NYC Mayor to ban horse drawn carriages...

[sorraia]

One thing that I have noticed in the past few years is how disgustingly 'fluffy' animals are being portrayed and viewed.

That's a big complaint we have in the biology field. The media is all about cute and fluffy, anything that isn't doesn't get the time of day. It's all about save the panda, save the tiger, save the invasive house cat that's destroying wildlife in record numbers. But no one cares about saving the Delhi Sands flower loving fly, or the mountain yellow legged frog, or any other non fuzzy, non cute critter, even if it is a cornerstone species.

I am a believer of using animals for what they were purposely bred for.

What many people forget is that many domesticated animals were bred for work and those animals *do* want to work. The drive and desire to work has been bred into their genetics for hundreds of years.

I admit that I know close to nothing about horses, but I can bet they don't want to keep idly still.
And as long as the horses are treated/worked within certain parameters(for example, can only work such and such hours with this much mileage or something), I see no reason why not to use them.

Yes, many horses do enjoy working, and will get bored and look for trouble if not given a job. One of my horses is lazy as they come, but even he wants a job. He was bred, trained, and shown as a rodeo horse (outside the states even), and the job is still there even though he hasn't been in a show for years.

I know, I have two horses and while they're not drafts, they're not cheap to keep either.

A few may get picked up by rescues or private owners, but I suspect many will be purchased at meat price and shipped to Canada for slaughter.

That's what I suspect too. I know around here it's still very hard to even give away a horse.