Stolen Horse protocol re-issued

The last ten days have seen three emails land on my computer detailing stolen horses. One's distressingly akin to the Okotoks 'Mandy' pony case of a few years back, this time though when a ranching family down south along the foothills had one of those super-special bombproof horses that are invaluable to kids learning, disappear – and their own suspicion – very possibly 'taken to order.'

Back in an earlier version of the Alberta Equestrian Federation's quarterly newsletter ALBERTA BITS back in January I wrote a piece entitled “Going, going, Gone.”

It was an information piece about procedures to take if you suspect your horse or pony has been stolen – from the initial stages of discovery, to contacting the RCMP, then LIS (Livestock Inspection Services).

As an article, it was one of those nightmares to write to a thousand-word deadline (three pages would have done just nicely!), but here, again, in PDF format, courtesy of the Alberta Equestrian Federation, is the methodology to set into action if you suspect theft. If you scan and click this into your address bar, you'll get the PDF (mind, if anyone knows a faster method,please, suggestions welcome! but yep, this does work, believe it or not, smile) - https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B9LFqcriXZCgZGY4NjA1ZDMtMmU4OS00ZjNlLWIxOWMtODZjYmQzODA2OTQ2&hl=en

And yep, the main key is knowing the steps, and then speed – really step on getting the information out to all sources – media, websites of any equestrian publication going, radio, the RCMP, LIS, the AEF and the Alberta Horse Board all have far-reaching, well constructed methodolgy developed over years and years.