL. 


We can't speak legible english!

This one has to  be from a minor... again we have kids backwards on a non controlled horse without helmets.


We's done gonna ride that thar baby hoss otherwise known as YALL GOTTA SEE THIS HORSE!!!!!
9 month old QH COLT with 3 months of ground work training - AND has already been RIDDEN BY THE 8 YEAR OLD WITH A WESTERN SADDLE!


Attack of the killer ponies!

It was pointed out that the ponies REALLY don't look happy to be messed with....


Another baby under saddle... what is WITH people?

At least shes not 9 months old....


SOMEBODY GO SAVE THIS MARE!
Ad calls her an easy keeper... I call BULLSHIT! I meant to post this mare as a separate emergency type post, but if anyone is in the area and can go grab her... she needs help and fast!


Another skinny mare...
Just like women... if they bleed they can breed, right? Well in this case, a 20 something, supermodel skinny mare would just LOVE to have a foal of her own! 


Rember Melissa? She's got babies now!

This is one of two I've seen her post pictures of. The sire of both was that black mustang stud. She says this foal is correct and quality... you all tell me what you think. Oh, and the other foal is out of the mare she claimed had the stillborn!


Wormy or Cushings Disease?


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


Now on to some awesome updates... Been sitting on this one for a little bit but need to get this out!


Remember Otie the donkey, the donkey living in the back yard with the kids that had totally neglected his hooves? 


This is his update! 

Hello!

I wanted to send you some pictures of the Donkey I sent you the CL ad for earlier in the year.  He is doing really good.  He has had a few issues socializing with a couple of our horses (ran one of our pony mares into a tree and she punctured her windpipe, also pinned a large draft-x mare to the ground and was standing on her)...but he is getting much more social, especially with his new owner.

I don't care if you post the pics or not, I just remember you were especially interested in him when you posted it. =)

Thanks!

That was sent by Fran, the same lady that sent in his original Craigslist ad. 

How awesome is this!!! His hooves are ten thousand times better - and look at all that green grass he has now to play in! So happy to hear stories like this!

How about one more just for fun? 

Clicky to embiggen and read. 

Thats some serious wishful thinking there! 

Thanks to the many many people that sent ads - I didn't mention senders by names because I was pushing this post out pretty fast, but you all know who you are and what you sent me. I appreciate each and every one. 

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

The male parental unit is back at home again after his stay in the nursing home, and is back to all his old habits. It is really as if the whole incident never happened! At the grocery store earlier tonight, he spent 80 bucks on all high fat, high grease, high salt food. Everything he is NOT supposed to have. 

It's sad to say, but I've given up on him. I really don't think HE cares anymore about what he does or eats. Its just a matter of time before the next attack hits, and that may or may not be the end of things.

Lastly - and a much happier note - for those that don't know or didn't see previously, I now am the proud leader of Girl Scout Brownie Troop 560! I have 8 girls in the troop, and one of the planned events in November that we are going to as a Troop is a Equine Youth Fair out in Queen Creek, Arizona on the 11th. CNJ - we'll be in YOUR backyard pretty much so you should come out and say hey too! 

I just had to brag ;). 

G'night!

THIS is why I can't stand NH "Training"

Ok, I don't normally post and comment on videos but I couldn't help myself on this. I was cruising around on some of the linked blogs just wasting time when I came across the Bad Riding blog and found these two horrors posted there.





For those of you that know what Parelli is, and the reasons behind his methods, PLEASE explain this madness to me? 


We have a fat, lame horse that has learned he walks 5 steps then gets a treat out of a bucket? Goodness gracious - if this horse was ever asked to to go OUTSIDE of the arena he'd not know what to do without his bucket and treats! There are so many things wrong with this short video its sad. I'm not going to comment on the rider - though I could really rip her 'riding' apart here - but I won't.


What I am going to rip on is the so called 'emergency dismount' at the end. This is NOT an emergency dismount - its a lazy persons way of getting off their horse. (And by the way - if you are going to flex the horse's head to one side - for the love of symmetry - flex them to the OTHER SIDE TOO!) 


I, like many of you out there I'm sure, DREADED emergency dismount day during my riding lessons. That meant PURPOSELY JUMPING OFF OF YOUR HORSE WHILE GOING AS FAST AS YOU DARED TO GO.


Only a crazy insane person would do that, right? (That's actually what I think of skydivers, but thats another topic completely...) Knowing how to properly remove yourself off of a fast moving horse is very important when its your spine, neck, legs, arms and head that will take the brunt of the fall. 


