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auctions



I wonder, actually, if most horses going to an auction barn don't stand
*nearly* as good a chance of finding a good home as those we sell
privately--who are then resold and resold to Lord knows who-----yes, the
first buyer we choose might be better---maybe.   There are a lot of good
folks who go to auctions looking for horses.   Just IMHO.  Claudia
 

That is a fantasy to make ourselves feel better about deserting our responsibility as a horse owner.  More often than not horses dumped at these low end auctions have problems that make them unusable or will involve expensive rehabilitation to bring them back to usable.  Why would we think that someone else would be willing to take on a problem that we ourselves unloaded at the auction?  It is more likely that horses bought at a cheap price with problems will be neglected and left to rot in the pasture or recycled through the auction, when it is discovered the horse really isn't usable, or will take extensive costly treatment to rehabilitate them.  I know because I was a part of that chain with my poor Tramp.  So please let's not delude ourselves into thinking someone will rescue our mounts if we dump them at the auction, in Tramp's case I am haunted by the fact that an ugly slaughter house death would have been kinder than the years of suffering she tolerated till I found her again.  I should have kept her myself, even if it meant selling one of my healthy horses to do so.

There are wonderful people out there who are rescuing horses.  So if finances make it impossible for you to keep a problem or old horse, would it not be better to give that horse to a rescue ranch rather than make them spend their limited funds on buying the horse at an auction?  Chances are your horse won't  be rescued, it will be slaughtered, or bumped from unwanted home to unwanted home, suffering the whole time.  We need to face reality-if you don't want the problems, chances are neither does anyone else.

We will not diminish the need for these low end auctions until we each personally take responsibility for our horses till death do us part.  The rose colored glasses need to come off-reality isn't pretty, but it's there.

We can't change the world, but we can take care of our own.  My plea for the horses is, to look into the many options available to us and aviod the low end auctions as a solution to our problem horses.

Kathie
S CA



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