Part Two - continued from our first page

"Horses are stupid animals. Horses have small brains. You cannot teach a horse anything.  Some horses are un-trainable.  Horses can't think or reason.  Horses, are not loyal, like dogs. "

I am sure you have been told or have heard more derogatory misconceptions and misunderstandings than I have listed here.  What I would like to say would destroy my hard drive, what the truth is, is that we want to make horses stupid so we can exploit them and kill them under the guise they are lesser animals.  It is a human tradition to destroy what we don't or won't understand. 

The truth is, horses are loving, intelligent, loyal and caring animals.  I would never try to "humanize" them, that would be doing them a grave injustice. 

If a horse is given the chance to develop and reveal his/her personality, they are amazing beings.  They have a complex method of communication that even humans can learn, if we want too.  A horse is communication in motion.  They are never silent, but continuously communicating with others around them, of every species. 

Shy Girl, my blue heeler, plays games with my Hancock Stallion, Red Cloud.  However, if Red is not in the mood, one small twitch of his ear tells Shy he is not in the mood.  Why can't we learn the same? Horses communicate with their eyes, ears, body language, in fact, they speak volumes.  We just need to listen.  Personalities can be anything from clown to playful, thinking, serious, silly, very smart, quick learner, bright, not so bright, tantrums, pouty, drama queen/king, actor, faker, lazy, and on and on.  They are affected by their environment, just like us.  They need time and care to recover from abuse and trauma, time to learn to trust again. 

Horses form strong, loving bonds.  Relationships so strong, that it is not unusual for one to go into decline, and sometimes death, after a loss of a loved one, equine or human.  They bond with other animals, as well, goats, chickens, cats, dogs.  I had a deaf dog, Cowboy, who loved to swing from horses tails, it was a great game for him.  He would grab a mouthful of hair and swing back and forth.  Cowboy did this with not one, but several of the larger horses, the bigger the horse, the better the swing.  I was horrified to see him enter the pen of one of our large stallions.  To my complete surprise, Red stood patiently until Cowboy got tired of swinging, never once did Red kick at the little white dog swinging from his glorious tail.  Why? The horses understood that Cowboy was not right, that he meant no harm, and that he was just a little one.  So they all put up with it, even the mares. He was allowed to eat with them and lay on their hay.  He was handicapped and they understood that and allowed him to play his silly little games.  Cowboy's life was cut short, not by the horses, but a careless driver.  A driver, who came through my fence, and Cowboy, not hearing him, was ran over in front of my house, in our driveway. The horses knew, and understood my grief. 

Horses commiserate with you in times of grief or illness.  They can give you hugs and sloppy kisses, or stand quietly while you sob your heart out in their soft necks.  They can be silly, play games, have good days and grumpy days, or maybe just need a word of reassurance. 

All our horses know their names.  You can call their names and they will answer you.  I was hospitalized for several weeks last year - when I came home, I was welcomed by a beautiful, and touching chorus of "Welcome Home" equine style.  They speak with their eyes, ears and heart-we just don't listen. 

For another story on how horses communicate with us, please read "Dusty's Demand."  (PLEASE SEE THE POEM/ARTICLES FOR THIS STORY) A true story that just enforces that horses know what goes on around them, have their own thought process and reasoning, though somewhat different form ours, by no means inferior, but, definitely, more honest.  If we knew as much about horses, as they know about us, they try very hard to please us, or if we would open our minds to realizing we can communicate with these wonderful animals, as well as so many others, we would comprehend the tremendous loss of each, unique animal. 

We must become responsible.  We must stop over breeding, and most definitely, the thousands of "back yard" breeders.  If we take on the care of a horse, then we must give it the chance for a good life.  If the time comes, that the horse must have another home, don not send an ill or injured animal to auction.  If the animal is ill, or dying, show compassion and euthanize it humanely.  If it is injured, give it a chance at life, an injured or crippled horse has no chance of adoption.  Injuries, no matter how small, left untreated will cost that horse a chance for life.  To die, because you are the wrong sex or color, regardless of level of training is heart breaking. 

