First, Do No Harm: Where Horses and Hormones Intersect

Horses and hormones keep peering at me from my reading. Neil Abramson’s debut novel Unsaid opened with a couple of Premarin foals rescued from slaughter. Random links in blogs have led me to discussions about the safety of hormone replacement therapy, a topic I’m not particularly interested in. But I scanned the comments anyway and was repeatedly disappointed to find that no one ever brings up the HORSES. No one talks about the origins of the “conjugated estrogens” in the drugs they’re taking.

So I think it’s time to talk about it on Lull. Again.

No, I won’t go into the gory details of how mares are tortured and then disposed of once they can no longer be pregnant. Nor will I tax you with tales of foals removed from their mothers shortly after birth and killed on the spot or sent to auction as potential meals for cultures abroad. (Note: You won’t find those italicized words used in any documentation from the pharma or agribusiness industries. The mares are merely commodities, cogs, assets until they’re liabilities; the foals are, as the industries like to call them, “byproducts.”) Instead, I’d like to report on a book I just read: poet Jana Harris’s Horses Never Lie About Love.

I recommend Horses Never Lie About Love to…
– Anyone obsessed with horses.
– Anyone about to buy a horse for the first time.
– Anyone thinking about breeding a horse.
There’s a lot to think through before committing to stewardship or sustaining a business and Harris provides a window into the pitfalls of both.

However, I want EVERYONE who is taking, prescribing, or selling any drug that contains hormones from pregnant mares—including Premarin, Prempro, Premphase, Prempak-C, and Aprela (still at the clinical trial stage)—to read this book. I want you to understand what your (likely unintentional) support of this niche of agribusiness and pharma means to the sentient beings exploited in the name of human health.

Horses Never Lie About Love is not an anthropomorphic romp through pastures dotted with mares and foals. It follows the fledgling breeding business of Harris and her husband on The High and Dry Farm and details the numerous challenges and unfortunate realities such an enterprise entails. Harris shares her astute observations about her herd—their idiosyncrasies, their training potential, their communications. She introduces readers to a first-time equine mother who is so enamored of her foal she can’t bear to lose touch with its face long enough for the foal to turn around to nurse; a colt who, desperate for companionship after being ostracized by the herd, befriends a widowed pigeon; a horse who distrusts people if they stand near him, but delights in having them in the saddle on his back; and, of course, the horse’s horse: True Colors—the feral mare who warms to human interaction only when she’s with foal, the mare who proves indispensable to the herd and to Harris (watch the video clip of Harris and True Colors).



Double-click on video for full view.

Harris packages her brief education* about horses and breeding in an engaging memoir. But better than that, she illuminates horses as individuals. This alone makes Horses Never Lie About Love a must-read for anyone connected to the aforementioned drugs. The plight of drug-industry horses is easier to ignore if you also ignore their discrete personalities—if you see them merely as cogs and byproducts. (If you’re new to Lull, make sure you also read “Protect the Sisterhood—No Matter the Species” and visit the links in it.)

Let’s be informed consumers/physicians/salespeople. Once you’ve read about horses thoughtfully cared for as individuals and those enslaved in factories as means to profits, come back to Lull and share your thoughts on the matter. If you know someone who uses, prescribes, or sells Premarin, Prempro, Premphase, Prempak-C, Aprela, or any related drug containing conjugated estrogens, e-mail this post to them. Or give them Horses Never Lie About Love and tell them why you want them to read it. There are plant-based drugs and other alternatives available. Sure, some alternatives require more self-discipline and effort to use, but they won’t hurt any horses. Above all, let’s do no harm…

* This is an informative read but not a how-to. Harris makes mistakes, for which at least one reviewer has taken her to task, forgetting that this is a memoir about events that occurred in a very different era.

The Bond: The Money Flow, The Victims, The Need for Change

Whew! I finally finished Wayne Pacelle’s The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them. The text is easy to read, the details difficult to digest.

