I wonder how much tolerance would be going around here if the video was “Riding horses is cruel unless you use Parelli methods”.
[QUOTE=saultgirl;7994903]
Who cares? Vegans are out of touch with reality.[/QUOTE]
Please don’t pour ALL vegans into that bucket. Been veggie for decades, and am thinking of going vegan, for my own health. Not because I think getting on top of my horse will kill her. (If she wasn’t okay with it, she could get me off! )
I think anyone who has had any significant exposure in the horse industry will admit that some riding and riders ARE cruel. Some of the things that happen in the back barns at major shows make me sick.
The important thing is that people be educated on what is and is not cruel.
This girl isn’t right, but she’s not all wrong either.
[QUOTE=zippyrider;7994999]
Wow. I don’t even know what to say. It’s too bad that the rebuttals go straight for the jugular: Her looks and a superlative statement that vegans are out of touch. Vegans tend to be very well educated on nutrition and the environmental footprint of their diet and lifestyle, and she looks far healthier than the majority of people out there.
I do agree with her that horseback riding is not compatible with the vegan lifestyle. I think it’s too bad that she showed examples of explicit animal cruelty, resorted to sensationalism, passed along misinformation, and used information out of context to make her point, but again, I think she is right that horseback riding and the vegan lifestyle don’t work well together.
I would love to hear rebuttals. I’m not being sarcastic. I am really curious, and it is something I have wrestled with myself.
And I’m not a vegan. Obviously.[/QUOTE]
And why are we giving her fruitbat screed airtime on COTH? HUH???! :eek:
[QUOTE=zippyrider;7995404]
They have to use sea kelp and compost and incorporate permaculture, wild harvesting, etc. The sea kelp is not super sustainable if it has miles to go, but there are vegan alternatives for food production.
Yes, saying you are abusive is likely unfounded, insensitive, and offensive. But I don’t agree that vegans are hateful, and her appearance (which looks healthy, IMO) has nothing to do with it. I have many, many vegan friends, and none of them has ever questioned my riding. They personally wouldn’t do it, but they also understand the vegan lifestyle can be a challenging one and is not for everyone. Tolerance.[/QUOTE]
What most ideological “vegans” ARE is holier-than-thou, and it’s THEY who are most often intolerant. I don’t see any beef-eaters or horse owners ranting on video about how Vegans shouldn’t be allowed to grow and process their seaweed-fertilized, tasteless cellulose swill.
Maybe it’s time WE became a lot LESS tolerant of their anti-animal message!
When someone brings “The Ranger Study” to show that we should not be riding horses, they really need to study that a bit more.
If they had studied feral horses, they would have also found that they have all kinds of skeletal deviations from the norm, not possibly from being ridden, they obviously are not, but those their environment brings to them.
Feral horses tend to have short lives if all goes well, very short ones when they have anything go wrong, be it a drought, injuries from their every day lives or from fights between themselves or caused by predators.
There is NO ONE alive that doesn’t has some happening to them all along, is the way all alive fares all along while alive.
One example, one of our best horses was from a feral horse herd in Nevada, caught as a five year stallion.
All his life, we were cautious how we used him, as he had questionable knees.
Our vet diagnosed the cause as rickets, from possibly bad nutrition when he was a yearling, maybe in a drought, at the time his knees were closing.
If he had stayed in the wild, he probably would have broken down before ten and suffered before he died.
As a now domesticated horse, taken care of well, he was an excellent ranch horse, properly trained and conditioned for riding and kept fit, never missed a meal, water on demand and vet attention, fly sprayed in the summers, never ridden hard, retired early, wonderful boss of his small herd of geldings, so with good friends all along to scratch his back and safe from predators.
He lived double what he would have as a feral horse and we think with a better quality of life.
There are many horses out there that would tell animal rights extremists to mind their own business, they are happy alive and happy doing what they do with and for their humans.
We need to understand that, for the animal horses are, they are not humans in furry suits, animal welfare will show us how to do right for them.
Animal rights takes away, working so there will not be any more animals in human hands.
One of their ways is to trick people into following them is to say, “see, people abuse animals, we have to stop that!”
With the fortunes that has brought them, now that they have so many millions they are stashing them away in the Caribbean, they then use some of that money to bringing such impossible demands as to make ANY animal use impossible thru propaganda and push laws to, eventually, make using animals illegal.
When it comes to any one study out there, animal rights extremists love to use those, out of context, for their propaganda, as they are doing with the OP’s video.
Why?
You can make a parallel study with human athletes, that also start training early, way before they are mature and so grow their body already up to the task at hand.
Any body will be best at what is trained to do and yes, there will be some strain as is doing so, but that is what eventually makes it best for it’s task.
Feral horses are trained by living wild, with the consequences that brings, not all good ones and so does horses raised and trained by humans, for human tasks.
That is the way this works for EVERY organism out there, with trade-offs with what we demand of it and that there will be all kinds of consequences of what we do, not all beneficial.
The trick is in the details, that is where animal welfare comes in.
The nonsense is in pointing to that and then jumping to determining we need then to quit riding horses.
