Archive for March 19, 2011

Forward by R.T. Fitch ~ Author/Director of HfH Advisory Council

Ensuring Best Practices is the Key to Horse Rescue Success

Photo courtesy of the New York Times

Over the past several days a dreadful news story has broken about one of the largest Equine Rescues in the world, the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, willfully and without explanation allowing the care of some 1,000+ horses deteriorate to the point of starvation and death.  Well funded but grossly mismanaged the organization unraveled with the horses, who were promised a comfortable and painless retirement, getting the bitter short end of the stick.

Click (HERE) to read the story and acquire the background.

Of course this sort of disaster has the likes of Dave Duquette, self proclaimed co-leader of a sub culture horse eating club, jumping up and down ranting that bloody horse slaughter plants would have prevented this.

But unlike Duquette and his minions the sane answer that would aide in the prevention of further sanctuary failure is to ensure that sanctuary/rescues meet a high standard of best practices in not only caring for their equine charges but also on how they run their business.  To provide long term care for any animal takes a strategic and aggressive business plan to ensure that funds will be available for the animals, long term.

For many years Jerry Finch, founder and president of Habitat for Horses, and I have sat and mulled the issue of certification/standardization of equine rescues in an effort to ensure that abused and neglected horses would not face a repeat of their pain through the failure of a half baked, backyard horse rescue operation, and there are a wagon load of them out there.

Finally, Jerry found an avenue and agency to achieve this goal through the auspices of the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries.  Proudly, Habitat for Horses is the first Equine Sanctuary to be accredited by GFAS and has been the model for additional certifications as the program has moved forward.  GFAS assures that it’s members are above reproach and offers training and assistance for sanctuaries in an effort to ensure that a host of species represented are cared for at the very highest possible standard.

Below is an article from the NYT stipulating that if the TRF had made an early move to become accredited by GFAS the odds of this disaster occurring would likely have been greatly diminished.  It’s of importance to note that the United States first equine advocacy group, the ASPCA, endorses this concept and points other benevolent organizations to seek this accreditation.

This is an answer and a way forward to help in assuring the future success of sanctuaries/rescues and in so doing ensuring a rightful retirement for our equine companions who have given us their all. ~ R.T.

Reprinted from the New York Times

The New York Attorney General’s Charities Bureau will review complaints about fiscal irresponsibility and improper care given to former racehorses that have been leveled against the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation.

The foundation, located in Saratoga Springs, is one of the largest private organizations in the world dedicated to caring for former racehorses. It has been so slow or delinquent in paying for the upkeep of the more than 1,000 horses under its care that scores have wound up starved and neglected, some fatally, according to interviews and inspection reports obtained by The New York Times.

Despite receiving millions in donations, the foundation has been operating at a deficit for the past two years, according to its financial documents, and as a result has not reliably been paying the 25 farms it contracts with to oversee the retired horses. At the 4-H Farm in Oklahoma, inspectors last month could find only 47 of the 63 retired horses that had been assigned to it. Many of those were malnourished. Inspectors concluded that the rest had died, probably of neglect.

Last week, at a Kentucky farm that is supposed to receive money from the foundation, 34 horses were found in “poor” or “emaciated” condition, inspectors found. One horse had to be euthanized because of malnutrition.

“While we cannot comment on potential or ongoing matters before our office, we take these complaints seriously and will review them,” said Lauren Passalacqua, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office.

The foundation also was told last week that it was losing its funding from the A.S.P.C.A. Last year, the A.S.P.C.A. gave the foundation $175,000 from its Million Dollar Rescuing Racers Initiative. Jacque Schultz, senior director of the A.S.P.C.A. Equine Fund, said the foundation was told that to be considered for another $175,000, it had to obtain accreditation from the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries. “They didn’t make satisfactory movement on that front,” Schultz said.

In a statement, Schultz said, “The A.S.P.C.A. Equine Fund grants program seeks to award equine organizations who strive to achieve best practices, including exceptional equine care and innovative and robust fund-raising practices.”

Click (HERE) to read the story in it’s entirety

(In My Most Outraged Opinion) by R.T. Fitch ~ Author/Director of HfH Advisory Council

Horse Eaters Wallis and Duquette Stick a Fork in Horses, AGAIN!

