Trailer Tales: Balancing Evil with Big-Hearted Behavior

As you may imagine, my reading is frequently filled with the unconscionable things people do to animals. Here are a few I’ve come across since Wednesday:

1. To desensitize the horse who doesn’t like having his/her ears touched, some folks twist and pull the horse’s ears, sometimes to the point of breaking the cartilage. It’s an Old West version of “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to cry about.” A blogger believed this had been done to the horse she’d recently adopted and is now rehabilitating.

2. To counter the horse who fights having a bit in her/his mouth, some folks turn the horse’s head to the side and tie the tight rein to a stirrup (the one connected to the saddle on the horse’s back). They may leave the horse immobilized in that position for hours. One blogger suggests: “Before you think of doing this to your horse, tie the top of your head to your knee with a shortened length of rope and see what you learn!”

3. To retire a breeder dog who’s no longer a top producer, one option is to dump her along a road. One such dog was discovered near San Francisco this week—thrown from a car, bloody, emaciated, still swollen from her recent (and final) litter. Thankfully, a Good Samaritan found her and took her to BadRap Barn.

My ability to sift and steel through these stories fluctuates. I don’t share many of them on Lull because I want to spare you the disgust and hopelessness and rage and sick, sick feelings these atrocities bring out in me. And yet, I believe we have to be aware of some (though not all) of these situations if we want to change the world. We need to know the details in order to prevent them from happening in the future. We need to know our enemies and how they operate.

“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed.”
—from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Are you still reading? I hope so, because we’re finally getting to the good stuff—the other side of the balance sheet. The two positive stories I heard or read this week each involve a horse trailer…

Anna Blake, a horse trainer, wrote about a client of hers who was moving to a new state. The first piece of good news is that, unlike so many people who get rid of their animals before moving (or even before going on vacation), the client was taking her critters along. What’s more, the client insisted on riding in the trailer with them: three draft horses, two donkeys, and a parrot—each a rescue, each with some kind of challenge. The woman packed a cooler, a sleeping bag, and a chaise longue into the trailer and settled in for the 26-hour ride. She would spend that time calming her companions and watching for signs of discomfort or illness.

I love her deep concern and care for her charges. This warm-and-fuzzy story alone was enough to buoy my emotions over the evils roiling within my reading reach. But last night I heard about a more impressive animal advocate.

A woman (a friend of a friend) attended an auction in Pennsylvania (I don’t know which one; my friend was lean on details) with trailer in tow because she fully expected to purchase a horse. She stayed for the whole auction, but by its end, she didn’t hold the winning bid for anyone. She would be going home to her 700+-acre farm with an empty trailer.

She returned to her vehicle only to find FOUR creatures packed into her trailer! Someone apparently hadn’t sold them and, not wanting to keep the horses any longer, dumped them in the least guilt-inducing way that came to mind: Leave the animals in someone else’s trailer—make the animals someone else’s problem.

Fortunately for the ponies, the friend of my friend is not the abandoning kind. She shifted her mindset from going home empty-trailered to planning how to introduce her herd at home to these four new horses—horses who might otherwise have ended up taking that long, painful journey to the abattoirs South of the Border.

Some folks simply don’t know how to be good; they need role models to emulate. Other folks? Well, they bewilder me. But I’ll keep searching for a way in to their deeply hidden reserve of emotional intelligence.

Meanwhile, let’s circulate these trailer tales. They’re spirit-lifting, plus they might prompt others to tap into their own goodness the next time an opportunity arises.

[Paintings by George Stubbs.]

Evil Cookies and Wayward Comments

a! I was beginning to develop a full-blown inferiority complex until I read this on The Real Blogger Status.

I’ve posted comments on a number of blogs recently, but they haven’t been published. The first few times I just thought the blogger wasn’t moderating very often. However, I’ve returned to these blogs to check, only to find that other folks have commented since my attempt.

It’s a cookie thing, apparently.

Note to the bloggers of…

Dig-It Fetch-It Herd-It
Dog Art Today
Dog Bytes
Everything and the Dog
Grey Horse Matters
Paradigm Farms
Pawcurious
The Other End of the Leash

…I tried.

A few of my attempts to comment got caught in some sort of verification loop, which has also happened to some readers on Lull. It’s a Google/Blogger cookie thing, apparently.

Anyway, I’m working on workarounds at my end, but you might want to check your own cookie settings, too.

[Initial from Daily Drop Cap.]

