EQUITARIAN SESSION What is the Role of the Working Horse/Donkey?


The working equid provides mobility and power and relieves human burden. A working equid requires little maintenance and certainly no spare parts or carbon-based fuel. The working equid in particular relieves the physical burden that is predominately carried by women and children.


2. What Key Veterinary Interventions Are Required?


The health of the working equid is a veterinary matter. Health is dependent upon many different factors including the prevention of epidemic disease, the control of endemic infections, and the provision of emergency care for sick or injured equids. The truth is that most working equids are owned


by people who lack the financial means to pay for, or to access the information needed on harnessing, nu- trition, vaccinations and drug treatment. Single- owner farms are often remote from veterinary services, thereby requiring greater emphasis on pre- ventive measures and local remedies. There is no benefit in gratuitous criticism or fail-


ure to recognize the economic, social, cultural, and religious environments in which the owners/users live and prosper. Carefully planned, sympatheti- cally delivered programs for health care and welfare improvement must be undertaken. This means that the needs of the animals and the people must be considered together by people who understand the inevitable constraints that face communities in the developing world.


3. Why Should We Bother to Try to Improve the Welfare of Working Equids?


It is certainly true that a healthy working animal contributes more to its owner and society than an unhealthy/injured one. In some countries many older, injured, or diseased horses and donkeys must work and so they are forced into a compromised welfare position. The challenges that face individuals and organi-


zations that worry about the welfare of the animals are enormous. It is easy to criticize the welfare status and care of the animals, but gratuitous, ill- informed, and domineering advice based upon little understanding of the circumstances prevailing does no service to the animals or the owners or, indeed, to the critic. Over the next 50 years, if changes in climate and availability of fuels continue, it is likely that more people, not fewer, will come to depend on working animals. The Equitarian Initiative is the embryo of a philosophy and a working practice that needs to be disseminated much wider than it is now.


4. How Can We Do Better for the Working Animals in the Developing World?


First, individually and corporately, we can recognize the pivotal role the horse/donkey has in local and national economies, and acknowledge that these an-


298 2015  Vol. 61  AAEP PROCEEDINGS


imals are owned by individuals who depend on these animals for their livelihood. The concept held by much of the developed world that the use of working equids is basically cruel is fundamentally wrong because it takes no account of the particular circum- stances. There is personal responsibility and a cor- porate/national obligation to further the welfare of working animals in particular. Even if it is simply a pragmatic financial decision rather than an emo- tive/empathetic one, we have to do better. The veterinary profession must be proactive in education of equine veterinarians and technicians, owners, and ultimately, of course, of the major deci- sion makers and law makers. These are enormous challenges for the veterinary profession. There are, for example, religious and cultural taboos against euthanasia, as well as a vast array of irra- tional treatments given to sick or injured animals. It is easy to criticize such treatments and taboos, but unless we are willing to devote time, energy, and resources into changing attitudes and behaviors, and we are willing to engage nonjudgementally and positively with societies, it is not productive to sim- ply criticize them. The level of service and the choice of treatment available to a horse in the United Kingdom or United States are impressive. The array of diag- nostic tests, procedures, and evidence-based thera- peutic interventions means that equids in these places get the very best care and chance of recovery from disease that is available. However, criticizing people for doing what they have done for centuries is neither helpful nor will it bring any change. One could make a persuasive argument that the best available veterinary attention should be transferred from the multi-million dollar racehorse (upon which lavish attention is applied but which is a plaything without real social value in human terms) to the working donkey (upon which the education and pos- sibly the lives of four small children depend). To positively affect change, engagement and dia-


log with practical, positive, and achievable advice is required. Recent intervention studies relating to the perceptions and needs of simple people who rely on working equids have confirmed that appropriate and focused engagement brings welfare, social, and economic rewards.2 Set against that, there is much evidence that supports the concept that some inter- ventions do not help. Random anthelmintic treat- ments and the irrational use of multivitamins and antibiotics to horses and donkeys clearly serve no useful purpose in improving either general heath or welfare. Indeed, the irrational or irresponsible use of drugs of any sort could be seen to be actually counter to the long-term health of the population. Simply offering advice will not bring sustainable change. A rural farmer in Mali or Ethiopia or India who has little education and even less understand- ing of the concepts of animal welfare (in respect of his/her equid) does not want words. He wants ac- tion and solid evidence that what is being suggested


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