(2nd November 2012)

Our association’s third birthday is around the corner: with this newsletter in “instalments” we want to tell you about our success and future projects, to explain how we translate your support in concrete facts.

What we told you in the first four newsletters it’s just the beginning: we have many other challengers to face, considering that horses haven’t a real juridical protection in Italy:

- The horse is the only animal species exploited by the man in every way an animal can be (illegal and legal races, from the carriages in town to the circuses, from slaughter to experimentation...and so on for a long and sad list);

- In the Italian legislation there are no rules listing the conditions of wellbeing of an equine, and this makes very difficult to intervene in case of mistreatments;

- For all intents the equine registry doesn’t exist yet;

- The horse is the only animal species for which the owner can decide the final destination, slaughter or not. Anyone can own as they please DPA (slaughter-bound) or NOT-DPA horses, with a dangerous mixing of laws that favours shady business;

- The controls on the horses destined to slaughter have clear holes, admitted even by the authorities in charge of them;

- The loose regulation about the palii and the folkloristic events is regularly bypassed;

- The racing and equestrian disciplines have their own independent regulations which are often debatable;

- Some practices causing unease and, often, physical pain to the horses aren’t forbidden by the law, as one would expect, but promoted by the “experts”: IE, the use of whips and spurs, trammels, tie-downs, some types of bits, keeping the horse closed inside a stall for days, feeding it accordingly to unnatural timings and methods...and a lot more.

The work to change this situation is very hard, because we need a cultural change along with a legislative one: we are more than motivated to carry it on!

This is the last of five newsletters we used to tell you about our first three years of life; it is also a way to thank you for undertaking this difficult path with us, and to show you how much work and passion we put every day to defend the horses, donkeys, mules and hinnies that have the right of a better life.

Our path is clear and to follow it we need help from the people caring for these animals’ wellbeing and who, with us, want to say stop to all the ways of exploitation we are forced to see.

We need funds for divulgation, to organize investigations, to verify reports of mistreatments across Italy, to cover the legal expenses of the petitions we file. Without forgetting our rescue centre, which hosts 65 equines and adsorbs a huge amount of economical resources.

Keep on supporting us, take a look at the many ways you can help us: we are supported only by free donations, that’s why we ask for your indispensible help.

Every donation, no matter the amount, is always precious for us. Some examples?

- With 5 euros you provide for four days the drugs our pony Arturo – affected by a grave form of asthma—needs to survive ;
- With 10 euros you contribute to buy two rolls of elastic bandage or two bags of “wafer” hay for our older horses;
- With 20 euros you pay for the fuel our tractor uses in six days;
- With 50 euros you help us to buy a bale of hay or a box of antibiotics;
- With 100 euros you provide for about eight months the drugs our little Miranda – affected by Cushing’s disease—needs to survive ; or you help us to print 1.000 flyers to be distributed in riding centres, events and fairs; or you help us to cover the travel costs to check abuse reports.
- With 500 euros you help us to buy vermifuge for about twenty horses or to buy feeding for about a month.

You can also choose to distant adopt one of the horses we saved: click here to know them and read the adoption methods.

To help us and in the meantime give yourself a touch of elegance, why don’t you buy a piece of clothing “signed” by IHP? Click here to see them.

If instead you want to give us a special gift or have the chance to find stuff we need at very low prices, this is our “wish list”, some things we would find very useful but we can’t afford right now:

- wooden boards to enlarge the stable area and to build a shed;
- rubber pavement for the stables;
- one or more storage tanks for rain water;
- one hedge trimmer;
- two wheelbarrows;
- four mud tires for your jeep;
- two desk PC’s for our office;
- one 2-horse trailer to transport horses;
- one digger.

Related newsletters:
Support IHP, we tell you why: 1 - our mission
Support IHP, we tell you why: 2 - denounces and sequestrations
Support IHP, we tell you why: 3 - Scientific work
Support IHP, we tell you why: 4 - Voluntary work