Saturday, November 28, 2009

Opinion

Tennessee Walking Horse Torture Continues—Federal Officials Get Harassed as Well

September 25, 2008 05:28 PM ET | Bonnie Erbe | Permanent Link | Print

I've blogged about Tennessee Walking Horse abuse many times and will continue to do so until all the "soring" and other forms of human-induced torture of gaited horses stops. Again, not all owners and trainers in the gaited horse world "sore" their animals (apply caustic chemicals to the skin so that the horses maintain exaggerated gaits to get away from the horrible pain inflicted on purpose). One gaited horse show organization contacted me to let me know they are working to wipe it out entirely. More on that in another blog post.

Meanwhile, this report from the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader shows only a tiny amount of the harassment and threats of physical violence federal officials trying to enforce anticruelty laws endure. I reported before I knew one such federal official, whose staffer was cornered in a bathroom and threatened with torture and worse, if he kept trying to stop the abuse. There's a related incident reported in the full story.

Tags: Tennessee | animal cruelty | animals | USDA | horses

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About Bonnie Erbe

Bonnie Erbe is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report and hosts PBS's weekly news analysis program, To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe. She also writes a weekly syndicated newspaper column for Scripps Howard News Service.

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