This is NOT an emergency dismount. Not even close. I'd really hate to see what would happen to this woman if she were ever to really have to get the hell outta dodge when the shits flyin and that fat horse is actually moving. But lets not go there, shall we? 


Because I have so much MORE fun to share starring this woman and her poor fat lame horse!


 


I will stand up and applaud you vigorously if you manage to make it all 8+ minutes - or however long it is. I will also feel very sorry for you as you will never get that 8 minutes back in your life. 


Shall we go "scene by scene" here? 


She starts out 'lunging' her obviously lame and in pain horse. On the Bad Riding site, there was a slight bit of debate on whether or not the horse was gaiting, or just walking funny. Since its the same horse as in the FIRST video, I'll go with lame. Possibly foundered, judging by the looks of the front hooves and the ouchy, tender way he moves on the turns. 


Oh, wait. My bad. (haha, someone needs to tell the silly person behind the keyboard to actually go and WATCH what she's talking about...maybe she won't make a giant ass out of herself....)


She starts off with .... THE CARROT STICK!!!!! Where's my "DUM DUM DUMMMMMM" music?


I firmly believe every horse should have a generous, healthy, sustaining dose of desensitization during its basic ground training. When done correctly, this will last the horse nearly its entire life. One does not need to desensitize the horse when its 20 years old and is obviously BORED with what is going on because its the 2 gazillionth time he's had to stand through it! 


The Carrot stick really needs to be shoved up.... 


Moving merrily along, she spends several loooooooong minutes on this while the horse is constantly looking for treats. This bugs me to no freaking end! The horse is so fixated on getting its treats, that he repeatedly invades the woman's space to lip at her hands, arms, and even a time or two on her torso. 


Ooooooooo..... this is SOOOOOOOO one of my big pet peeves! A horse has his/her space. YOU HAVE YOURS! End of story. No ifs, ands, or buts! They DO NOT go into your space unless YOU TELL THEM TO. This horse is like the bad annoying sibling that won't go away. There is no boundaries between this woman and this horse. 


"Oh, but you can't tell the horse no! thats disrupting the space time continuum of natural horseyness and humanness and the bond that is between them and we can't do that because it wil hurt the horsey's feeeeeeeeeeeeelings! " YEA, NO! I don't freaking think so. 


This horse needs to be told no, not meanly, but firmly and strongly. I can't WAIT until the video where dear mr. gelding gets mad because he didn't get his treatytreat for simply existing, and decides to take a chomp out of missy's rear end instead! 


Oh, and if she shakes that lead in his face any more, the horse is gonna start doing the jello dance, I swear. Totally unnecessary and what the hell is the point? If its to get him to back up, well that sure as hell ain't working very well, now is it! 


And there is so much more. We finally move to picking up feet! Cause yes, cleaning hooves out is such a difficult task on most of our horses, isn't it. *can you SEE my eyes rolling furiously in my head?*


I literally (NO JOKE!) smacked my hand against my head watching this person pick up this gelding's feet. She tries to pick up the off side front foot from the near side, and -OK, I taught my old mare to do this because I could. It gave us something to do and was such a simple thing, but it helped her to learn to trust me. BUT! Once she learned how? I went back to the old fashioned going around the back of the horse to the off side and standing there to pick up those feet! Cause its such a difficult thing to do, apparently. What this woman is doing is so far from the 'trick' I taught my horse its on a completely different planet. 


Did you catch him turning his head to her and nipping at her? Did you see it? If you didn't go back and watch it again. She doesn't correct him, AND - OH GET THIS - after she picks up his off side foot? She GIVES HIM A FREAKING TREAT! Yes, for the monumentally horrific task of lifting his foot upon command. And, its not even all four feet either! We're talking just the fronts!


This cluster F gets better, and its not even halfway through the video yet. She moves on to the hind, and if this isn't the picture perfect poster for "How NOT to pick up your horses hind feet" or actually lets call it - "How to see your brain while working with your horses! :D" I don't know what would be. 


Shes holding the 6000000 foot lead. The camera person is either on a zoom, or is within kicking distance of the horse. Lets hope its on zoom. She walks to the hind foot, and the horse steps backwards, and places his near front hoof square on the rope. She puts pressure on his hock (wtf?) so surprise surprise, he refuses to pick up his leg! It really doesn't take her long to give up on that one, so she moves on to the other leg. Lets go back to Hoof Picking 101 here - OMG. This woman is seriously going to get her head smashed in one of these days if she keeps this up.


