Water

[guest@endurance.net]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net
Rae said:
>> Rae:  IMHO, you should continue giving your boarder's horses as much
>> water as they want.
>>
>    Oh, I am.  I'm kinda glad they only come out on weekends, so that I
> have a lot of control of what their horses eat and drink.

I must confess I have a serious problem with this.

While I, as a ranch manager, would not be willing to withhold water from
a horse unless it was under veterinary instructions to do so, I also would
not care for a horse in direct opposition to its owner's wishes.

I would try to educate the owner, and if I could not I would tell her to
take her horse elsewhere, because I was unwilling to withhold water
from a horse with specific veterinary instructions to do so .  But there
is no way that I would just have a horse ingest something that the
horse's owner has specifically asked me not to (actually, I wouldn't
do anything that a horse's owner has specifically asked me not to)
by being glad that she is not there to see me do it.

Any more than I would like a boarding facility to feed my horse straight
alfalfa hay when I am not there even though I have asked them not to.
Just because the horse is willing to consume all that they give it.

What _I_ would do is tell the woman that all the horses at my place
are offered free choice water (and why), and I will continue to do so
with hers.  If she doesn't understand (or agree with) why, and doesn't
want her horse cared for in that way, she can take the horse somewhere
else.

Might the horse then suffer at the hands of an ignorant owner and an
ignorant boarding facility operator?  Yes, so I would try very hard to
educate her rather than boot her out.  But I still wouldn't give the
horse anything behind the owner's back.

It may be that Rae has informed the owner that she is going to water
the horse like any other horse and will continue to do so as long as
the horse is on her property, and is just glad that the owner isn't
around very much to complain.

I hope that the horse doesn't colic for some other reason (like it only
gets out and exercised once a week :)), and the owner then blames it
on the fact that the horse was given too much water against her
specific wishes.

kat
Orange County, Calif.