WELFARE - New Regulation Aims to End Horse Soring

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has announced the final version of a rule that will help protect horses from the practice of soring.

(Soring image and x-ray, USDA)

Soring has been viewed as a controversial practice by people within and outside of the horse world.

The Humane Society of the United States says, “Soring involves the intentional infliction of pain to a horse's legs or hooves in order to force the horse to perform an artificial, exaggerated gait. Caustic chemicals—blistering agents like mustard oil, diesel fuel and kerosene—are applied to the horse's limbs, causing extreme pain and suffering.”

They go on to describe a particularly egregious form of soring, known as pressure shoeing, that involves cutting a horse's hoof almost to the quick and tightly nailing on a shoe, or standing a horse for hours with the sensitive part of his soles on a block or other raised object. This causes pressure and pain whenever the horse puts weight on the hoof.

The final rule, which is part of the Horse Protection Act, will be published soon in the Federal Register and become effective by next January.

It will ban many of the devices used for soring, such as stacked shoes, ankle chains, foreign substances and other “action devices,” and force horse industry inspectors to become trained and licensed through the USDA.

The horse industry is currently responsible for training its own inspectors.

Under the final regulation:

• APHIS will license, train, and oversee independent, third party inspectors, known as Horse Protection Inspectors (HPIs), and establish the licensing eligibility requirements to reduce conflicts of interest.
• To allow sufficient time to train and license HPIs and ensure an adequate number before the start of the 2018 show season, current Designated Qualified Person (DQP) licenses will remain valid until January 1, 2018.  Beginning January 1, 2018, management of horse shows, exhibitions, sales, and auctions that elect to use inspection services, must appoint and retain a HPI to inspect horses.
• Beginning January 1, 2018, the regulatory provisions applicable to Horse Industry Organization and Associations are removed and are no longer effective.
• Beginning 30 days after the publication of the final rule, all action devices, except for certain boots, are prohibited on any Tennessee Walking Horse or racking horse at any horse show, exhibition, sale, or auction.  All pads and wedges are prohibited on any Tennessee Walking Horse or racking horse at any horse show, exhibition, sale, or auction on or after January 1, 2018, unless such horse has been prescribed and is receiving therapeutic, veterinary treatment using pads or wedges.  This delayed implementation allows ample time to both gradually reduce the size of pads to minimize any potential physiological stress to the horses and prepare horses to compete in other classes.
• Beginning January 1, 2018, management of HPA-covered events must, among other things, submit certain information records to APHIS, provide HPIs with access, space, and facilities to conduct inspections, and have a farrier physically present to assist HPIs at horse shows, exhibitions, sales, and auctions that allow Tennessee Walking Horses or racking horses to participate in therapeutic pads and wedges if more than 150 horses are entered, and have a farrier on call if 150 or fewer horses are entered.

“Horse soring is a stain on Tennessee’s reputation, and (Friday’s) move by the USDA begins to wipe that stain away,” Humane Society president and CEO Wayne Pacelle said in a statement.

“Hurting horses so severely for mere entertainment is disgraceful, and I put this abuse in the same category as dogfighting or cockfighting - practices that betray our humanity and that cannot stand the light of day.”

Not everyone is on board with the new legislation, however.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) believes the new rules are overreaching, stating in a release, “I am in favor of wiping out the contemptible and illegal practice of horse soring, not wiping out the century old tradition of showing Tennessee Walking Horses as this rule could do.”

“I would hope the new Secretary of Agriculture will not concur with this overreaching rule announced during the last few days of the Obama administration and instead will work with Congress to enact legislation that punishes trainers, owners and riders who abuse horses while preserving the opportunity for law abiding horse enthusiasts to participate in competitions that are the basis of the Tennessee Walking Horse industry.”

Mike Inman, president of the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration, said he plans to challenge the regulatory action. The Celebration is the largest Tennessee walking horse show in the nation.

Remembering Animals That Served in War

As people remember the men and women who have given their lives in war, it’s also a good time to give thanks for the animals that served.

Animals have been part of the war effort for centuries and the wide variety of animals used may be surprising to some.

(1917, www.imw.org.uk)

The use of horses in battle goes back thousands of years. The earliest training manual for war horses - a guide for training chariot horses - dates back to around 1350 BC.