There are thousands of stories for the thousands of horses that go to slaughter every year. From a high pedigree raced horse to the offspring from the backyard breeder and all in-between.  You can help us, there are not enough rescues to save them all.  We need your help to save what we can.  Support/contributions, no matter how small are all appreciated.  To kill America's Equines, for our mistakes is a crime.  We must take responsibility-all of us.  We can stop this - NOW. 

My wish is that I never have to see the desolation, abandonment and fear in another horses eyes, as it is waiting to go to slaughter, nor see the hope in their eyes, begging you to take them from this place of death. 

PLEASE REPORT ANIMAL ABUSE TO THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES - IF YOU DON'T GET RESULTS, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR NEAREST RESCUE.  THERE ARE ANIMAL ABUSE LAWS IN NEBRASKA, AND THOUGH NOT ENFORCED AS THEY SHOULD BE AND LEAVING MUCH TO BE DESIRED, IT IS THE LAW. 

HUMANS DENY INTELLIGENCE AND COMPASSION IN ANIMALS, THEREFORE NO GUILT ABOUT KILLING, TORTURING, OR ABUSING, A LESSER CREATURE, FOR OUR OWN GAIN, VANITY, OR LACK OF CONSCIENCE.

Valerie  Hinderlider

Horse Slaughter:
"America’s Dirty Little Secret"

Nearly 100,000 American horses were slaughtered in 2005. The three foreign owned Slaughter houses ship the horse meat overseas for consumption in Europe and Japan. YES, they do eat our American horses. In fact, when the Kentucky Derby Winner of 2002 "Fernando" was slaughtered, the French restaurant advertised Fernando’s horse meat as: "EAT AN AMERICAN CHAMPION!"

POLLS SHOW 80 PERCENT OF AMERICANS ARE AGAINST SLAUGHTERING OF HORSES FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.
Would you want Barbaro slaughtered for someone to eat, if he doesn't recover? If not Barbaro, why any other horse? Is this how America treats the horse after all the horse has done for America?

Horse slaughter is not humane in any way. The animals are terrified, and it may take many hits with the bolt gun before they are stunned enough to be strung up, and their throats cut to bleed out. Some horses are still struggling while they are being hung up on meat hooks. The horses know they are going to die! They smell the blood, fear and death all around them. They are not even transported humanely.  They are packed in cramped, double-decker trucks for hours with no food or water. Injured or young horses can be trampled to death or smothered. Mares with their young foals are separated. Pregnant mares abort from the trauma. The slaughter plants say the horses are killed quickly, because horses under stress will produce inferior meat, and that American horse meat is the "best in the World!"

We are slaughtering our American Heritage.  These animals helped make this country what it is today. Without them, we would have failed!  They have carried us, helped grow our food, and died for us in battle.  We owe them so much more than a captive bolt and ending up on a plate!!!

So many wonderful horses go to slaughter. Weanlings, yearlings, older horses with many years left to give, injured horses with very treatable injuries, pregnant mares (what do you think happens to the unborn foal?), donkeys, burros, ponies, and mules. Some only because they are the wrong sex, or wrong color. They come from ignorant back yard breeders, their owners don't want to feed them anymore, they have been abused and need extra care, or the owner wants that last dollar out of their 20 year old horse. There are dozens of reasons. None of them the fault of the animal.

The congress put off a vote on this issue, after testimony from both sides, until September. One can only imagine what monetary gain, to whom was responsible. In the meantime, more horses, donkeys, burros, ponies and mules will suffer a horrible death for European and Japanese restaurants.

'WE THE PEOPLE' have spoken, Our government is not listening, including the U.S.D.A. that overrode the first horse slaughter ban. We must all contact our congressmen and the President, who was initially responsible for the slaughter of our Protected Mustangs, to vote in favor of the ban on Horse Slaughter. There are numerous websites you can visit regarding horse slaughter for human consumption, and horse slaughter of PMU (premarin) mares and foals. If you would like to see an uncut, graphic version of horses from the truck to the table, check out

Author:  Valerie Hinderlider       Break Heart Ranch Horse Rescue

www.sharkonline.org/horseslaughter.mv.

