Friday, July 12, 2013

Follow-up Friday: Songs, Horse Slaughter, Mentors, Barking in French

I'm happy to be joining Heart Like a Dog in the follow-up Friday blog hop this week.  This is the blog hop that lets you wrap up your week and leads you right into the weekend.  Hosted by FUF creator, Jodi at Heart Like a Dog and co-hosted this week by Donna at Donna and the Dogs.

Recent developments regarding horse slaughterhouses in the US and my promises to tell some farm stories have resulted in a kind of "perfect storm" here at Talking Dogs blog.  Not only will I be on my soapbox about slaughter, but tomorrow's Dog Song Saturday is about horses, plus I'll be telling some of my farm stories about my heart horse, Lady, and threshing with draft horses this coming week.  

Martha My Dear:  Dog Song Saturday
I'm not really a Beatles fan, but the dog daddy is a big one.  I never knew that this song was written about a dog.  As I listened to the song and thought about the lyrics, it made perfect sense.  It's one of my favorites now.  If you missed this post, check it out!

Tomorrow's Dog Song Saturday is about the love affair so many girls have with horses.  Though not about dogs, I hope you'll check it out.

Monday Mischief: USDA and Horse Slaughter
Okay, I'm on my soapbox and I'm drawing a line in the dirt here - something I very rarely do because I'm in business and never want to alienate a customer.  However, I feel very strongly about this issue.

Horse slaughter is inhumane.  Period.  It is inhumane because of the slaughter industry, as well as the nature of horses.  Animals taken to slaughterhouses travel for more than a day at a time in crowded  trucks and are often injured, not to mention traumatized.  While traveling they receive no water, not food, no rest.

Once at the slaughterhouse the stunning procedure (p
rior to butcher) is often inadequate on horses.  In 2007 the USDA documented in the slaughter pipeline rampant cruelty violations and severe injuries to horses, including broken bones protruding from their bodies, gaping wounds and more.  In addition, the USDA documented cruelty and lack of oversight through every single step of the slaughter process.

Horsemeat is dangerous as a food source because of the unregulated administration of toxic substances given to horses before slaughter.  In the US, horses are gathered from all kinds of sources, at various ages, in various health condition, and there is no system to track medications and veterinary treatments given to them to ensure their meat is safe for consumption.   Unlike animals raised for food, horses do not spend their lives being prepared for the food chain.

Most horses that find themselves in a slaughterhouse are there because they wound up in the hands of kill buyers.  In today's economy, they bring a better price per pound for their meat than for their lives as recreational companions.

The slaughterhouses referred to in my blog post plan to slaughter horses for human consumption.  Yes, there are people who want to eat horses (and dogs, too)  They plan to export the meat to Europe and Asia.  They also sell the meat to zoos.

And... as I write this follow-up, I realize that I should devote another blog post (or more) to this subject.  Stay tuned... my blog post for Blog the Change on Monday will be about this issue.  And you'll be glad I'm not including any photographs.

Our Percheron draft mare, Dolly.  She was 33 and retired when she suffered a stroke.  Given lethal injection by our vet, Dolly was then buried here on our farm where wildflowers grow on her grave.  She died as she lived:  with love and compassion.


WW: A Good Mentor
I just have to say:  we've found our dogs to be the very best training tool for puppies at our house.  Jeffie not only is an excellent mentor for Rosie, he was for Rudy before her.   Where did Jeffie learn his good manners?  From Lucy and Tucker.  And so it goes...  
The old gang assembled for treats.  Notice the oldest dog, Tucker, has already taken the sit position.  Lucy will be next, along with Jeffie.  Then the youngest will know what to do, too.  This is an example of our "monkey see, monkey do" training technique.  :-)

Devotion Fragrance by Viva La Dog Spa:  Product Review
I really should have said this in the review:  I wished I'd had this fragrance when my mom's Lhasa Apso was with us AND I wish I'd had Viva La Dog Spa face wipes then, too.  Andy always had an oder (at least to me) and this would have been a real boon.

