A HORSE? OF COURSE!

The village of Valier has two “sets” of problems. One is coping with the necessary renewal of hundred-year-old infrastructure while the state constantly raises standards and regulations. The other is finding a way to satisfy city people who come here for what they imagine to be a rural lifestyle at the same time as rural people (off farms and ranches) retire to town to live like they think city folks do, i.e. with paved streets universal sidewalks, green lawns, no animals, and no dust. The council just wants a no-trouble bubble.

An old issue just came cantering back. Horses. Over the years horses have been simply unaddressed, then zoned, then became a hot issue that triggered total elimination, and now the question is back -- a few people begging for horses. Part of the problem, characteristic of small towns, is that a renegade family (bikers) moved to town and brought with them their Pa Kettle standards, which included horses in a flimsy snow fence corral. The sheriff already had his hands full protecting the people in the family and was not anxious to add horses. (By now they’ve moved on.) A few other households had “kid horses” that escaped all the time, not mixing well with vehicles or lawns. And then there were the feuds that weren’t about horses at all, but took horses as their focus -- once two miniature horses the size of big dogs.

The named offenses were that the horses were being treated cruelly, that they were not being responsibly managed, that they stunk and attracted flies, that they were bad for the town’s image and -- a new one for me -- they endangered children. (Horses are not carnivores, although two little girls I interviewed at the Christmas Stroll assured me that their horses bit if they were feeling ornery. I suppose they can kick if you get too close to the rear end. Or you might fall off.) On the other side of the issue were several people who had kept horses at the edge of town for years with no trouble or who had moved to Valier thinking it was a place they could keep their horses. It was a shock when the law suddenly changed. They had not been paying attention to the town council agenda and didn’t attend the relevant meeting.

I myself love having horses around -- ours used to come into the shop even when they weren’t posing for a sculpture. Cows are different, but Valier doesn’t have a cow problem. We DO have a chicken problem -- not chickens so much as the IDEA of chickens. City folks want’em. (Martha Stewart says they’re a “good thing”) Country folks do NOT, so emphatically that one former farm wife I casually spoke to on the subject was almost in tears. But then, animals are always reservoirs of emotion. Dogs and cats are not the least of it, but they come to attention now and then. Usually concentrations of feral cats or the occasional loose dog cruising the town.

When the issue is so polarized, where do we start? I guess we need a sort of goal, a mission-statement, even if it’s only that we all want a town that is quiet and relatively orderly without becoming a California-style gated community with a phone-book-sized book of rules about what color your front door can be. The fewer rules the better, but we may need something formal. “Valier is a small rural town with a peaceful atmosphere and access to fishing and camping. We value order and harmony. We welcome visitors and newcomers, and we cherish our old-timers.”

Beyond that, I brainstormed strategies we might find useful.

1. EDUCATION. A little brochure about horses in town, aimed at both those who will keep them and those who aren’t familiar with horses. Maybe a few horse demonstrations of some kind.

2. PERMITS. One at a time consideration of variances for each case. (There are no more than half a dozen usually.) Possibly requiring an annual renewal with a fee to pay for the inspection, filing, so on. Proper facilities, secure fence, locked gate like a swimming pool because horses are kid magnets and they leave gates open. A fly-catching bag, daily manure removal (out of town or into a rodent-proof container), mud mitigation. Right now horses nearly killed by drought are cheap, but hay never is. I can’t quite see requiring proof that a person can afford a horse, but still . . .

3. ZONING. The central dense part of town is not appropriate for a horse. Some places along the edge of town, next to fields, might work fine.

4. CONTINGENCIES. One can keep a horse if the adjoining neighbors don’t object. Signatures required. Folks don’t like confronting but they need to be upfront while tactful. If they don’t like something, they should be able to say why and do a little negotiating. It’s about community, folks.

5. JURISDICTION: All state laws about horses (brands, health) and all cruelty standards must be obeyed.

6. IDENTIFICATION: Something ON THE HORSE to show whose it is and where it belongs. This is a big help to officers and others trying to return a stray. I’m not thinking brands, chips and tattoos -- I’m thinking something like a fairly big tag on the halter with a name and phone number. Horses should be halter-broke: not recently captured and untamed wild horses.

7. HORSE RIDES. Proof of insurance. Register ahead of time. Obey the parade marshall. Inspect harness and vehicle for good condition?

What else? Got ideas? Comments?

Some people seem to want a world that’s flat and square, assigned and limited, commodified and robotic -- all mud people eliminated. I don’t understand that but it’s a Puritan impulse that recurs through history. I hope those of us who love horses are in the majority, and that means horses that are properly cared for. Remember how “Ken” in “My Friend Flicka” fought to save his horse? Since I couldn’t find my copy of the book I ordered another one, a used paperback for a penny, a fin to mail it. I wouldn’t want to live in a town that hated horses and I don’t think kids would either. Remember how Ken’s story begins with his stubborn horse bucking him off and how he figures out a strategy for getting back on?