Pictures courtesy of HFA/gaileisnitz      The Humane Farming Association

NEW GRAPHIC VIDEO OF HOW WE TREAT OUR AMERICAN HORSES

visit this site for more information
Humane Society Legislative Fund (humanesociety@hslf.org)

Caval Miracle Horses Story

BLACK EYED PETE

There was once a horse.   No time now to tell all his story, but he was a great horse.  He was a black Morgan with a lightning bolt on his forehead and a Star of David on his nose.  There was a little girl who loved him.  His name was Black Eyed Pete.  The little girl cried to get him for years. She was twelve...he was five.  Twice he was sold, but not to the girl.  She searched for him for years.  Then, a miracle happened.

She found him... She was nineteen... He was twelve.  Then, he was hers.  He got older, and so did she... As the years passed his movements were stiffened by arthritis, then the unimaginable... he developed glaucoma.  He was seventeen... She was twenty-four... Surgery was out of the question...  the old horse suffered more every year.... until finally the girl now a woman realized it was time to let him go... She had a friend who said she would dispose of him for her.   Amid much pain and tears they said good-bye.  He was twenty, she was twenty-seven when he went to slaughter.

THIS IS A TRUE STORY.  PERMISSION TO USE THIS STORY WAS GIVEN BY GWEN H. FROM HER SITE ON  "BLACK EYED PETE"

Back From The Brink
 2007 Article in Farm and Ranch Living Magazine

Click on the page below to read the full article

THE LAST MUSTANG

The grizzled old stallion stood high atop the sage covered plateau. His aging eyes watching for the slightest movement in the moons eerie translucent light. The stallion nickered loudly, longingly across the steep ravines and dry, rocky canyons far below. His lone call traveling for miles across the endless sand, fading into the dusty, swirling wind. Silence, heavy and deep was his only reply. A nightly ritual he had never failed. Seeking others of his kind for he was alone.
The aged stallion turned and walked painfully back to the sheltering branches of an old, twisted Juniper. His few remaining teeth were causing him pain, and he was finding it difficult to eat. His strength was fading day by day, and it was just a matter of time before he was brought down by a coyote or bobcat. He was a parody of the well muscled, glorious Mustang, he once was.

The stallion feared nothing, but Man. Humans, with their stinking monsters, had flown out of the sky and attacked his herd.  He could hear the terror in his mothers screams as he ran desperately in search of refuge.  The smell of blood, fear and death was thick all around him.  The herd lost their senses and trampled over each other, crushing the young foals in their panic.

As a yearling, the stallion had been able to keep up with his mother and most of the herd, but the newborn foal, at her side had fallen behind. The monsters pushed some of the herd over the deep ravines, where they died thrashing in the hot sand, neck and legs twisted, unable to stand, screaming in agony.

Fear exploding in his brain, he ran, the hot desert heat sucking the air from his burning lungs, until he collapsed in the heat.  Terror brought him to his feet, and he staggered into a small grove of sage and stunted junipers, where he was well hidden.  Man came behind, looking for stragglers, but the yearling was too exhausted to run and that saved his life.  He did not run out of the brush, like the other horses, caught in the net of man.  He stayed hidden until thirst drove him from his hiding place.

What he saw was the once vibrant bodies of his thriving herd.  Those to weak to keep up, those trampled in the melee, small tiny broken bodies, including the tiny newborn that ran beside his mother.  The tiny foal broken and stiff in the fading sunset.  He found a young mare that had been left for dead.  She was laboring to deliver her tiny foal killed by the stress of her mothers ordeal.  He stood next to her all night, as she groaned in pain, the smell of blood thick on the sage scented air. The mare died just as the first pink fingers of dawn spread out from the East.  The little yearling had stood by her for comfort, and he nuzzled her several times before he understood she was dead.  He was alone.