She leans across the left hock to reach to the right one. The center of her face is literally about 3-4 inches above the near side hock. He does pick up that far side leg, but then decides to be a butthead, and kicks out a few times. Whatever angels she's got riding on her shoulders to keep that horse from simply raising up that near hock need to come my way for a while! When THAT doesn't work, she leans across his near leg, and tries again, just to get him to lift and kick, again!


So what does she do? What any good NH owner would do! Pats him on the rump for being a good boy!


I really don't have the words for this folks. This is pure dumb stupidity at its worst. Whoever convinced this person that it was ok to pick up hind feet like this needs to be smacked with C-N-J's clue bat! 


Do I really need to say this? She's more than 3 inches away from the leg, she's got her hand on the wrong part of the leg, she's not wearing shoes that will keep her toes from getting shattered should he decide to kick out to the side and land his foot funny - shall I go on? 


This all is happening while the horse is still standing on the rope with his front hoof. 


Of course.


So then we move on to Lunging. If you've made it this far, grab yourself a carrot. You deserve it. Preferably NOT one on a stick. Or that has been anywhere other than your fridge. 


How many of you have spent literally hundreds of hours in a round pen both free lunging and on a line? I can honestly say I have. 5-6 days a week, between 2 and 10 horses a day, 30-40 minutes a horse. For about 14 months. And yes, I got paid for that. :D Needless to say, I got really, really good at lunging horses. Its also an amazing place to study horse body language too, because they really are talking to you every single second they are in there with you. Most of them don't shut up, to be honest. 


One gelding I worked with, an imported giant gorgeous Irish Sport Horse, got so good at reading ME and MY cues on the line that all I had to do was think the command, and he'd feel it through the line and see it in very subtle physical cues I didn't realize (until him) that I was sending out.


He was one in a million, loved me as much as I loved him, and his owner really didn't deserve him, but thats neither here nor there. What this lady is doing is not only lazy, but dangerous. 


My first rule of lunging is you never, ever turn your back on your horse. Never. Some horses will take that as a sign that they are then higher on the food chain than you, and will not only take advantage of it, but some will literally run you down because they can. No other good reason other than you opened up the window of opportunity. The entire FOCUS of lunging is to drive the horse forward with your body, and to do that you have to face them. Not stand in one spot with the line going up and over your head so you don't even know that the horse is coming into the inside of the circle, towards your back, and looking for treats with teeth that hurt! Hey, while we are at it, throw in there the whole 'invasion of human space thing' too. 


His reverses, roll backs, or whatever you choose to call them are beyond painful to watch. 


Next, on this wonderful journey of excelling horsemanship skills, is about the ONLY thing I thought wasn't a total waste of time. She asks the horse to side pass on cue while standing a decent distance away. She gets maybe a point and a half for this, but so far she's negative 326536196584651. So her 3 positive points won't even make a dent here. 


Does anyone get the whole garage thing? Is this to desensitize the horse to going from light to dark spaces? I really never thought that horses needed that? Correct me if I'm wrong here.... but don't they kinda just deal with it themselves if you stop for half a sec, and just let them do something weird called BLINK? 


Finally, she starts rubbing that brand new ... I think Its a saddle pad or bareback pad ..over this horse ad nauseum. Seriously, she should have taken the tag off of it before filming. She lets the horse sniff it and thats all the horse needs. A quick sniff just so they can think, "Oh,Ok, its not a giant horse eating black alien, and I'm not going to die today" is enough to suffice! 


At least here, she edited out the treat giving part. 


I really don't hate NH. Really I don't. The core idea - using humane, non-confrontational methods to be a true partner with your horse - is GOOD! 


But this crap? This is just stupid and dangerous.


Todays post was NOT sponsored, brought to you by, or endorsed by Pat Parelli. Pat Parelli, if you are reading this, shame on you for creating an entire generation of women that can't think safely for themselves around their horses, and believe that its safe to do the crap that is shown in this video. I am amazed there hasn't been any lawsuits thrown your way for some of the nearly fatal injuries people have suffered doing this nonsense. There needs to be a giant one, and a refund of every dollar spent on one of those damned carrot sticks sounds like a pretty good idea to me, eh? 


Look for 2 neat-o updates later this week - one on Otie the donkey; one on another horse that was not featured on the blog, but was in such horrible shape, that a reader was compelled to save him. I also still have the other ad I was *planning* on putting up today as well to get to, so this week should be fun!