The Great War was the last time horses were used in war as modern technology forced them from the battlefield.

Donkeys and mules were valued for their stamina and sure-footedness on difficult terrain and used to carry heavy loads to and from the front lines.

Elephants were used as late as WWII to pull heavy equipment, and as early as the 3rd Century BC crossing the Alps with Hannibal.

Camels have been a beast of burden for Arabians and North Africans, but it may come as a surprise that the US Camel Corp operated in America during the mid-nineteenth century.

(carrier pigeons, www.imw.org.uk)

60 camels moved supplies throughout the Southwest U.S., a region thought to be too hot and dry for the horse or mule.

Carrier pigeons have also been partners to humans in war with over 100,000 delivering messages for Britain alone in WWI and double that in the second world war.

While not on the front lines, Gambian pouched rats play an active role in saving lives - they detect land mines.

APOPO, a Belgian organization, trains rats to use their exceptional sense of smell for detection while their light weight stops the mines from being triggered.

(APOPO Gambian rat)

Involvement in war extends to animals that call the ocean home.

The US Navy Marine Mammal Program has been in operation since the 1960’s training dolphins and sea lions.

The sea lion perform as a sentry - on the lookout for enemy swimmers - while dolphins are trained to use their biosonar to detect underwater mines.

Sea lions were used as recently as 2003 in the Persian Gulf to help protect British and US ships.

Last, but definitely not least, the most well-known animal used in war is man’s best friend - the dog.

(US Army photo by Spc. Alex Kirk Amen)

The versatile, eager-to-please canines most commonly fill these roles today:

• Sentry
• Scout or Patrol
• Messenger
• Mine Detection
• Casualty
• Tunnel
• Explosives Detection.

Animals - proving time and again, even during times of war, what great friends they are to humans.

RESEARCH - Study Shows Horses can Read Human Emotions

For the first time horses have been shown to be able to distinguish between angry and happy human facial expressions.

Researchers at the University of Sussex examined the reactions of 28 horses to photographs of people making positive and negative expressions, noting stronger reactions to anger. 

Amy Smith, a doctoral student in the Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group at Sussex, co-led the research. She said: “The reaction to the angry facial expressions was particularly clear – there was a quicker increase in their heart rate, and the horses moved their heads to look at the angry faces with their left eye.”

Research shows that many species view negative events with their left eye due to the right brain hemisphere’s specialisation for processing threatening stimuli (information from the left eye is processed in the right hemisphere). The effect of facial expressions on heart rate has not been seen before in interactions between animals and humans.

Amy continued: “It’s interesting to note that the horses had a strong reaction to the negative expressions but less so to the positive. This may be because it is particularly important for animals to recognise threats in their environment. In this context, recognising angry faces may act as a warning system, allowing horses to anticipate negative human behaviour such as rough handling.”

A tendency for viewing negative human facial expressions with the left eye specifically has also been documented in dogs.

Professor Karen McComb, a co-lead author of the research, said: “Emotional awareness is likely to be very important in highly social species like horses – and our ongoing research is examining the relationship between a range of emotional skills and social behaviour.”

The details of the study are published in Biology Letters.

Equine healing powers

The healing power of dogs has been established through countless programs to deal with stress, physical and mental disability and grief. But equine-assisted psychotherapy is becoming a popular tool to help people deal with conditions ranging from autism to addiction, eating disorders and depression. 

There are now more than 600 equine-assisted psychotherapy and learning programs worldwide, including more than 20 in Canada. Veterans Affairs Canada is providing funding for soldiers suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to attend Can Praxis' equine-assisted learning program, an Alberta based collaboration. The Can Praxis program is delivered at no cost to participants. In 2013, they have conducted five pilot workshops involving 23 veterans and 20 spouses.  

CAN PRAXIS ON FACEBOOK

The program uses horses and the staff's extensive expertise in communication skills, conflict resolution and team-building to promote personal renewal and improved quality of life. 

Further Reading on Can Praxis: 

• Horses as Healers for Veterans, Canadian Medical Association Journal
• Horses helping soldiers heal through Can Praxis, Canadian Military Family Magazine