Year after year passed.  The young colt grew into a beautiful stallion.  A Mustang with no herd to fight for.  No Mares to cover and no babies to watch over and protect.  A Mustang alone, and for an animal with years of genetics driving him to find his own kind, it was a lonely fate.  Man had done everything possible to destroy the Mustangs and their freedom.

He heard the nicker of horses and had raced frantically to locate them. His loneliness drove him on, with no regard to the results. Too late, he realized it was his most feared and hated enemy-Man!  Try as he might, no amount of speed could save him from the monsters in the sky and the beasts that drove him, relentlessly for miles in the blistering heat.  Just when he felt his lungs could no longer bring the life giving air, he heard the sound of other terrified Mustangs.

He was forced into a milling mass of terrified animals.  One mare so terrified she ran into the fence and broke her neck.  Her body was soon trampled to a bloody mess by the hysterical mass.  Foals were separated from their mothers and some were trampled, or caught their necks in the wire and died, others had gaping wounds.  The old stallion tried to stay in the corner away from the stench and the blood.  It was there that he hear the unmistakable challenge of another stallion.  The young Mustang stallion came rushing forward all teeth and hooves, black mane flying, while slashing and driving the old stallion back.  The old stallion was no match for the younger stallion crazed with fear. A human noticed the bloody fight and roped the old stallion and took him away.
The old stallion stood with his head drooping: blood flowing from gashes and cuts inflicted by the younger animal. The humans who looked at him saw a broken, defeated old stallion, beaten and bloody. His once beautiful body, now torn and worn out.  Muzzle white with age, hide thin and scarred and his muscles wasting.  The old stallion didn't know the humans had made the decision to have him put down the next day.  They didn't want to bother with old, broken down horses, especially stallions, as there was no market for them.

As soon as darkness covered the desert in smooth velvet black, the old stallion gathered his last remaining strength and jumped the wooden pen.  Humans had underestimated a Mustangs' thirst for freedom.  He ran with every ounce of strength in his body; to die on the cool sands of the desert was better than the stinking pens of man.  Nickers from those left behind rang in his ears, tearing apart his lonely heart.  To find them, only to lose them.  He called for them to follow, but they were too afraid.

Exhausted and unable to run a step more, he collapsed on the cool, desert sand.  Small red drops of blood poured from his flaring nostrils.  Lungs on fire, it was hard to breathe the sweet night air. Hours crawled by: the old horse stayed where he fell.  The cool dew of dawn brought the old stallion to his feet.  He was weary and tired, but there were no signs that humans were following.

The tired, lonely and beaten stallion stood alone in the orange light of dawn.  Golden flecks of light glowed bright gold on his scarred old hide.  Just for a moment, he was the young, magnificent Mustang of his youth.  He was Conqueror of the Desert, Icon of America and Flag Bearer of our country's' heritage.  A proud, free roaming symbol of American Freedom.  The moment faded with the sunrise.

Slowly, painfully he turned his head in the direction of the Mustangs he had searched for all his life. Step by painful step, he climbed a small plateau and trumpeted his call to the four corners of the earth.  The scream of a mighty stallion calling his herd.  Just for a moment, faintly, he thought he heard the whisper of an answering nicker.

As the old Mustang succumbed to the stress and despair of his ordeal, he felt the vibration of thundering hooves.  His own kind coming to take him home to grassy places and sweet water.  A long yearned for touch of a soft, velvet muzzle.  His mother nuzzling gently as he closed his eyes and became part of the Great Circle of Life. He was part of the herd, no longer alone.  Running freely, amongst those so long sought, across the night sky.


DEDICATED TO THE LAST FREE MUSTANGS, WE ENVY YOUR FREEDOM, THEREFORE, WE DESTROY YOU.

Valerie Mitchell Ream Hinderlider Sept. 2006

To view a heartbreaking video on horse slaughter please visit this site:

The American Horse

I have special permission from John Holland for the use or this link.  It is copy righted.