[not so] welcome to the wild wild west…
Every day when I drive out on my daily round I pass my neighbour's horses. Every day when I drive home I also pass my neighbour's horses.
The neighbour runs a boarding stable, if one could call it a boarding stable when the horses are actually out on the fields 24/7 all dirty and muddy. So it is maybe more of a boarding field.
At first sight it looks a bit like a mess.
There are Irish Cobs, cold bloods, warmbloods and ponies all over the place. Some of them with funny colours, some just plain Standardbred brown.
Every single time I see these horses my initial thoughts [sadly] go to animal welfare.
Then, after my eyes and brain have started to work together and I can take in what it is I am looking at, my mind shifts.
The horses are obviously well maintained, they are living in smaller packs of 5-8 horses. When the weather is too dry or too wet and the fields are out of grass the owners are constantly feeding them hay at multiple locations on these fields.
Evidently these horses and ponies are not high performance sports horses, but they do have a high standard of life style, and I am pretty sure they are very muched loved by their owners.
Just like every horse deserve to be, but as we all know this is not always the case.
BUT…
The other night not one, but three horses were stolen from their fields in the middle of the night.
THREE!
STOLEN!
One of them in the next village from us, two from the next one!
W T F ! !
I cannot imagine what the owners, one of them who is no stranger to me, are going through in this situation.
Furthermore I don't even dare to think of what the horses are going through. Cause whoever does a thing like this, for sure has a twisted mind of some sort.
But in the big scheme of pictures it makes me wonder how long our neighbour can keep his boarding stable as is.
It also make me wonder how long my own “puppies” as well as other horses, mules and donkeys can live outside without the risk of some horse thief swinging by and take them away.
Personally I am against all forms of violence, but in the wild wild west they used to serve horse thieves to the gallows…
HUG YOUR HORSE(S) 🐴
