Having had dogs since a small child, I especially enjoy hearing about the efforts made in giving the best care, and the most comfortable accommodations as possible for your animals. It is said you can tell a lot about people by the way they treat their animals. I believe that to be by and large the case, but then some people just don't seem to know any better as well.
One thing (out of many!) we have learned living out here in the woods of Eastern Tennessee, is that in certain areas people tend (but not always of course) to not see that the 4 leggeds need the same basic care and attention as us 2 leggeds. They are seen more as possessions, like something you may drag home from a yard sale, stick it in some corner, and forget about it.
Like 4 years ago our first winter here, there was this poor dog out in the middle of a field closely chained to his dog house. Always chained, always always always. A lot of that here, keep dogs on permanent short chains so they can never even experience the sheer joy of running. But anyway, it about broke our hearts to see that even when the temperature goes down to zero, the dog stays out on that chain. That particular dog wasn't there come spring, a new one took it's place on that lonely chain, and it was the same the next winter for the new dog.
And then the horses; we never had any experience with horses, but summer before last our front neighbor with a 50 acre field wound up with a horse, an old mule, and a lil red pony. It was cool getting to know horse energy over this time, except that they had no shelter, and when all the green grass was eaten he wouldn't buy them hay to eat. For more than a year, and especially over the coarse of 2 winters, we kept those horses fed and watered. They basically became our defacto new pets; always close by, they would come when you called them, and they knew that getting home from work time was feeding time.
You know it wasn't easy keeping those big hungry mouths fed, but hell we can't just sit around and watch them starve! Maybe it was a mistake to ask this neighbor a few weeks ago while talking about how to clear some trees, how he planned on feeding them this winter, because he up and plopped them into an out of the way field he owns up the mountain behind us. I know he doesn't appreciate our concern, and I know what his plans are: Out of sight out of mind for us, and they have more fresh green grass up there, that is until they eat it all, and winter sets in again. This winter they will not only go hungry and without shelter, but they won't even have any human warmth and attention.
But we can't say anything more, not in these parts, you don't want to alienate all you neighbors. By the way we didn't know for sure the horses got moved up there, we hoped he had sold them, but we drove up to look and sure enough there they were. And the shit of it is that when I got out to talk to them, they looked at me like f**k you, this is all your fault because you're our care givers now. YOU let this happen". As you said SW, horses don't lie...
So anyway thanks for listening to my little rant, I seldom do that but when I do it feels good. And again, I love hearing how well your 4 leggeds are cared for
The unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates
