One that I care for

When I mentioned this black horse, (I contacted everyone, colleagues, neighbours, acquaintances) & this 'black horse's shoe' trade, the first response will invariably be "Ya? Get me one too!" !!!!! Including my Dad.

With the prompt efforts of PFA activist Mr Saurabh Tiwari, the man who was selling 'black horse's shoe' got arrested. Don't want to name him. Don't know what got him - ignorance, indifference or cruelty? He really did not KNOW that he's maiming the animal?

Right now, the cruel trade is off. The horse is in 'police custody'.

As my friend pointed out, there are families which have old horses, bought earlier. They served in their hereditary occupation. Now they are too poor to maintain the animals, old taangaa-waalaas, with their trade going out of business.

& the horses remaining unglamorous, or somewhat wounded, (this horse's left hind leg is damaged), there is no resale value.

A horse can't simply be left stray. Seeing the black colour, this must have occurred to this man a very lucrative means of income... is it justified to put him in lock-up or drag him to court?

I do not know. But what is the alternative? What logic, what request would have compelled him to give up this practice & send the horse to a shelter? & if it was in his family, he should have known better.

However, locking up the owner, or even whatever is the provisioned punishment, hardly is any solution.

More important is to rehabilitate the animal. It can't be expected to survive as a stray in city traffic. He'll probably be sent to a Gaushaalaa. A horse is a lot of expense. Horse shelters even in developed countries require heavy charities.

Every animal needs to raise money for its own preservation ... that's the new survival of the popular-est ... only those reserve forests which attract considerable number of tourists will ultimately be able to subsist, that's so obvious. Applies to domesticated animals too.

Why do you see so many stray cows, in a country whose majority faith holds the cow sacred?

More upsetting is the case of the buyers...

Whether the seller knows or not, whether he cares or not, he can only supply where there’s a demand.

One might be superstitious. One will definitely want to improve their fortune. But how are they blind to the animal's plight? It's not a 'black horse's shoe' displayed in some shop, they are seeing how it's being fixed on & pulled off. How are they aloof to it's suffering?