Sorry, we met dogs first
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
- Groucho Marx
Maybe if they weren't such divas that they'll die because dinner was late and they were a bit cold, they'd be doing better in the ol' favoritism race...
makes an animal with a spine absolutely not meant to carry an ape on it carry them everywhere
Pff, these fucking divas. "Oh look at me I broke my leg carrying the human's stuff and now I won't get up again"
I was specifically referring to horse colic, which among the many many many causes are things like refusing to exercise after eating (because it is cold out and they don't wanna), eating at a time they don't normally eat, and the ever popular eating something they do not usually eat. Colic, even things like gas colic, can lead to death shockingly quickly. This is part of the reason that a break to the horse's leg at or below the cannon is fatal: because exercise is critical to a horse's digestion, the lack of any muscles to immobilize or support an injury means that a breakage will never be able to heal and a horse is faced with dying from colic or torturous pain as they die from an infection and internal injuries resulting from walking on a broken limb. It's a horrible way to die.
Riding a horse is a complex topic and there are studies for days about it's impact to a horse's overall health. I don't really wanna get into that because it's extremely complex, there is no one exact right answer and I'm generally of the opinion that there's absolutely no point to horses (let alone riding one of the damn things) so why spend more time than needed thinking about the fuckers... However I will point out that I think you're confusing horse anatomy with elephant anatomy - unless you're riding bareback, the force of a rider is not carried on the horse's spine (nor is the force of a harness) it is carried on their shoulders, and due to the shape of horse gaits their spines are much more able to support vertical loads than many other herbivores (horses just moving put absolutely insane dynamic loads on their bodies, the addition of a static load in the form of a rider is extremely small in comparison. This doesn't address jumping which... is it's own complex topic and I just flat don't think it's okay to do high jumps on a horse).
(The most common injury to a horse's back, Baastrup’s Disease ("Kissing Spines"), doesn't have a known definite cause but ill-fitting tack is known to exacerbate it (by shifting the weight off the shoulders and onto the mid/lower spine). An unridden horse can develop it, and it affects wild horses just as severely as domestic ones (though I cannot find a source on the rate, I suspect because studying the spines of a wild horse is a pretty tricky operation))
In general, exercise in horses is the same thing as in humans - we can carry weights, even uncomfortably large weights, and as long as we're not doing that all the time our bodies will not suffer unduely. Some of us flat shouldn't do that, some of us absolutely live for that (hikers, runners, gym nerds, Belgians) and when we do do it, the most important aspects are to make sure we do it with good ergonomics, don't exercise over an injury and don't spend all of our time doing it.
And also I hate horses.
Is this you?
I really wish this was the first (or second) time that comparison had been made about my opinions on horses.
If the shoe fits, get it nailed into your feet
Much like a horse; I like the symmetry...
That thing makes me wanna comission some umamusume art, with the horse girls wearing "Tummy ache survivor" shirts.
I'm cryin' dude if you do this please share, thats absolutely hilarious.
Looks like meat is back on the menu!
Hey, buddy, why the long face?
[dabs in brachycephalic]
[wheezes]
Centuries? That's nothing.
Dog domestication happened something like 15 000-40 000 years ago.
Modern domestic horse is first seen in like 2200 BC.
It's not you, it's time.
The dog scoffs at mere centuries of utility
Horses are work friends. It's just not the same.
"But... I was let to believe there would be apples. Maybe even carrots. Hello? ^Anyone?^"
Sorry, colleague. It was all business.
Horses kind of suck
I encounter horses a lot when I'm hiking. I'm a backpacker, I'm often carrying a fairly large backpack to prepare for a trip. Horses get really spooked by it. You'd think that of all animals fucking horses would be able to understand the concept of carrying something on your back, but nope.
I also hear endless stories about horses being spooked by shit like plastic bags, leaves, fans, even the person riding on their back that they somehow forgot was there. How we ever managed to convince horses to ride into battle is beyond me. I can only assume that they were too fucking stupid to understand what was going on around them, because as far as I can tell if the Ottomans had just put a couple dudes in backpacks outside of Vienna, the Winged Hussars never would have been able to get near the city.
