Gallop polls

Willie Nelson says we have a lot to learn from horses, and I find it very difficult to disagree with the man. I get to spend a lot of time with a number of horses who have been spared the slaughter yard, and I can’t name one of them who qualified as “problem children.” The reader responses below the main article are alternately touching and (IMHO) mind-bogglingly unenlightened. The one person who said that old, crippled or unruly horses need to be sold to slaughter is so far from seeing the point of the legislation that I’m not sure they can find it with a map. This legislation prevents kills for food, or sale for foreign kills for food. It does not rule out humane euthanasia with the assistance of a veterinarian in the event that the animal can look forward to no quality of life. (And yes, you do bury them, out in the pasture.) The legistlation does not cast aspersions on other cultures that consume horse meat; it just ensures that the United States won’t be contributing to that particular market, which is as much as we can do.
I never thought I’d be getting behind Willie Nelson on the political spectrum, but this is one case where I feel the man speaks truth. Your mileage may, of course, vary, but in that case, you need to come with me sometime and feed some big fuzzy faces.