The Rode-OH NO!

When a couple of us recently attended the local rodeo – the 2017 Adirondack Stampede – we seemed to be the ONLY people there that were not familiar with – and used to and enthusiastic about – the cowboys/girls taking on the animals.

In fact, we rooted for the calves and bulls whenever they escaped the humans’ attempts to rope them or pull them down (which was often).

While we hate the event for its cruelty to the animals for what is supposedly entertaining to humans, the way it’s presented as a charity that benefits children in the area and the way it promotes activities related to farms, which are so prevalent in our area, makes it an awkward thing to protest.

But protest it we will. We speak for the animals, who are not acknowledged even though they shrink back or bellow when being coerced into doing things they would never naturally do.

The first thing we saw when we entered Glens Falls’ Cool Insuring Arena was the enclosure area for the animals on the arena floor and the people in their seats, awaiting the entertainment of the willing humans trying to take down or overcome the unwilling animal participants.

The second thing we noticed as we passed by the animals were the wounds on their backs and sides. Some were red and recent-looking, others were scars.

I never went to rodeos as a child. Our family just didn’t, even though we did go to the state fair in our home state.

But I didn’t think about it either, about whether it was right to force animals to play along time and again to humans roping them neck and foot or tackling them by grabbing their horns or making them buck and trying to stay on top of them.

I was raised to believe that animals in rodeos are mindless brutes that do don’t mind being pushed around.
I was raised to believe that man had dominion over the animals and could use them as he or she pleased.

But as anyone with any compassion for others can feel in a place like a rodeo, if you’re not buying into the story that this is ok, this has been done forever, that this is a show of people’s skill in handling large beasts, you can tell it’s wrong.

Even if it was entertainment for folks in farm areas in past decades, this is 2018 and has no place in what is hopefully a more enlightened time.

The worst part of the rodeo for me was seeing the sweet little goats put off to one side before capuchins riding bareback on dogs came around to corral them and a man threw them up on a pick-up truck, making them stand on the roof of the truck cab. As the truck drove off the floor, one of the goats fell off. The others were startled and concerned. The one who fell was, luckily, ok.