Moise has eleven horses on his farm; two are draft working horses, the others come from farms, horse racing grounds, and auctions.

At the beginning of Spring, he rented his neighbor’s former cow pasture, no longer used for cows. Whenever they are not working – four or five are working at a given time, sometimes none –  they are walked across the road and left to graze freely. There is enough grass for a herd of cows., his horses have it all to themselves.

There are two large water tanks set in the pasture.

The draft horses are used for plowing and hauling heavy loads of lumber or sacks of seed and concrete.

The other horses pull the carts and go to church, visit relatives, ride into town, take rides in the country, perform minor farm chores.

The Amish have a reputation for working their horses too hard and running awful puppy mills.

Mostly, these tales are relayed by animal rights activists, not known for their love of truth. People are always e-mailing me bragging about their heroic rescue of puppy mill dogs, but they don’t seem to care that Moise doesn’t have any or that the sins of others are not transferable to him.

Moise has rescued quite a few animals himself. But he never brags about it.

I’ve tried finding out more from some animal vets I met when writing about the New York Carriage Horses. Those I spoke with or e-mailed said they thought the Amish often worked their horses too hard but rarely in the realm of abuse.

They said working horses who work are very fortunate, healthwise.

I know that the Amish will shoot their horses if they can’t sell them when they get old. I don’t consider that abuse. Very few farmers in the world can afford to keep hungry horses in food and hay for years. I couldn’t.

And contrary to rumor, there are very few “preserves” that can take old and sick horses in for the rest of their lives.

Many thousands of horses are being taken to Canada and Mexico for meat, where they die harsh deaths. A shot to the head is far more humane than a slaughterhouse.

Feeding retired horses is just too expensive for farmers, who live on a skinny margin of income.

“They keep those horses healthy,” Greg Panzie, a veterinarian in Ohio told me, “they couldn’t operate if they didn’t.” In general, the farriers I’ve t walked to say the horses should have their hooves trimmed more often and by professionals, but they see no signs of neglect bordering on abuse.

I tried them but they do have a conflict of interest.

Local shelters have reported that some Amish families – especially in Ohio and Pennsylvania – run puppy mills, and they are generally not clean or humane.

Beyond those states, there are very few reports of puppy mills run by the Amish; there are none in the Amish community here. Moise disapproves of mistreating animals; I’ve never seen him do it.

There are hundreds in Appalachia and the South, where there are no Amish.

Moise went well out of his way to keep the dog Tina in the family after losing part of a leg and can’t work for long or go too fast. He and the family are very fond of her.

I would describe Moise’s relationship with his horses as professional, not cuddly or intimate. He never anthropomorphizes them and speaks in soft, usually German commands.

He is gentle on the reins, and the horses seem at ease with him – tails and heads up, shiny coats, clear eyes, brisk steps. They are instantly responsive to him, even as he issues commands I can’t even hear.

Most of the time, his horses are grazing in the big field across from his farm. Moise pays to rent the pasture so the horses can graze on fresh grass all Spring and summer. He is growing his own hay to feed them in the winter.

Moise doesn’t take the horses out in extreme heat, and if they are riding on hills, he often stops to “let them catch their breath.” I can say with confidence there are no abusers in the family.

There are no coddlers either.  The horses are essential to the survival of the farm. A sick horse could be catastrophic; they keep them healthy.

Everyone in that family works, and most of the time. Still, he went way out of his way to give his horses fresh pasture grass whenever they are not working.

I know very few horses around here who are treated that well.

I wanted to share this photo to counter some of the suggestions that the Amish are all brutal animal owners who care nothing about their animals.

Those are not abused horses in the photo.