Make Some Noise...Make A Difference!

I have Stage Fright? Could it be!!?? I couldn’t wait to get the Blog up and running, now I can’t seem to figure out what to write about. I have started this paragraph five times only to hit the backspace key each time, unsure of my words, unsure of the message I am trying to get across. Even the word message does not feel like the right word. Do I mean my belief, my opinion, or perspective? How do I begin to explain what I am thinking and feeling when I cannot even decipher my own thoughts in my own head? Is this block coming from frustration, helplessness, or is it a deeper problem, like lack of confidence?

I could write about the fact I have not touched a horse in a week because I can’t fill my gas tank anymore to make the 45 minute drive to the barn. I could write about how the Olympics are right around the corner and our U.S. Team is preparing to make us all proud. I could write about how internet stalking of rescues is at an all time high. But does anyone really care about these things, when we still have horses going to slaughter in Mexico and Canada every week? When every day we have horses, mules, and donkeys popping up that have been suffering long term abuse and neglect?

It’s time to look at ourselves and see what we can change about ourselves to help the horses more every single day. We need to not only work on the anti-slaughter legislation but changing the state and federal laws that continue to protect the abusers of our National Herd. I know many people feel like me. How can we get the federal and state governments to change the laws when they themselves are contemplating the destruction of our wild Mustangs in the name of Big Business?

I think we each have a talent, better yet, a weapon that we are not utilizing. Our voices, our intelligence, our experience in the Horse World among all different types of people, young, old, wealthy, and very horse poor. It cost nothing to email our government representatives, it cost nothing to talk to fellow horse people who have no idea what is going on. Even more we have an entire country that may not own horses, but love them, respect them, and have childhood memories of their first pony ride or seeing their kids grin ear to ear as the touch the soft muzzle of a sweet horse at a fair or a local farm. The people who see horses as a National Icon, but do not live with them every day, they are a resource to our National Herd we must tap. We must reach out into the mainstream public and touch their hearts…..no their sense of right and wrong, the most human part of all of us who want to right the injustices that are happening every day to the voiceless, helpless victims of abuse, neglect, and our government’s inability to step up to the plate.

So please stand up with me and network for our American horses. Start conversations with your fellow shoppers at the pet store or grocery store. When you go to a horse show this summer, ask the trainers, riders, and spectators if they know what is happening to the horses every day over the border. Educate yourselves with talking points, statistics, and quotes from those among us who have first hand knowledge of what happens at US auction houses in every state in the Continental U.S. Don’t be afraid to say the word slaughter or describe what is happening, unless a person really can get a sense of what is happening they will not be moved enough to act!

If we make some noise …..we can make a difference.

Laura Boothby