If you’re already concerned about large-scale animal welfare, or you’re a vegetarian or vegan, you’re probably familiar by now with most of the anecdotes Pacelle delivers. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these stories, you may be assured that Pacelle’s storytelling lacks emotion and even omits many of the goriest details. That is to say that the book doesn’t trot out one horror after another. Nor is it one sweet, transspecies friendship tale after another. It’s a mix, heavily loaded with the accomplishments and failures of the Humane Society of the United States (for which Pacelle is CEO) and its efforts to change the world.

I know the HSUS isn’t everybody’s favorite animal advocacy organization. But despite how you may feel about it, and despite your dietary choices, you should read this book—especially if you’re a registered U.S. voter. The Bond shows U.S. lawmakers and lobbyists in action, and it’s appalling. Sure, we have an idea about how legislation gets passed and the shenanigans of the process. We need look no further than the recent impasses regarding federal expenditures. But the blatant pettiness of these politicians plus their attentiveness to a tiny fraction of the people they represent and their total disregard for matters that don’t immediately create wealth for someone are exposed in The Bond. The book should goad every American voter to at least monitor the voting records of his/her Congresspeople. We should find out who is working for whom and then speak out about it or vote accordingly.

Here’s a short list of facts about government agencies and laws that should get your dander up:

– “Almost as a rule, high-ranking political appointees at the USDA come straight out of corporate positions in the meat industry. And they don’t see much difference between their jobs in government and their jobs in the industry.”
Which is to say that neither our safety nor animals’ suffering is top of mind for these bureaucrats.

– “[T]he USDA doesn’t apply the humane slaughter laws to poultry, even though birds are more than 95 percent of all animals slaughtered (about 9 billion chickens and 250 million turkeys are killed each year).”
This closely parallels the Animal Welfare Act…

– The Animal Welfare Act sets the minimum care standards for animals used in testing. Yet the law doesn’t cover lab-bred rats, mice, and birds because the “research industry excluded them in the definition of ‘animal.’”
Oh, if they only had a dictionary…

– “The U.S. Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service admonish forest users to ‘never feed bears,’ but they make an exception for baiters who dump millions of pounds of food in the woods during the hunting season in order to get an easy shot. The bears regularly visit the bait sites—making them less wary of people and more inclined to raid other human trash resources.”
I thought I understood the term “bear baiting,” but I had no idea how much it resembles a canned hunt.

As you can imagine, The Bond has been a slow, painful read for me. I’m grateful Pacelle didn’t include any photographs. He did make me laugh at one point, though, in a chapter about the aerial hunting of wolves and polar bears. A quote from a pro-aerial hunting Alaskan governor represents, for me, the mindset of too many people:

“You just can’t let nature run wild.”
—Walter Hickel

My Day with Rambo

Many moons ago, my yet-to-be husband and I stepped into a movie theatre to see what was supposed to be a Katharine Hepburn flick. Instead, we were treated to mayhem and bloodshed, compelling me to make a hasty exit.

My partner, of course, reluctantly followed but would have preferred to see what turned out to be the first of the Rambo franchise. Alas, we saw neither a Hepburn nor a Stallone movie that day.

Fast-forward to this weekend, when I became a huge Rambo fan.

If you’re a Lull regular, you’ve probably guessed that my favorite pastime next to being with animals is reading about them, which is how I met a quite different and endearing Rambo yesterday. He’s a Jacob ram—aptly named for his charging finesse—and just one of the many unique personalities cherished at Catskill Animal Sanctuary (CAS), a New York refuge for farm creatures.

In Where the Blind Horse Sings, CAS founder Kathy Stevens profiles some of her wards and her mission to educate people about the atrocities of agribusiness. It’s a charming, breezy read laced with humor and bursting with love.

If you’re craving soul-lifting news, stick your nose in Where the Blind Horse Sings. It’s sure to warm your heart—maybe even give you a new perspective on animals some folks know only as entrées and shoes.

Loka samasta sukhino bhavantu.
May all beings, everywhere, be happy and free.