In short, use doesn’t mean abuse, as animal rights extremists insist it does and try to make abuse a reason to quit using horses.
[QUOTE=Lady Eboshi;7995457]
What most ideological “vegans” ARE is holier-than-thou, and it’s THEY who are most often intolerant. I don’t see any beef-eaters or horse owners ranting on video about how Vegans shouldn’t be allowed to grow and process their seaweed-fertilized, tasteless cellulose swill.
Maybe it’s time WE became a lot LESS tolerant of their anti-animal message![/QUOTE]
When anything becomes a Religion then you will see the nutjobs come out. Ideological vegans seem to get wrapped up in their own ideology and start falling down the vortex.
This is a different thing than trying to avoid the “Western Diet” pitfalls.
There is no credible evidence that vegan or vegetarian “life styles” are more healthy than any number of competing life styles that include meat and dairy products. Even the vaunted “Mediterranean Diet” has some question about it as the basic observations that it is based upon were made during the season of Lent on Crete some years back. And there’s some question about other studies that have supported the idea.
You are what you eat. If you live on potato chips, soda pop, and candy then you’ll likely not have a very healthy existence. On the other hand if you eat a variety of foods properly prepared and in reasonable quantity then you’ll probably be OK.
Oh, and walk a couple of miles a day. 
Put another way, all the “magic diets” that are proposed should be viewed in the light of the reality that there is no such thing as “magic.” 
What a person does to keep their own conscience happy is their business. Frankly, I don’t much care about that sort of thing.
I do care when polemics like the OP referenced link are put out as valid information worthy of fair consideration. They are not. They are just another manifestation of “junk science.”
G.
[QUOTE=saultgirl;7995362]
As an aside, I don’t think I need to be polite when it comes to people saying I’m abusive to my animals. And vegans would hate me. I keep animals at home for my own entertainment, I eat them, I wear them, I ride my horses (even when they don’t want to be ridden) and I’m not sorry.[/QUOTE]
Well, I’m vegan and I’ve never met you so I can’t say that I hate you or that you are abusive to your animals, but based on your responses here I’d have to guess that you are ignorant, judgmental, and rude.
I’m tired of dealing with close-minded bigots telling me who I am and what I think when they don’t know anything about me other than I’m vegan, and it’s one of the reasons I can’t wait to leave the Midwest. Never met so many intolerant people in my life.
[QUOTE=Dressagelvr;7995447]
I think anyone who has had any significant exposure in the horse industry will admit that some riding and riders ARE cruel. Some of the things that happen in the back barns at major shows make me sick.
The important thing is that people be educated on what is and is not cruel.
This girl isn’t right, but she’s not all wrong either.[/QUOTE]
That is one example of falling for the “use is abuse!” cry of animal rights extremist propaganda.
Do people quit letting humans have kids because some abuse kids?
Do we quit sending kids to school or church because someone abuses kids?
Do we work to eliminate police because some abuse their power?
Do we ban all vehicles, because some drive drunk/high/without licenses and so abuse their driving priviledges?
Do we ban … you make your own examples.
Repeating, use is not abuse.
We may say, animal rights extremists are the abusers here.
They are abusing the good will of the clueless by painting all animal use as abuse and convincing so many to donate so THEY can then save those poor abused animals.
Then they use the money to pass laws that ultimately will eliminate all use of animals.
Who is the abuser here?
[QUOTE=Guilherme;7995484]
There is no credible evidence that vegan or vegetarian “life styles” are more healthy than any number of competing life styles that include meat and dairy products. Even the vaunted “Mediterranean Diet” has some question about it as the basic observations that it is based upon were made during the season of Lent on Crete some years back. And there’s some question about other studies that have supported the idea.
You are what you eat. If you live on potato chips, soda pop, and candy then you’ll likely not have a very healthy existence. On the other hand if you eat a variety of foods properly prepared and in reasonable quantity then you’ll probably be OK.
Oh, and walk a couple of miles a day.
Put another way, all the “magic diets” that are proposed should be viewed in the light of the reality that there is no such thing as “magic.”
What a person does to keep their own conscience happy is their business. Frankly, I don’t much care about that sort of thing.
I do care when polemics like the OP referenced link are put out as valid information worthy of fair consideration. They are not. They are just another manifestation of “junk science.”
G.[/QUOTE]
Much of what you say is good advice for anyone, and I’d use the word “Diet” rather than “Lifestyle”.
What got me to start considering a go at veganism was when I saw this:
http://www.amazon.com/Forks-Over-Knives-Extended-Interviews/dp/B0091V6SVY
This movie has a good bit of real science in it, and is currently streaming on Netflix if anyone is interested.
I have many vegetarian, and some VEGAN friends. None have questioned my riding. One has a horse, and rides in synthetic tack.
My question to anyone that thinks riding is cruel and abusive…
Who will spend the time and $$$ to properly care for horses if they don’t have a job?
I have a job and work to feed, clothe, and house myself. So does my horse. In fact, I probably work 10x more than my horse, so she has it pretty good.