Jeffie and Rudy want me to tell you that just because they're country boys doesn't mean they don't like to smell good!  In addition to floral fragrances, they also like parfum de dead things...    Rosie is the queen of that particular fragrance.
Rosie has a message for Rita:  
Mlle Rita, votre papa est un homme brillant. Est-ce vrai pour tous les Canadiens? Bécote, Rosie

That's our follow-up for this week.  Join the blog hop and catch us up with what's been going on in your life this week!

14 comments:

  1. Good for you Sue for taking a stand. If it's something I believe in then I am all in and hold nothing against someone who is taking a stand against cruelty.

    Thanks for the reminder too, I'd forgotten about Blog the Change!

    Glad you could join us for FUF we enjoy having you, thanks for participating.

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    1. Thanks, Jodi. I am definitely "all in" on the horse slaughterhouse issue. For me it defines "cruelty."

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  2. No need to apologize for your stand against cruelty. Though I would never have eaten horse meat anyway, this kind of information makes me glad I choose not to eat meat. I look forward to your Blog the Change post on this issue. Mine will probably highlight the plight of wolves (again). Sigh. What a discouraging world it can be sometimes. But there is a lot of good too, people like you who care.

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    1. Sigh... I totally agree with your comment about the world. Some days I think I'm living inside a dystopian novel; I'm just not sure which one. Wolves are another of my personal hot button issue.
      I was a vegetarian for many years, though I'm not now. I think there's a major disconnect for people and they do not understand how food gets to their table. Not enough thought about how the animals are raised and how they are slaughtered. It is not a pretty picture.

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  3. Hi Y'all,

    My Humans saw a cattle van pulled off where they inspect your papers for your animals at the Canadian/U.S. border. One of the horses had won a stakes race the day before and bowed a tendon. There were no dividers between the horses. They could bite and kick each other and did.
    The driver told my Human they would be taken across the border to Canada and trucked to the coast. Then they would be loaded on a boat and shipped abroad for slaughter.
    The evil part is that there were no slaughter houses (that could have been regulated) for horses in the U.S. and still people who didn't care about the animals once they were no longer productive found a way to send them to a horrible end and much suffering.
    My Humans always made sure their horses were humanely "put to sleep" by a licensed vet when the time arrived. We've never found a way to prevent the cruelty of humans who care nothing for us four legged ones.
    Sorry for the rant, but some people think we four legged creatures feel no pain and have no emotions. We do feel pain and we do have emotions.
    Hawk aka BrownDog

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    1. No apology needed. Rant away. I hate interstate highway travel because I see so many livestock haulers on the road. Doesn't matter to me what's inside (cattle, horses, chickens, turkeys...) I cannot bear to see them. The suffering inside those trucks is palpable.

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  4. I should probably think about my next dogs sometime soon. Flash and Patches are both eleven and would make good mentors. But I don't think I want a puppy. Getting rescue dogs that were already trained was amazing. Hm. Food for thought. Any way I slice, now is not the right time. *sigh*

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  5. Great follow up! I know what you mean about wanting to keep things light and friendly and not offend (so important when you are a biz. person) - but you are also right that sometimes you have to take a stand for the things that you believe in. So horrible to think that there are places in the world that eat horses (and dogs!).

    Rita's daddy will be very tickled with that message. Even I, with my extremely limited French, could translate that! And, since we lived in Canada for a while, will answer that while, yes, Daddy is brilliant, not all Canadians are that way! They're mostly lovely - but just like any group of folks - there are some bad (and also stupid) apples. :)

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  6. Sorry about your horse! I think that lots of dogs are mentors. Mom says my big sister learned a lot from her sister Trine that I never knew and I have learned a lot from Katie...unfortunately, not always the good stuff ;)

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  7. Eau de Dead Stuff is a favorite around here too :) Happy Friday!

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  8. How awful about the horse slaughtering, and given that they are injected with chemicals, I don't know why anyone would want to eat them. (Although, I guess that could be said for much of our meat too.)

    The things that are done to some animals in this country is a crime.

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  9. I am really torn on the horse slaughter issue. I see both sides. Good for you for being able to pick a side. :)

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Go ahead... bark at us!