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Charity Registration No. 1180625

We would like to welcome our new subscribers to our Newsletter, we hope you enjoy our updates and blogs. Please encourage your friends to sign up too!

CFH team at BHS/BEVA Castration Clinic (Cardiff, 20th March)

Lisa, Bethan and Rebecca, helped out at the BHS/BEVA Castration Clinic in March. It was a very busy day. A total of 76 horses attended, who were passported, health checked and the colts were castrated.

Out and about in Swansea

We recently attended a meet the buyer event held by Swansea Council, where we presented to learning coaches from schools across the Swansea area.

Our pupils scored average percentage points of 58% at the start of commencing a programme with us at CFH. This improved considerably during the programme to 84% and continued to improve steadily averaging 93% by the end of the term. With your support we are making a difference. And we are measuring the impact of our work so that you can see the effect your support is having. Thank you.

People can be quick to negatively judge others and the way they keep their horses. However, meeting horses' welfare needs is not as simple as first impressions might suggest - love is not enough and horse welfare can be compromised in the smartest of stables. Horses across all sectors of equestrian society can have welfare issues not just urban horses. We work with owners in our local community to improve the welfare of the horses in their care.

Animal welfare and the law

Our work consists of educating owners about the Animal Welfare Act 2006 so we thought we'd take this opportunity to highlight the act in this newsletter - specifically section 4.

Section 4 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006, Unnecessary suffering.

(1) A person commits an offence if—

(a) an act of his, or a failure of his to act, causes an animal to suffer,
(b) he knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that the act, or failure to act, would have that effect or be likely to do so,
(c) the animal is a protected animal, and
(d )the suffering is unnecessary.

Subsection (1) sets out the circumstances in which a person who causes an animal to suffer commits an offence. It will be an offence to cause physical or mental suffering, whether this is by a positive act or an omission, to a protected animal where this is unnecessary and the person knew or could be expected to know that an animal would suffer as a result. The effect of paragraph (b) is to introduce an objective mental element. It will not be necessary to prove that a defendant actually knew his act or failure to act would cause suffering.

Should you wish to read the whole Animal Welfare Act 2006 it can be found here. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/45/contents

Training theory spotlight - flooding

Flooding is the technique where an animal is subjected to something he/she is frightened of without the opportunity to escape.

Flooding used to be a method to cure people of their fears – for example, putting people who are afraid of spiders in a room full of spiders in some cases cured the person of their fear. If you are afraid of snakes, the snake elicits a feeling of fear and a response of shrieking or running away. If flooding is successful then in a room full of snakes, the feeling of fear is replaced by perhaps a feeling of tiredness (imagine all the initial shrieking!) and then in the future, rather than shrieking when presented with a snake, the person would feel tired. However, the method was banned for ethical reasons in the 1940s (in the UK) because it is only 40% successful and often increased the fear! And yet flooding is used in the equestrian sector every day.

An equine example would be an equine introduced suddenly to a harness by having the harness put on and the equine’s attempt at removing it being futile. Or a horse being tied up and hosed down, without the opportunity to escape even when he/she tried to. Like the person trapped in a room of snakes, the fear of the harness or hose does not go away, the behavioural response merely changes to one of 'giving up'. The cause of the fear has not been addressed. Apart from the limited success of flooding, it is unethical, can make the problem worse and can cause long-lasting psychological damage.

Flooding should not be used to modify behaviour. We teach owners how to help them address the causes of their horses problems, not to merely change the resulting behaviour whilst the fear remains.

Why is our work so vital?

We are extremely fortunate to have a fully qualified, experienced team of staff who are trained to identify and deal with different types of both physical and mental abuse towards equines. Where we can we identify the problems and educate the owners; some people genuinely do not know that what they are doing has a detrimental effect of their horses. Others know that they are causing their animals to suffer but think that they can get away with it - which unfortunately they do, due a lack of enforcement, evidence gathering, legislation and guidance. We are open and welcome collaborative working to better the welfare of equines.

Amazing Supporters

This month we have received some much needed funds from the following amazing supporters:

Liam Millenship - Leah kindly donates to support our phone line. However with an increase in awareness, our costs have increased so not all our costs are covered at the moment.
The regular donations that we receive from Holly Thomas, Sarah Smith and Jenni Nellist, contribute to the transport costs incurred whilst attending welfare call. Without your continued support we would be unable to attend calls.
Emma Simpson, thank you so much for your donation, every penny goes towards helping horses.

Can you help?

Make someone's summer: We have had requests from the students who spend time with us in school time for a summer school. But this costs £150 a day to run and we'd like to run it weekly during the holidays. Could you sponsor a session? Or part of a session?

Buy from us: We will soon be advertising some items for sale on our social media platforms. These items, include tack, rugs and sundries as well as household items that have been donated to us - please check our updates on Market Place on Facebook.

Could you help with our fuel costs? Each welfare call requires further investigations, via phone calls and visits, some more so than other. We liaise with appropriate authorities and have a zero tolerance for compromised equine welfare, where direct actions are required, the costs increase. Evidence gathering and working partnerships unfortunately cost more. We need your help and support to make a difference. No amount is too small, it's that you care, which makes the difference.

Fundraise for us: If you would like to run a fundraising event for us, please let us know! Alternatively, if you would like to donate, click on the link
https://www.gofundme.com/support-equine-welfare

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Communities For Horses · 6 Fern Cottages , , , · Abinger Hammer · Dorking Road, Dorking RH5 6SA · United Kingdom