| Featured Article - December 2006
In The Shadow of Equus Coping in a Working World of Equines |
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| "You do feel a lot of
different things. We have animal keepers who are very good within the limits of the money
they have got. But we see a lot
of people, especially young men and teenagers, buying a donkey cart in the city. They don’t have a tradition
of owning or handling donkeys. They care a lot less because they lack
the exposure to owning animals and caring for them in the home (where
they would develop husbandry skills).
In Kenya there is a lot of beating. It’s partly ignorance, lack of education, or poverty
restrictions. But this is certainly not everyone.” Joy Pritchard, veterinarian and head of animal welfare with the Brooke Hospital for Animals in London, England, was talking about her observations of animal owners in third world countries where the Brooke works. She is responsible for vet training and program organization. “Vets come out of vet school and my job is to introduce them to animal welfare. It is so rewarding.” The Brooke Hospital provides free veterinary care to more than 500,000 horses, donkeys, and mules in third world countries every year. Mobile equine clinics travel to villages where vets, nationals of the countries in which the Brooke operates, treat animals for wounds, parasites, lameness, injuries, and harness sores. In many regions, 80 percent of equine ailments are preventable. The vets conduct ongoing research on diseases and critical animal health issues to improve outcomes, and they teach owners and their families how to care for their animals in simple and effective ways. But equines in developing countries work under horrendous conditions, especially those working in towns, as tourist carriage horses, or in the brutally tough brick kilns. How do the Brooke personnel cope with the things they see and hear? “It can be very frustrating, especially in situations where the animal is not part of the family,” said Pritchard. “Animals can be governed by the economics, by a market business. The person working with the animal doesn’t own it; it is owned by the company. In these situations I try to work as well as I can to introduce compassion, but the worker is restricted because he doesn’t own the animal. We try to talk to the owners. Some people are interested but some, if they think it’s going to be a financial burden, turn away. They can always get another donkey. You see donkeys carrying fodder to cattle but not getting any fodder themselves. There’s such a disconnect. These are situations that are really difficult and frustrating.” In countries where poverty is chronic and widespread, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Keeping things in perspective is essential to coping. Brooke folk try to see the bigger picture, but cope by dealing with each donkey one at a time. Still, there is really no protection for the emotions when the suffering is enduring and, for reasons of choice by the owner or cultural doctrine, an animal cannot be humanely euthanised. “People think that you can easily get desensitized,” said Bill Swann, Director of International Development. “But this is not actually true. Some people find it very difficult. There’s the cultural aspect and (the shock of) being exposed to poverty. But with the overseas staff there is a very strong sense of helping people and animals. They became vets but there is this desire to want to help people. It’s why they choose to work for charities.” Cultures, as Ms. Pritchard explained, have their pluses and minuses. Hindu people are generally very strong about looking after their animals. But they are against euthanasia, even when it is needed for humane reasons. Among Islamic people, their husbandry is very good and they take care of their animals. It is, after all, decreed in the Koran. Tribal cultures tend to be better in rural areas where they are closer to the land and have animals at home. But when they move to the cities they can lose the connection and, with it, the compassion. “The things I have always in the back of my mind are the improvements in owners’ lives and animals’ lives,” said Tanya Dennison, who heads up the welfare assessment division of a pioneering three-stage research project between the Brooke and Bristol University School of Veterinary Science. Over the past year they have assessed the health, welfare, and behaviour of 10,000 working equines in five countries. “It takes ten minutes to look at an animal with no restraint other than a halter and lead line. We always have a crowd and they are wowed by the ease with which we handle animals. I hear comments like, ‘please tell the Western lady not to pick up his leg or he will kick.’ But donkeys respond with kindness.” |
She remembers how quickly animal owners
change their attitudes when shown examples of proper care. “If people are suspicious of you, they won’t bring their animals. There was a man in Guatemala who said he would not let us look at his animals. He was adamant. We just went on quietly looking at other horses. But within an hour he had completely come around and brought his horses for inspection. He was the perfect example of the saying, ‘everybody wants to learn but nobody wants to be taught.’ “When we were in northern Pakistan, we stayed in a small guest house. At 5:30 the next morning, there were people already queuing up with their animals,” she adds. But the work and the endless stream of animals in need take their toll. “I do find I need an hour to myself at the end of each day to absorb what has happened, share experiences, and talk about things. The Brooke is a massive family. Everyone has the support of each other and you can talk things through.” In a world where poverty and hunger are rampant, the resilience of the people is all the more astonishing. “We had a boy in Jaipur, India, whose horse had died in a road accident. He was coming to one of our clinics,” said Bill Swann. “Both parents had died and he was responsible for his grandparents and young siblings. He was only fourteen years old. Because the horse had died, he was looking for work. Some other animal owners were trying to help him get another horse. People are resilient and try to rise above their problems.” This amazing tenacity to overcome problems and seek solutions begins in school. In Kenya, where there are 600,000 donkeys, programs are being fostered to change attitudes and behaviours toward animals. An innovative program called Heshimu Punda (donkey welfare) was launched by KENDAT (the Kenya Network for Dissemination of Agricultural Technologies) with a grant from the Brooke. The goal is simple: improve donkey welfare in Kenya. How? “Schools adopt a donkey foal and the children learn to care for it and raise it with kindness,” explained Pritchard, clearly enthusiastic about the program. “The children learn that by raising a donkey kindly it won’t kick or bite and it works better. They have educated adults about this. Children take a camera from school and take pictures of good and bad donkey owners in the village. Then they talk about them in school.” Communication is everything. It’s not big, profound changes that the Brooke people expect, but small shifts in daily patterns that can mean so much. “I work hard so the horse works long hours too,” is a sentence Bill Swann hears often. He empathizes. But at the end of the day he encourages the owners to let their horses socialize with their own kind, just as the owners socialize with friends. Groom your horse, he tells them. If they groom, they will finds wounds and abrasions quickly. In fact, he says, grooming is a high-impact tool and people are very responsive to it. Children groom too. Children, really, are the key to the future of equine welfare. Despite so many immense obstacles, they are still very eager to learn. “We were in northern Pakistan looking at a donkey,” recalled Dennison. “The local school gave the children half an hour off to come and watch. Sometimes we have too many watching, but they all go home and tell their parents what they saw and learned. The children chatter to each other about the animals and one, who is better at English, will ask questions.” For all the harrowing difficulties the Brooke folk face, nothing is more rewarding at the end of the day than seeing a child hug the family donkey. One moment. One little person. One little donkey. “I can’t change global oil prices,” explains Pritchard, referring to the fact that Pakistanis are reverting to donkey transport since gas is too expensive. “But I can change conditions for one donkey.” If you would like to consider a gift to the Brooke this Christmas and help those who are helping working equines, please visit their website at www.thebrooke.org. Read Margaret Evans' column "In The Shadow Of Equus" each month in Pacific & Prairie Horse Journal
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