There is abuse in the horse world. People also abuse their kids, dogs, etc. Let’s work on ensuring the welfare of animals, instead of trying to take away their purpose.
[QUOTE=CrowneDragon;7995489]
I’m tired of dealing with close-minded bigots telling me who I am and what I think when they don’t know anything about me other than I’m vegan, and it’s one of the reasons I can’t wait to leave the Midwest. Never met so many intolerant people in my life.[/QUOTE]
I thought food was only a small part of being vegan. My understanding of veganism is that no animals or animal products are eaten, used in clothing, soaps/personal care products, and no animals are to be kept or used for pleasure or sport or work of any kind.
[QUOTE=CrowneDragon;7995489]
Well, I’m vegan and I’ve never met you so I can’t say that I hate you or that you are abusive to your animals, but based on your responses here I’d have to guess that you are ignorant, judgmental, and rude.
I’m tired of dealing with close-minded bigots telling me who I am and what I think when they don’t know anything about me other than I’m vegan, and it’s one of the reasons I can’t wait to leave the Midwest. Never met so many intolerant people in my life.[/QUOTE]
I’m confused, and that’s probably why you get wrongly labeled by people, but don’t you ride and have leather tack and apparels?
The vegan’s philosophy is against riding in general and all animal by-products…
Vegetarianism and vegetalism are only diet choices. Veganism is a lifestyle/philosophy.
If you ride and buy stuff made of animals, you’re not vegan at all.
[QUOTE=zippyrider;7994999]
I do agree with her that horseback riding is not compatible with the vegan lifestyle. I think it’s too bad that she showed examples of explicit animal cruelty, resorted to sensationalism, passed along misinformation, and used information out of context to make her point, but again, I think she is right that horseback riding and the vegan lifestyle don’t work well together.
I would love to hear rebuttals. I’m not being sarcastic. I am really curious, and it is something I have wrestled with myself.
And I’m not a vegan. Obviously.[/QUOTE]
Someone better tell people like actor Dennis Weaver, whom I understand is a vegan…and a horseman. That buckskin he used to ride in some commercials was his own horse.
[QUOTE=Sandy M;7995542]
Someone better tell people like actor Dennis Weaver, whom I understand is a vegan…and a horseman. That buckskin he used to ride in some commercials was his own horse.[/QUOTE]
Some of those terms like vegan/vegetarian are so confused that you can make of them what you want.
That was the point of one article that was explaining just that.
They found out many people that consider themselves any of those labels in reality do fudge a bit as they feel like it.
Many are not died in the wool followers of the LOGIC of what they say they want.
When the REALITY of the world we live in demands they don’t follow those ideals, they don’t and are fine with it.
Case in point, Clinton calling himself vegetarian but regularly enjoying a sunday hamburger and being fine with that.
So much for the quoted 2% calling themselves vegan/vegetarian.
Kind of makes those figures questionable.
When it comes to what we may eat, many people are mostly eating vegetables anyway, meat as is convenient and don’t think about what label to use to just plain eating your food.
[QUOTE=alibi_18;7995540]
I’m confused, and that’s probably why you get wrongly labeled by people, but don’t you ride and have leather tack and apparels?
The vegan’s philosophy is against riding in general and all animal by-products…
Vegetarianism and vegetalism are only diet choices. Veganism is a lifestyle/philosophy.
If you ride and buy stuff made of animals, you’re not vegan at all.[/QUOTE]
There is no relationship between riding horses and veganism. There are some people who are against any “objectification” of animals, but that is a fairly extreme viewpoint.
I do own leather, but have not bought any since becoming vegan. I do not see what would be gained by getting rid of it, and there is a lot of sentimental value in some of my tack. I am happy that synthetic stuff is more and more widely available. And yes, it is possible that there could be some kind of animal-derived byproducts in those products (aside from petroleum), but I am a realist and at a certain point I can only do the best I can do.
And yes, I also avoid animal products in other forms (soaps, makeup, clothing, shoes, etc).
[QUOTE=CrowneDragon;7995555]
There is no relationship between riding horses and veganism. There are some people who are against any “objectification” of animals, but that is a fairly extreme viewpoint. [/QUOTE]
Well, using an animal for sport is agains’t every vegan beliefs. Putting a bit in their mouth and a saddle on their back to “use” them is not supposed to be ok for a vegan. I’ve never find a website, book, or true vegan who would say otherwise.
If you consider yourself as a “moderate” vegan then you’re just a vegetalien trying not to use too much animal by-products. And that’s fine.
But Veganism is about being extreme.
[QUOTE=Beverley;7995132]
We should all care. Because 1% of the U.S. population are horse owners, and 2% of the U.S. population considers themselves to be vegans. So no matter how ‘out of touch’ they may be, they can beat us in the voting on any animal welfare issue, legitimate or not.
And, who else is ‘out of touch’ is us. Just look across the boards on this forum at one discipline calling another cruel, providing quotable ammunition for groups with agendas. We are our own worst enemy, just playing into the nonsense that includes this little video.[/QUOTE]
This…
I think it’s not politically correct on COTH to say that there is no such thing as magic
