They Shoot Horses Don They?
The heading is the title of a 1969 film starring Jane Fonda and Gig Young. The plot occurs at a depression era dance marathon in which the mentally and physically exhausted heroine pleads with her sympathetic partner to be put out of her misery. This macabre film shows several flashbacks of a childhood experience when a horse with a broken leg was euthanized or “put down” by the owner in an act of mercy. Contemplating the mercy slaying of the horse and comparing it to the abject misery of his partner, the young dancing partner finally succumbs to her pleadings and slays her, sacrificing his own future in the process. The allusion to the merciful treatment of horses and humans (?) is but an introduction to animal treatment in its various forms. This article is not about animal rights activism per se but an animal lovers quest for the humane treatment of our planet’s creatures. This article is also not a polemic against hunting or the taking of game but is intended as a reminder of the p
