Welcome to CynthiaDErrico.com!

Welcome to CynthiaDErrico.com!

Stay a while and share your thoughts. Nous parlons français.  Reposez-vous et partagez vos pensées !  

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Posted by on May 1, 2011 in En français svp, Ground Manners, Welcome, Writing | 3 comments

Horses in the Asphalt Jungle

I was astonished to discover recently that horsemen who practise Natural Horsemanship, of whatever origin, also support horse-driven caleches in cities as big as Montreal (3 million), a city so swelteringly hot and humid in the summertime that young children and the elderly keep indoors for health reasons.   Let me backtrack.  As I understand NH techniques as applied to equines, the premise is that the horse is a prey animal, subject to flight responses (including panic) when confronted by smells, noises, objects, or environments he is unfamiliar with.  

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Posted by on May 9, 2012 in *Featured Articles*, Animal Welfare, Caleche horses, Horses, Media Reports, Quebec Horse Industry | 3 comments

Is Horse Slaughter Now a Cottage Industry? Revised

On my earlier posts about the repealing of Section 33 of the Meat Inspection Act of 1990, Alert! Horse Apartheid, and Are you Eating Beef Laced with Horsemeat, there was a revealing comment shared by Theresa Anne Nolet, a horse advocate.  This is what she wrote:

Good day Cynthia just received an email response from Dr.Brian Evans of CFIA in response to an email I had sent him.

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Posted by on Apr 7, 2012 in Another Brick in the Wall, Health and all that Jazz, Human Health, Media Reports, Quebec Horse Industry, Slaughter Facts & Stats | 5 comments

Racism and Horse Slaughter

Racism and Horse Slaughter

I was planning to write a post called What You Don’t Know about Quebec Will Kill Your Horse but I’ve noticed that as soon as someone (usually a fellow Canadian, and sometimes, some Americans) discovers that I’m a Quebecker, they hold their nose and turn away as if I had cooties; we’ll get to the reasons for that a little later. Right now, I’ve decided to discuss how insidious human proclivities (you know, bad and/or malignant habits) creep in to animal advocacy arguments and yes, even those against horse slaughter…one of them being racism.  

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Posted by on Apr 6, 2012 in Horses, Media Reports | 1 comment

To Eat or Not to Eat… your Horse?

To Eat or Not to Eat… your Horse?

If you read my last blog about the CFIA asking to consult the Canadian public on traceability requirements for food animals (which includes horses),  you also read Roxanne’s comment.  Roxanne sums up everything so well that this blog post is devoted to her comment alone.  Please click the link and read the CFIA’s original notice so you can fully appreciate her excellent points.

How different we are here. A national animal identification system was much protested and rejected in the United States. Implementing an NAIS will be much more difficult for horses. Horses rarely stay on the farm like other animals because they are not “like” other animals, or perhaps better said, other food or dairy animals. Horses go out and off the farm, sometimes every weekend, sometimes daily for trail rides, to riding lessons, to clinics, to horse shows, to see the vet. Horses live a long time and often have several owners. Horses often live in urban environments, in boarding stables. How will that be monitored, Will it further push the cost of horse ownership away from the average person? How will it affect rescues? Local horse clubs? 4H? Pony Club? Wild horses? If they choose a microchip, will that mean another chip for breeds that already have microchip identification? What if it’s retinal scanning? Who is going to pay for all the equipment? This is a strategy for food animals, not companion animals. There is no such strategy for dogs and cats. Along with traceability, what is chosen now will formally define the status of the horse in our society and in our country. It was hashed over for years in the U.S. and rejected. I can’t believe how apathetic the horse community in Canada is to all this, but I’m sure they will complain when it happens. My vote is for choice and for a passport system like the U.K. has, that allows the owner to choose if their horse will ever go to slaughter or not, with tracking necessary only for those who choose that possible end. Let those who would permit their horses to go to slaughter pay the costs of supporting the coming requirements for that industry. Leave those of us who don’t choose that end alone.

 

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Posted by on Mar 31, 2012 in *Featured Articles*, Animal Welfare, Horse Breeding, Human Health, Mustangs | 5 comments