The Licensing of Horses in New Hampshire

Fight it tooth and nail, I won’t even license my dog, they don’t need to bother with our lives that much. If they want to deal with unwanted horses, they should do it without putting a burden on the wanted ones. Of course you could switch to working and riding cattle 🙂 Just thought I would bring a little humor to a subject that always makes me want to cry. In NY you have the option of getting a Photo ID card for a coggins test. It has a photo of your horse on it and can be used anywhere you would have to show your coggins. The only set back is that by choosing this option over the standard piece of paper, you automatically get registered with NYS as a livestock operation and get put into the NY Animal ID program and they may even “volunteer” your info to the USDA too. I can picture NY wanting a horse tax too especially once they make their fancy coggins ID card mandatory.

The government is coming at us from every conceivable angle to regulate us to death.

Fight it, refuse it stand your ground.

I would not put it past them to have a hidden agenda like animal Id and a little extra for the general fund. An excuse like “dealing with unwanted horses” is just candy coating it for the majority of the population that has their eyes closed to agriculture and need a “feel good” reason to support it, or at least to not rally against it. I see no use for this legislation, the money taken in will barely be enough to enforce it let alone help unwanted horses. They should bring back Horse Slaughter and make it and transportation more humane, I am sure that Temple Gradin would be up to the task.

Erika

i say “fight it” too. it sounds like creeping NAIS to me, as well.
as a veterinarian, it is my professional opinion that we already have the knowledge of how to manage livestock and we already have adequate laws and regulations in place to keep limit/ prevent disease. we don’t need another layer of regulation, especially since the new layer of laws will require a new layer of government employees to record and manage all the (useless) data.
government and regulations are supposed to exist for the benefit of society but it sure seems like tail’s wagging the dog.

I did my fair share of emailing members of the house re. this bill this weekend. I am interested in fighting this bill hard. In my opinion there is no reason for this degree of difficulty in animal ownership; and to involve state regulation is just insane. do they not have anything important to tend to? If they get away with this one, next will probably be cattle if they determine the vaccine to be safe for meat and milk. Of course knowing nothin about raising cattle you may already be vaccinnating them. Can anyone tell me how many cases of equine rabies there has been in NH? I asked each sponsor of the bill that specific question and nobody has answered my question. Money grab? Yes.

BTW I have tomorrow off and will be attending the hearing. If for nothing but to observe “stupid” in its natural environment.

NY requires that horses (and all other livestock) traveling to shows and fairs have proof of rabies vaccination. In the past during the great rabies epidemics there have been cases of horses with rabies, however it is rare today given the effectiveness of our anti rabies efforts. I can see wanting proof of vaccination to show, though it is less important than in the 1980s and 1990s, however this license thing has got to be stopped. Lumping these things all together makes too many layers to deal with. If you had to comprimise, I would say let them require proof of rabies vac to show, and that is it, the precedent has already been set in other states and it seems the least harmful to people making a living with horses. I was looking at the NH Dept of Agriculture animal division and all it was was a list of licenses, not much else, sad really, I know NH prides its self on no income taxes, but you need a license to do anything and that comes at a price I assume. This really makes me think that the motto should be “Live income tax free (tax everything else that moves) or die”.
Erika

My wife and I attended the NH Draft and Pony association get together yesterday in Barnstead and most said that we have a pretty good chance of stomping this Bill in Committee before it gets to a house vote. I have written my reps and voiced my opposition to this. Lets hope it is defeated.

Ed