Graphic courtesy of PPJ Gazette

If perversity, lies, slaughter, blood, gore and criminal misrepresentation make you a tad bit squeamish then I would not recommend that you read any further as Wyoming state Rep. “Slaughterhouse” Sue Wallis and her inane and clueless main squeeze, Dave “Dumb as a Box of Rocks” Duquette are once again unleashing their bloody lies and twisted rhetoric upon the sane world.

We have not heard much out of their fringe and extremist group “United Horseman”, a pro-horse slaughter front, in a couple weeks and I guess things must be kind of boring up in Wyoming and Oregon these days (the haunts of the Despicable Duo).  So being that they have not been in the slimy, sub-culture spotlight for a bit, ole bloody Sue and doinky Dave have come up with a double barreled tub of horse blood to splash around in.  It’s been bad enough that the masters of deception and twisters of the truth have been trying to slice and dice up the domesticated American horse but now they have turned their attention, and butcher cleavers, toward our federally protected wild horses.  (The Wallis family is into the sale of “range” meat so adding wild horses would be another flavor that they could add to their business menu.)

“Untied Horseman” touts itself as being a non-profit organization that furthers the humane treatment of horses from birth to death.  Sue Wallis and Dave Duquette have been presidents and vice-presidents of a myriad of alleged groups (fronts) over the past several years and each and every one of them has crumbled into obscurity once their true mission statement became public (We have never met a horse that we wouldn’t eat) so don’t count on this bogus org to survive for long, either.  Their claim to fame is that they generate mass emails filled with hateful intent, inhumane content, deceptive statements and unsubstantiated facts and figures.  In the past several days they have issued two such erroneous and heartless pieces of trash.

The first gory circulation is calling upon all “horseman” to respond to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) proposed Wild Horse and Burro strategy.  They are in full support of doing everything in their means to ensure that the 40,000+ wild horses that are currently being held in long term holding be released for auction, to killer buyers, and not allowed to go to sanctuaries or even adoption.

Each family member should send in comments as it appears the number of comments is important.  You can rest assured that the horse advocates are sending them in by the hundreds and we can too if you all have your friends and family send them in.

Paranoia and fear run deep with this bunch!  Don’t worry about research or honest input just plug up the mechanics of the process by slinging trash at the target.

For all you radical pro-horse people, please feel free to click (HERE) to read the BLM document and comment by sending your thoughts to the email address of wildhorse@blm.gov (include ‘Comments on the Strategy’ in the subject line) so that we can make their beloved nightmare come true, wouldn’t that be a gas?

Excerpts from their bloody letter to BLM kingpin Bob Abbey go something like this:

Our organization was founded to restore humane (no such thing) and regulated processing (killer word for Slaughter) of horses in the United State…and to control the overpopulation of wild and feral horse

At least they tell you that they have a screw loose right up front!

We oppose implementing “catch, treat, and release” (CTR)… as horse people who understand unmanaged horse behavior…we strongly suggest that you heed the expert advice of your gathering contractors

Hot Damn, that makes a lot of sense.  Dave and Sue Cattoor have made millions off from the backs of America’s vanishing icon so let’s elevate and raise them up to expert status.  Ole Dave has the documentation as he copped a federal plea to illegally rounding up wild horses by helicopter, go figure, and then selling him off to slaughter, he knows all about this stuff.  And then there is the other firm, Sun-J, that just used a helicopter as a weapon against wild horses at the despicable Antelope Complex stampede, that off-the-wall pilot could be another subject matter expert.  GIVE ME A FLIPPEN BREAK!

We would not oppose adjusting sex ratios with more males.  However, we suggest the ratio of 70/30 to be more effective.

Keeeyripes, let’s bend the laws of science and nature even further to torment the poor horses. These two even manage to surpass the BLM when it comes to junk science and cruelty.

Horses are the most destructive ungulent on the range due to their grazing habits and hoof structure.  Because horses have teeth on the top and bottom, unlike cattle and sheep, they bite vegetation off at or below ground level leaving the plant with little opportunity to rejuvenate itself.

This out and out lie was stated during the public comment session at the BLM Advisory Board Meeting, last week, and both the Board and the Cattlemen got a chuckle out it.  A clear example of fact distortion as anyone with even a tad of exposure to cows and horses knows that the pasture you graze your horses on for 4 months can only be grazed by cows for one.  Horses are movers, nomads and do not overgraze in the wild nor do they destroy watering holes as cattle do.  Blinking cows have been the worst thing to ever happen to our public lands and it doesn’t even take a trained eye to observe the destruction that they wreck upon the environment at the public’s expense.