My Little Ponies

Horses were a focal point of my childhood. I read about them, drew them, collected statues of them, rode them, and pretended to be one of them. Now, all grown up and living in the Bluegrass, horses have reprised their role in my life. Mostly, I read horse-centric books. Yet better than books about horses are blogs about them—which have become my new favorite diversion from the “Current Reading Lineup” list.

Tons of horse blogs live on the Web. Whatever your pleasure or need is—dressage, jumping, training, medical care, racing, breeding—there’s surely a blog for it. And one for each horse breed to boot. I wanted to share links with you to a few blogs I’ve been following recently because you may like them too. Each has horses with outsized personalities and writers who know how to illuminate them for readers.

Of course, I’ve a fondness for rescue tales and two blogs deliver on that: Saving Faith: Fighting to Survive and From Hell to Heaven: Saving Argus. Both focus on a single horse rescued from severe neglect. The only drawback is that you have to read one post at a time, starting with the first (which is listed last) and move forward by date. Though Faith’s story ended in 2010, it’s still worthwhile to read; Argus’s story continues to unfold. Augustus’ Reign is a different kind of rescue: giving a home to a wild Mustang. The author covers Mustangs in general and the work of Shiloh Horse Rescue.

If you want to live vicariously through some equestrians, try The Literary Horse, Grey Horse Matters, and Tucker the Wunderkind.

What I love about all these blogs is how the community steps in to help in the comments section—whether it’s medical info, training tips, foster care, legal suggestions, or just a word of encouragement or support. I may not have a horse now, but if I ever do, I will have learned much of what I need to know through bloggers.

All these blogs will link you to more horse blogs. You’ll have a list of your own favorites in no time. And you’ll understand why I’m so easily diverted from my book list.

[Pics from top to bottom: Faith from Saving Faith; Augustus (in the middle) from Augustus’ Reign; and Blue from Grey Horse Matters.]

Words on Wednesday

Today is Wednesday.

In the work world, it’s Hump Day for those toiling Mondays through Fridays—the midweek point at which you’ve clocked 2 days of drudgery with only 2 more to go. If your workweek, like mine, often includes Saturdays and Sundays, then Wednesdays are just another day.

In the blogosphere, today is “Wordless Wednesday.” Every Wednesday, participating bloggers post a photograph and nothing more—no explanation, maybe a caption. For fashion blogs, it’s the dress to die for; for pet blogs, it’s the cute animal set-up; for family blogs, it’s the Kodak moment.

I’ve no idea how this got started. (Yes, I could research it, but does it matter that much?) I suspect someone somewhere was quite keen on alliteration. Plus the wordlessness aspect saves a lot of time and brain power—no need to ponder a great idea for a post, no writing, no frustrated rewriting. Perfect space filler: title, photo, done.

Not one to follow the herd, I’ve avoided Wordless Wednesdays on Lull. I’m certainly fond of alliteration, though, so I could call it Wordy Wednesday just to be different. But I’m reluctant to make an ongoing commitment like that.

So, for one day only, I’m serving up random words for Wednesday (really more of a pointless post) and a random bit of art for your viewing pleasure.

[Art by Paul Gauguin. If Wednesday’s got you down, or you’re in need of a little armchair travel, head over to Google’s “Art Project” and tour some of the world’s greatest museums.]

Taking the 365 Challenge

I've no idea where the 365 Project originated, but oodles of bloggers have taken it to heart. Lots of them post a pic a day for their version; others post a poem or drawing.

But the other day I came across a woman who chose as her challenge to read a book a day!

A WHOLE BOOK EACH AND EVERY DAY?! To prove what, exactly?

Granted, some were quite short, making it possible to stretch a longer book across several days. So really she simply read 365 books over the course of a year. But still. What did she get from it? Did she enjoy any of the tales? (I confess I was so appalled I didn't take time to read through her progress and reports. And I failed to save her URL for you. Sorry.)

I'm at a crossroads right now with some of the books I've been reading bit by bit over the months. I've lost the mood for them. I don't want to give up on them, yet I don't want to race through them just to be able to say I finished them. I want to feel changed by them.

Part of the problem is that all of them are fairly thick or oversized in some way, which means they're not very portable. I can only read them at home. Unfortunately, one is a library book and it's dreadfully overdue right now. That's one I'm probably going to have to start again in the future when I have a big block of time to devote to it. It's not like me not to return a library book. (Santa? You know that, right?)

Well, you're not likely to see me devise a 365 Project for Lull. There are only two things I manage to do each and every day: Walk the pooch, and Worry. Those are challenging enough for now.