Also almost no one who has a horse ever actually seems to live anywhere that is actually conducive to owning, let alone riding a horse. Unless you're rich and have a decent plot of land you have to pay some stable somewhere to let you keep your horse there, and odds are that it's not particularly close to your house and if you want to actually ride that horse anywhere besides basically just going in circles around the yard at the stable, you're going to need a gas guzzling truck and trailer to go take your horse somewhere else because actually riding a horse for transportation isn't really a thing anymore in the developed world.
And of course, wherever your keeping those horses is going to be worthless trampled down dirt and grass and such instead of trees, shrubs, wildflowers, etc. that are actually good for the environment.
Horse riders don't pick up after their horses, and they jump through so many mental hoops trying to justify it you'd think they're trying to do a whole show jumping competition but forgot to bring the horse they're trying to justify.
If nothing else, it's unsightly and not part of nature. We don't have horses in this part of the world, they haven't existed here in the wild since before the last ice age, I shouldn't be seeing horse crap around.
I don't care if it's biodegradable and doesn't stink like dog shit, and doesn't carry diseases (which is horseshit, there is absolutely bacteria is horse dropping and there's no reason it can't carry communicable diseases) I don't throw banana peels and apple cores around in the woods either. Leave no trace, pack it in, pack it out.
And look, I'm not gonna pretend that my local parks are such delicate ecosystems that a little horse shit is going to throw things out of balance and cause an ecological disaster, but some environments are very delicate, and you really don't want to be adding extra nitrogen or carbon or whatever into it if you can avoid it, and you should be using your best practices all around.
"Well we can't carry a shovel with us to pick it up" like hell you can't, that's the reason humans started keeping horses in the first place. If people could ride around in a suit of armor, with a bedroll, food, water, a sword, a rifle, etc you can find a way to carry a little avalanche shovel and a trash bag with you.
"Well it's not always safe to get on and off the horse on the trail" well then maybe you shouldn't be riding a horse on that fucking trail then.
Horses and horse-people kind of suck.
Riding horses into battle is really tricky. For cavellery horses, basically you have to keep riding towards a crowd with the horse. During training, the crowd is your accomplice, and as soon as the horse approaches, everyone in the path of the horse steps out of the way. You do that over and over, until the horse is confident that the humans will always step out of the way. Once the horse is confident enough, it will be willing to go faster. You keep training the horse, until it can truly charge quickly. Then finally, if there is a real battle, you can use all uour trained horses, to charge once. Any horse that gets even slightly hurt during the charge, will likely never trust you again. Because humans fucking suck, and can't be trusted.
Umm we do have feral horses here. So there are "wild* horses in the Americas
I feel like the fact that you used the term "feral" and put quotes around "wild" shows that you already understand that that's a bullshit argument.
They're also not everywhere in the Americas by a longshot, they're certainly not in my neck of the woods.
Feral ≠ wild. Feral horses shouldn't be considered the same as the wild horses that once existed in the Americas any more than domesticated dogs should be considered the same as a grey wolf, or feral swine as actual wild boars.
And at any rate it has been around 12,000 years since the last truly wild American horse existed, they're no more a part of the modern environment than wooly mammoths are.
Right but, do you like horses?
I fucking hate Horse.
Stupid ass long faced dogs
Did horse protect encampment from enemies/wild creatures and then help man hunt large prey?
They helped man hunt the most dangerous prey - man.
Nah they where busy running away.
"Horses are 7 foot tall 900lb easily startled re*ards with sledgehammers for hands."
I dont remember who said it, yes the R word is a bit on the nose but fuck if that description isnt accurate as fuck.
You could replace it with something much more innocuous, like "imbiciles", that gets the same message across
Didn't we originally get rid of imbicile as it was felt to be derogatory so we replaced it with mental retardation? Which then went from a medical term to a derogatory term so now we have to find a new term that will eventually become offensive. Euphemism treadmill forever
Oh really? I had no idea about imbecile
Or just "clueless"
I prefer halfwit.
Dogs have been our friends for dozens of millinea.
I thought horses were only an affordable luxury for the wealthy. As in most peasants had to do all that physical labor manually, and only the very well off could afford a horse to help with work (or travel).
Nah, though there was a big cost gap between a farm horse and a riding horse, and oxen were generally cheaper (and stronger) than either
Horses are creepy
What a dog act