A woman named Robin posted this message on my Facebook page this week, it is a small but very important message, it goes right to the core of the bitter controversy surrounding the New York Carriage Horses and the future of animals in our world.

“I think horses belong to the wilderness along with the mustangs… They are living beings, they are not things for our amusement.” The message voiced a common theme in the movement that says it is about animal rights, and many good people who believe they are helping animals avoid suffering echo the same sentiments.

But that is the sad and ironical part of this. Too often, it seems that animals like the horses are at the mercy of the people who understand them the least, who are quick to speak for them but slow to learn much about their real lives. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.

Robin’s message is worth talking about, it reflects the feelings of many good people who sincerely believe they are acting in the best interests of animals, even if they are not. Robin’s message is all the more important because the mayor of New York, a powerful politician who runs our largest and greatest city, has said the same thing she said many times. So it needs to be considered and explored. Truth matters.

And there are many things to consider, for there are many things in error for a statement of only 22 words. The carriage horse controversy affirms the wisdom of one of the oldest adages in human culture: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

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 “…horses belong to the wildnerness along with the mustangs.”

First off, draft and work horses are very different from mustangs. A mustang is a free-roaming horse from the North American west, mustangs are descended from horses brought to the Americans by the Spanish. According to Wickipedia, mustangs are often referred to as wild horses, but because they are all descended from horses that were once domesticated, they are more properly classified as feral horses.

And Robin needs to know that no mustangs roam wild in America, as there is no wilderness left in the Continental United States. Those mustangs that still run “free” do so on land  managed by the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management (BLS.). It might interest Robin to know that today, according to naturalists, the only true wild horses left on the earth are the Przewalkski’s horses, native only to Mongolia.

The idea that the the draft horses were taken from the wilderness and forced to do slave labor in the crowded city is a central argument of the people seeking to ban them, it has been repeated countless times in New York City, even though it is completely untrue. It is a myth, and a lazy one. It is simple enough to learn that the draft horses never lived in the wilderness and there is no wilderness to send them back to, even if they had lived in one.

A draft horse is very different from a mustang. Bred in Europe centuries ago, a draft horse, also called a work horse or heavy horse, is a large horse bred for hard heavy tasks such as plowing or farm labor or the pulling of wagons and carriages. There are a number of different breeds that are called draft horses, but they share common characteristics: strength, patience, and a gentle temperament that made them indispensable, first to pre-industrial farmers, and then the builders, architects, transporters and engineers of the industrial revolution.

I find that many of the people who are involved in the debate over the carriage horses – unfortunately, many of them are in politics or the media – do not understand that horses like mustangs and draft horses were bred by humans to do very different work. Mustangs are small and fast, they were used by Native-Americans, cowboys and soldiers. Draft horses are strong and large. Neither breed ever lived naturally and freely in the United States, all of the truly wild and native horses were slaughtered or died because humans had no purpose or work for them.

If the wild ponies of the American plans had been fortunate enough to find work with human beings in New York, as the carriage horses have, they might well be healthy and alive today.

Humans domesticated work horses and needed them to perform a variety of duties. One type of horse-powered work was the hauling of heavy loads, plowing fields, and other tasks that required pulling ability. A heavy, calm, patient, well-muscled animal was desired for this work. And in order to stay healthy, the horses need continuous work.  Selective breeding has always been used to develop horses for different kinds of work, and the draft horses pulling carriages in New York City were bred specifically for that kind of work, except the carriages and wagons they were bred to haul were two, three and four times heavier than the light carriage horses they pull so easily in Central Park.

There is this idea, endemic to animal rights activists and pet owners, that what working animals like horses really want to do is nothing but relax and graze in a pasture and drop manure. This is not something work horses have ever done, and it is antithetical to their very nature. Working animals suffer greatly when deprived of work, they become disoriented, often unhealthy.

In either case, it is simply wrong on many levels to equate the working horses in New York with the wild ponies of the prairie, they have long been gone from North America, sacrificed, as so many animals are, because human beings have no interest in them or work for them to do. So far, the carriage horses have been spared that fate.

It is interesting, there was a time in American culture when it was considered embarrassing and shameful for public people to make public statements that were irresponsible and demonstrably false. Today, it seems to be considered noble, even virtuous. And it makes for good media.

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 “They are living things, they are not for our amusement.”

I was also struck by the idea that because horses are living things, then it is wrong for human beings to be amused or entertained by them. If you study the history of animals in the world, you find quickly that animals have amused, entertained and uplifted human beings for thousands of year, from circuses, to county fairs to farmer’s markets to roadside carnivals to farms and private homes. It is one of the most beautiful and spiritually rewarding things to see.

I remember my own passion for seeing the animals in the circus, the ponies at the fairs, it was of great comfort and meaning to me and to every child I ever knew or saw. It helped me profoundly and affected me greatly. I recall that feeling every time I see a child touch a carriage horse in New York.

My dog Lenore, a Lab, goes to schools (I wrote a children’s book about her) and I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of children laugh and smile at the sight of her. She and my border collie Red – he is a therapy dog – amuses and entertains (and comforts) dementia patients, veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and dying people in hospice. Entertaining people is one of the great powers and values of the animal world.

I can think of few more meaningful images than the sight of a person at the edge of life, using one of his or her very last breaths on the earth to speak to a dog and smile. How demeaning to say these animals are “not things for our amusement.” Yes, they are.

I have seen during the agonizing controversy over the carriage horses in New York that the people who speak the loudest on behalf of animal rights and animal welfare have a cold and joyless vision for their future, almost a puritanical and remote one. Like Robin, they believe that animals need to be removed from the work and emotional needs of humans and ghettoized in the mythical “wilderness,” or more likely on equally ephemeral rescue farms and preserves. Many have not survived hard times and others are struggling to meet the high costs of caring for the overwhelming number of horses in need.

Animal lovers are constantly amused and entertainment by their animals, it is a great part of the joy of having them. I laugh at my goofy Lab twice a day, I beam at my border collie when he herds sheep, I am endlessly entertained by my savvy, willful and very funny donkeys. I even laugh at our chickens, who waddle pompously and industriously all over our farm all day. How can such awkward things be so efficient? Busloads of schoolkids come to see the donkeys, talk to them, hug them, and yes, be amused by them.

Animal lovers also know the excitement and pride animals feel when they bring pleasure to human beings, working and domesticated animals literally feed off of this, it is the point of their existence. No true animal lover would ever want to see a working animal taken from people, and from the opportunity to fulfill their destiny.

Where does this idea come from that it is wrong for people to be  uplifted by animals, to find reasons to smile in this sometimes joyless world? A true animal rights movement would work hard for more and more people to be amused and entertained by animals, this natural and ancient work would help countless human beings, adults and children, and save many animal lives and help keep them healthy and relevant in our world.

If you go to New York’s Central Park and watch the carriage horses, you will see the wide-eyed faces of children, the smiles of lovers, the wonder of tourists and visitors, the smiles of harried office workers, the tears of the handicapped. The carriage horses entertain hundreds of thousands of people every year, and it is, to me, a powerful argument for keeping them in the city, not for banishing them to preserves and farms, if they exist at all, where they will never amuse or entertain anyone, including themselves.

It is the basic right of domesticated animals to live and work among people, they have always done it, been bred for it, and done great good for humanity.

I live and work in the animal world, and I do not care to be deprived of them, or see them forced into a grim and joyless existence, where their miraculous power to uplift human beings and brighten their harried souls is perverted, and turned into a crime.

The truth about animals is out there, and no one ought to dare speak for the rights of animals who has not bothered to go out and look for it.