I Protest!

Since going vegan almost a year-and-a-half-ago (January 8th, 2010), I've become increasingly involved as an animal rights activists and general advocate for equality for all animals, human and non-human.  It's good to get out and stop wasting time arguing with idiots on the internet, although I think that these debates, if you can call them that, did their share in preparing me for real-life discussions.

My latest addition to my activist life has been protesting.  I've gone to two "Ban-Horse Carriages" protests.  I had never been to any protests before.  Something that I like about PAN's protests are even though they are singling one issue out, they use this single-issue as a gateway to deeper discussions on animal use.  The leaflets that we gave out detailed out thinking on this, and I was sure to wear my vegan shirt.

The protesting takes place in Old City, directly across from where the carriage horses and their drivers are waiting to take customers.

A few years ago, I wouldn't have seen anything wrong with horses pulling people around the city but now my thought process is this:

1.)  I wouldn't like to be doing what the horse has to do.  The weight that I can carry is not the weight that I want to be carrying.  And I wouldn't want to be carrying this in smoggy traffic where people are in a hurry to get to where they are going.

2.)  As many carriage drivers will tell you, many of the horses that they work with are rescues.  "These horses would be dog food if we didn't save them!" they'll inform you.  To me, there's the problem.  The horse can be dog food or they can live the life I described above.  How horrible is it that the lives we bring into existence we only see as valuable as in what ways they are useful to us.

3.)  Horses used for carriages also have to endure a stressful training process.  Horses have loud noises set off by their ears and are purposefully frightened in a variety of different ways, just to get them to not be as scared when it happens "on the job".

4.)  Some would argue that the horse has a good deal because he is fed and housed in exchange for his work.  I wrote a reaction to this here on my vegan blog.

5.)  I don't doubt that the carriage drivers, for the most part, treat their horses as best they can.  But how well can you treat a piece of property?  At the end of the day, the horse is seen and treated beneath his human "master" and there is no reason for that to stay unchanged.

6.) There's also things like this that happen: