Happy greeting, banana eating, not mistreating...

Strange ol' day here today. Started off cold, then got hot, now it's cold again with warnings of snow.

All is well in Max's world, as it should be. He was already in his box when I arrived at the yard this morning, and gave me a lusty call when I approached his door to say hello. We had time for a nuzzle before I had to crack on with yard work, pausing briefly to answer the call of another pony, who wanted a fuss and to tuck his head under my arm for a bit while I scratched his neck.

That is how life should be for horses. But it isn't, and I'm about to climb on a soapbox because I saw something very disturbing last night, and I can't shake it.

I went to a vet talk with a friend. It was to aid the ILPH (International League for the Protection of Horses). Before the vets, we heard a talk from one of the rescue workers and also saw a few videos. A few horrifying videos taken right here in this country.

I can't say "The worst one was..." because they were all the worst. The one that I can't shake, though, is the live transportation for slaughter (to Europe, for meat). OK, people eat horses in some other countries, I get that. People eat cows, rabbits, chickens, sheep and all sorts. The ILPH isn't trying to stop consumption of horses, but it is trying to have them treated, transported and killed humanely.

What I saw last night was a lorry filled with horses, just crammed in, no food no water, no partitions (so they could fight, had nothing but each other to hold themselves up). Then I saw a pony, Max's size, who had managed to get himself partway over a gate in the lorry, and he was stuck.

I saw a look on his face that I often see on Max's; confusion, a plea for help "I seem to have got myself into a spot of bother here..." There was trust in those eyes, because somewhere along the line, that pony had probably had a relatively good life. Maybe he belonged to a child who outgrew him, maybe he had an owner who could no longer keep him... maybe through a series of unhappy circumstances, the various hands that he fell into cared less and less about him, until he ended up in a lorry driving to Europe so he could be slaughtered. And there he was, stuck on a gate inside that lorry. But he had a dim memory of some humans being kind to him in the past...

A gang of men tied ropes to his legs and physically, brutishly pulled him over and off the gate, scraping along his belly and hind legs and unbalancing him so that he landed first on his head, and then awkwardly on his neck before the rest of his body toppled. He looked up, dazed...

And that's when I looked away, because I couldn't watch as his "rescuers" moved forward to punish him for causing trouble.

I thought, "That could be Max. That could be any horse I know. That could be any horse at all."

It could. The history I've written above for that pony, who mercifully must now be free from suffering, is conjecture, and emotive conjecture at that. But I can see how it could so easily happen to even a much loved horse who falls on hard times through no fault of his own.

And yes, I do know it's not just horses that suffer this way, and it's not just animals either, but this is Max's blog, so this is about suffering horses and supporting those who try to make life better for them.

And in the wider world and wider sense, it's about not looking away.

Today, when Max looked at me with those clear, trusting, questioning eyes of his, I asked him if he wanted to share my banana with me. Nodding head. So we did, alternative bites until it was gone.

He's never known anything but kindness and love in his life. I pray it will always remain so.

Yes, I've made a contingency plan for Max if anything happens to me. But what if something happens to my contingency plan? And what if something happens to her contingency plan? What then? Where does Max end up if those of us who would never let anything bad enter his world aren't in his world any more either?

And now I'm going on to the ILPH website to find out how to set up a direct debit for monthly contributions to help them protect the horses who have lost their protectors. I may not be able to read the newsletter they send to subscribers, but I'll do something practical to help. It's a start.