Police Horses 2


In my short research about the horses' retirement I found two controverse statements.

A statement of to me unknown date (2002?) from "Polizei Niedersachsen" and Munich
[http://www.pferdeportal-online.de/gebrauchspferde/polizei.htm]
states that horses undergo routinely veterinary examinations and are retired when the vet decides it's not fit enough anymore. When "the horse has no pain without the rider (?) and still has got enough life quality, then they are put on a mercy-farm to spend the rest of their life. [...] To save them from eventually being put into work again we don't sell them to privat persons. Horses who would endure pain are put down in their used environment"
That doesn't sound too bad although I've seen a similar report about a police officer's dog - it actually suffered from being excluded from the daily duty, and expressed restlessness and sadness(?). To avoid being cruel and heartbrake the poor beast, the old and arthritic dog was put down - not too see the young replacement taking their place in the beloved "owner's" car. The officer was really crying in the Vet's practice as he had raised and trained and lived together with this dog over the years. They showed the training with the new dog, too; it's incredible how many tests they have to pass together. I don't know how it is in the mainstream though, but it was a tearful story and really touching.
Well, maybe the horses don't miss the stress of being under aggressive people that much...

Continuation with the second webpage. It stated that there's now money for the retirement and that the old police horses are given partly to private people, and partly to the abbattoir. Quite the opposite of the other statement. This is an article from the 15th of september 2000
[in german, here: http://www.wdr.de/tv/service/tiere/inhalte/000917_4.html ].
I think the circumstances might have changed from then to now, and I'm still trying to find out the date from the first article - I guess it's the newer one.
Anyway, back then there was some guy starting an initiative by founding the "Gnadenhof für alte Polizeipferde, Tony Riemelt, Im Dorfe 4, 29499 Timmeitz, Tel./Fax (0 58 63) 2 58 ", but he had trouble financing it.
I suspect there might be no rule about the retirement of police horses, or maybe it's handled different in different areas of germany. It just irritated me to find two paradox statements. I'll ask "my" police what they say to it. Later...

Posted: Fr - Oktober 17, 2003 at 06:05 Uhr      

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