The WFRHBA provides for the sale of excess horses.   We support BLM selling horses to the highest bidder and not keeping horses in long-term holding facilities providing a $40 million savings to the taxpayer and provide a revenue stream to the BLM.

Yeah, get those horses out there on the market and available for slaughter, yum yum.  But we have a plan that is even better and the public could save not only that puny sum of $40 million a year but over $70 million that the BLM fritters away on capturing and enslaving wild horses and burros every year.  Do you know what it is?  Get a pencil or if you are lazy turn on you phone’s recording feature because here it comes:

‘LEAVE THE HORSES ON THEIR LAWFUL LAND, YOU STUPID SACK OF COW POOP!’  Good grief how complicated is that?  Manage them ON the range not off.  I guess that this simple bit of logic escapes the Duo of Deception but that might also explain why they refer to the 7th grade as their Senior Year.

We are opposed to adoption…because this puts the federal government in direct conflict with the domestic horse industry which is already over-stressed with too many excess horses and no viable markets.

Didn’t you idiots just say in the preceding statement that you support the selling of wild horses?  I am confused, or maybe it is you two who are confused?  Would this be doubletalk, could this represent flawed thinking and conflicting information?  Or is this just one of multiple mind farts that you both seem to suffer from whenever you open up your mouths or sit before a keyboard.  You know, they do make medication for such ailments.  But then again, you would have to read the directions and we know that for the both of you that would be a stretch as you would want to argue with the manufacturer and avoid the obvious truths.

Horses should be sold outright for whatever their value is, and neither the BLM, nor the US taxpayer should retain any further responsibility…to ensure that any livestock animal is not cruelly and unnecessarily abused.

‘FWAPP’ <- another mind fart.

We are particularly opposed to any legislation that would require governmental agencies that use horses to use only wild horses as this is putting government in direct conflict with private enterprise..

Awww, come on Sue and Davie, you are showing the color of your underwear, again.  It’s ugly enough just to mentally visualize but you don’t need to rub that green stuff in our face, we know it is all about the money, first and foremost.  You see, we pay attention, we read, we check facts and figures (means we can cipher, Dave) and we do not spout lies, innuendo and rumors.  You could learn a lot from us if you would just put away your butcher cleaver for a bit.

But enough of that cruel stupidity, (if you have the stomach to read their rag of a letter you can do so by clicking (HERE) but ensure that you have your gag reflex fully under control before venturing into their “LaLa” land as it tends to make a sane mind reel with disbelief) it’s time to move on to their second self-debasing issuance.

Besides dedicating their lives to killing and eating horses these two social misfits now have ventured into endorsing the inhumane treatment of horses, the very thing that they say they oppose…again, either I am confused or that mind fart thing is going on again.

In another release the Decadent Duo are calling upon horsemen, not women, to stop the Nevada state legislature from passing a bill designed to prevent the inhumane activity of “horse tripping”.  In a paranoid rant about Peta and the HSUS the two deceptively contrive and weave a tale that the bill is designed to put an end to Rodeo and horse related sports as we know it.  Dave and Sue see the HSUS as the big boogie man under their moldy beds, hell, last year they put out a gigantic list of celebrities and horseman that they claim are being paid by the HSUS to be horse friendly individuals.  From Willie Nelson to Pat Parelli and even radical horse friendly people like myself sit at the mailbox and wait for that big, fat, juicy HSUS check to roll in every month.  Wallis and Duquette are so lame and out of touch with reality that they even listed DEAD people who they felt they should boycott because of their former horse friendly ways.  How in the hell do you do THAT?

If you care to witness the meltdown of logic and good sense you can view their nonsensical and perverted morals posted on Horseback Magazine by clicking (HERE)

None the less, the Evil Princess and Duke of Doink have shown their ample backsides to the world, again, and are proving to be an embarrassment to family, area, state, nation and species as they rant and tear across cyberspace on their bloody quest to kill and eat the horses of this great land.

You have to give them credit, though, as they are the kind of enemy that everyone needs as they are so delusional and disengaged that they prove OUR point every single time they make a collective comment, it’s a lot like watching a dark and demented cartoon show on cruelty and crime.  If not for the sick perversity of their bloody ways it would almost be funny, but there is no humor in the lack of common decency and the absence of a moral compass.

If anything, we should pity them for their lack of two vital and life sustaining organs, a brain and a heart…and let’s not forget that other important fiber that binds those two organs together, a soul…it must be very lonely to live without one.

They should know.