Grand National protesters highlight misguided trend of humanising animals: Sarah Todd

There has been some smashing sunny weather this week but yet some dogs are still being walked out in woolly jumpers. It’s not an exclusively doggy problem; the same happens to horses. New broom owners spend small fortunes on different rugs and it’s got to a point that daft folk go into a panic if it starts raining and their horse is out in a field. Yes, never mind that horses have lived outdoors in all weathers for thousands of years - the modern owner needs to show their love by having the hairiest native pony rugged up like an arctic explorer.

So what? Well they are sweating underneath, in discomfort, and there is an obesity epidemic among animals. Nature has always had the knack of keeping the waistlines of animals in check. They maybe get more rotund in summer when the living is a bit easier and then it’s all lost over winter when they need to use a bit of energy to keep warm.

It’s awful to see poor horses rugged up to their eyeballs in designer kit yet living in fields the size of postage stamps with wire trailing and full of the yellow peril that is the poisonous-to-horses plant ragwort. Those that own them will say how much they love them; but the hard fact is the expression of spending a lot of money on equipment doesn’t equate to looking after them properly. We once had a girl keep a horse with us and she’d drop everything to come and put a £300 rug on if it was raining but never check it had enough water or notice if it had a shoe missing.

Food is another area of humanisation. There’s no truck from yours truly with people trying to sell vegan cat and dog food. For heaven’s sake.

Half the bother with the increased numbers of dogs attacking sheep must be down to their humanisation. Their owners feel mean keeping them on leads - as if they are kind of infringing their rights - and let them off. Then, because they are kept right at the very top of the family pecking order with no discipline, they take not one iota of notice when they are called back.

There has doubtless been some amazing progress in the veterinary treatment of animals, but hell would freeze over before this writer would give the go ahead for any of mine to have wheels attached where legs have been amputated or other invasive surgeries. They are animals, they can’t tell us how they feel. It’s up to us to step up to the plate, forget how their illnesses and injuries make us feel sad and have them put out of their misery. Insurance companies have blood on their hands.

Every time you walk through a vet’s surgery the first thing they ask is whether the animal is insured.

When they are, it seems to me, they keep going too long with many treatments.

Something has happened during our lifetimes that has pushed pets and the wider animal population up the rankings. To do so upsets nature’s balance.

Much has already been written about the animal rights protest that held up the Grand National at the weekend. There is no doubt in the trainer Sandy Thompson’s mind that the delay they caused directly contributed to his horse, Hill Sixteen, being killed at the first fence.

We have a pony, now nearly 30, and when she was showjumping still into her early 20s if there was the slightest delay she would completely boil over and become a danger to herself and her rider. She could jump the moon if the timings were right, but a red mist descended if she was a minute too long in the warm up arena. Now that’s a pony, so to have highly-tuned thoroughbreds hanging around was a recipe for disaster.

These ‘animal lovers’ have suggested all racehorses in training could be let loose in children’s petting farms. Oh right. Same with the farmed livestock they would have us let into the wild. These are frightening times.

This week I have seen pictures of people keeping lambs in nappies and jumpers in their centrally-heated houses as pets and an advert for a bunk-style bed so dogs can sleep above their ‘parents’ (owners).

Ignorance isn’t bliss; it’s dangerous.