Animal Police

I had a lot of responses to my post at LifePundit about Ellen DeGeneres and the adopt-a-dog police. Kimberly at I Gallop On wasn't allowed to have mousers because they would live outside (and those cats may have been put to sleep instead.)  Other readers told similar stories. You might want to read Anwyn's thoughts on this issue. I'm bringing it up again (and transferring to this blog) because of something
Transylvanian Horseman said:

I'm not sure if you have those "Animal Cop" TV shows in the US. Here in Europe we see them all the time on Animal Planet channel. Featuring just the sorts of Fluffy Bunny people whom you describe. These shows make us so mad. The fascists (because that is what these "animal cops" resemble) in every episode prosecute people with horses that almost always look in good shape. Occasionally they do something good, like take a dog hit by a car to a vet. But mainly they harass people. They are such racists: a black or Hispanic person is far more likely to be prosecuted for an OK-looking horse than a white person, and to be treated like complete dirt. It's amazing that the US populace stands for that kind of thing. (This is not his complete post, which is well worth reading in its entirety.)

The animal cop stories I've seen on TV have always been about animals that were clearly abused. I don't think I've seen one about horses, and hope I never do. In fact, some of the shows are hard to take (why am I watching?). But something Transylvanian Horseman said about people reporting others for revenge reminded me of a true -- and kind of funny -- story.

A horse vet I know was renting one of two houses on a large farm where the farm's owners had an on-going dispute with some neighbors. One cold and rainy night the neighbors decided to call the sheriff about the horses that were out in the weather. Here's where it gets funny.

The sheriff went to the wrong rental house to investigate. The woman inside was badly bruised and looked like she'd been battered. There were flowers everywhere, another sign that there might be a batterer in residence. The truth was, she had just had a facelift and didn't want anyone to know (the non-battering boyfriend and family had sent the flowers). The sheriff was sure she was lying and wanted to investigate. Finally, she convinced him that she had recently had surgery that had caused the bruising, and by the way, he was at the wrong house. The other rental house was where they would find the owner of the horses standing out in the rain.

So the sheriff went to the other rental house, all ready to do justice there. He knocked on the door and the horse vet answered. "I've got a complaint about your horses being out in the cold rain with no shelter," he said.

"They're fine," the vet said. (There was a shelter in the shadows if they wanted to use it, which they didn't.)

"Your neighbor said they're being abused," the sheriff said.

The conversation ended when the vet explained what she did for a living.

Comments

[transylvanianhorseman]

Anne,

I think that here in Europe these channels like Discovery and Animal Planet air different shows. My partner Danielle, who is from New York, thinks so. For instance, we see lots of episodes of "The FBI Files", a show where America appears to be a land of felons driving battered pickups equipped with powerful firearms. And where the FBI nail every felon in due course. These shows don't seem to represent the real US, other maybe than the sort of dodgy parts that every nation has.

I ought to clarify a little that the horses seized in these Animal Cop shows are not going to win show classes. They don't carry any more weight than they need to. However, few are really underweight, injured or lame. In most cases, it is hard to see what offense has been committed. The racism is startling, coming from Britain where racism generally is viewed in a very bad light.

I saw a report from a recent equine welfare conference. A veterinarian presented a paper where he looked at horses that had won show classes over the preceding 50 years. At the beginning, they were athletic-looking horses. Now the winners are all obese. So we have a situation where respected veterinarians have established obesity as an equine welfare issue. However the "animal cops", like some primitive human societies, regard obsesity as a sign of wealth and, supposedly, wellbeing.

[ELL]

We have a local group who traps feral cats and neuters / spays and gives rabies vaccines. They will sometimes return them to where they captured them--like on the waterfront where they keep the rat population down. Often they relocate them to farms as barn cats. They are always looking for barns in need of cats.

[risingrainbow]

I don't know about animal police shows, but I do know the animals that really need the police don't get them nearly soon enough. My friend is involved in horse rescue and what they have to go through to confiscate starving horses is beyond me. I see these horses when they get to her barn and it's taken two weeks to a month to get them and it gives me night mares. There needs to be some balance in the world. Something to stop the wierdos from inflicting their strange opinions on the rest of us and still protect the animals that need protecting.