Monday 20 August 2007

A Blog About Things That Are Wrong..

Like wrong with a capital WRONG...

Whats sparked todays blog, well it was another blog, coo how often do we blog about someone elses blog.

Todays blog is brought to you by:

A horse
A tree
A trainer
A owner
No water
No food
A rope.


Oh, and 21 hours.

If thats not making sense to you, I can put it a little more clearly.

A trainer (without the owners prior permission), tied a horse to a tree for 21 hours, without food or water. (I'll add here before some one leaps in, the horse was offered water, we do not know how often this happened though, and we've all heard the adage about taking a horse to water (or in this case taking the water to the horse)).

This was intended, I gather, to teach the horse to accept patiently, other horses coming and going around her without fuss.

Can I remind people, that this is a young mare, 4 years old, green and new to all such things as other horses milling around and being removed and handled and ridden etc, and indeed the previous weeks of her life have been jam packed full of new things.

This act, and in case we arent getting it here, its one I personally deem abhorrent, its vile, repulsive it is one of the most HORRIFIC things one can do to a horse, to trap it, tied by the head and leave it to force down its own panic, was all in the name of Natural Horsemanship (we think, Ill get to that bit in a moment).

Natural Horsemanship, Parelli, Intelligent Horsemanship, Hippy Horse Lovers United (ok I made that one up)....

They all profess to do to horses that which we have done to horses for many centuries.....

But to do it in a nicer, kinder, more natural, friendlier, less forceful way.

Yet these methods see horses forced into situations they arent happy with.

Monty Roberts uses 'join up' and yet the principal of join up is...... Force Away. The horse has a choice between 'be with me' or 'be alone' and for a horse, a herd animal 'alone' is akin to 'dead'.

That aint much of a choice now is it, on balance, well thats like cake or death aint it? No?

Parelli uses the Seven Games.... ive yet to see a horse completeing these seven games look like its having any kind of fun. The Seven Games appear to be about bullying your horse, showing you are dominant.

Did we read my previous blog about being dominant to our dogs? No, slap wrists go read.....

Just because you do not touch, or hit an animal, or even use your voice, let alone raise it, does NOT MEAN that the method is in itself 'kind' or 'none forceful'.

You CAN thoroughly and completely dominate an animal with body language alone.

I am as of now, 100% OFF natural hippy parelli intelligent horsemanship, because everywhere I see it portrayed as nicer and kinder and funner.....

And whenever I look closer I see it as nasty, devious, forceful, domineering, cruel, bullying methods, with a pretty label on the tin.

Its bullshit my friend, and anyone who thinks tying a HORSE to a TREE for 21 HOURS..... is kind, or useful, or non forceful or non dominant.....

Is either braindead or the biggest wanker thats ever lived.

Get away from my eyes and ears you people, go and trade your dogs and horses for pet rocks, you dont deserve to own anything more sentient than that!

Here endeth the rant. Maybe.

Some shit for y'all to lookit.....

Top of my list of Most Excellent Things Online....

Fugly Horse of the Day....

Oh my is this good, whilst I am mostly a 'doggy' person, having dogs, I'm secretly a horse person, just horseless..

FHotD is about Fugly, its about snark, but way way more importantly than that, its about NOT breeding everything with balls or uterus, purely because it has four legs and goes 'neigh'.
Her points are as valid in the UK as they are in the US, fugly horses, bred with no thought, atrocious conformation and sold cheap or off loaded free, end up leading shit lives, or suffering shitty deaths.

Go and learn about the fugly peeps! Fugly Horse of the Day


And another blog, less fugly, more sweaty, this is my friend Petes brothers blog, about cycling from Lands End to John O Groats... or was that the other way round.

I dunno, I guess I could read it and find out, hey, why don't you do the same.. and maybe you can donate some money for cancer research too.

I think its a worthy cause, far better than spending all your hard earned cash on cakes surely.

Cycling a Really Long Way...

And thats all folks, tune in shortly for an extremely vehement and mahoosive rant about Natural Horsemanship...