Tommi - A new life after the New Year's Eve prank
Silverster party? Tommi the horse has a New Year's Eve injury!
Noriker Tommi was a reliable carriage horse – until youngsters threw a firecracker in front of his legs out of bravado on New Year’s Eve. From that moment on, Tommi could no longer be harnessed to the carriage. His path to the slaughterhouse was decided.
Luckily, Tommi’s owner thought of Gut Aiderbichl as a way out in time before Tommi was slaughtered. The young Noriker Tommi was taken in here and has been living on one of Gut Aiderbichl’s seven outlying farms in Henndorf ever since.
The outdoor stables are home to many horses that Gut Aiderbichl has bought free from animal transport and whose destination would have been slaughterhouses in southern or eastern Europe. Horses that are old, can no longer stand up on their own or have a hay dust allergy live in the A stable (old people’s stable). Tommi now also lives in such a special outdoor stable. When the fireworks go off on New Year’s Eve, we take even more care of him.
Youthful recklessness turned Tommi into a frightened horse
Call it youthful recklessness that would have sent Tommi to the slaughter. What were the young people thinking when they threw the firecrackers at the carriage horses?
Horses are flight animals and face danger by defending themselves with their hooves and teeth. However, no horse is vicious, they are made what they are by humans. They have feelings and, like us humans, recognise excitement, joy, affection, displeasure, boredom, fear, etc. and are also capable to a certain extent of recognising the feelings of their human counterparts and reacting to them.
Tommi raised his head in fear, tucked his tail and showed his panic through his tense posture and wide eyes when the firecracker exploded. He can’t help his trauma, but Tommi should have died because he can no longer perform as a carriage horse due to the event.
New Year's Eve and the fear of animals
It’s not just horses, dogs also cower in fear of firecrackers. They have a larger auricle than humans and can turn their ears in all directions thanks to the muscles in their ears and also align them frontally to the sound wave. They hear sounds that are inaudible to the human ear. Loud music, screaming children, fireworks and firecrackers can severely impair and stress a dog’s hearing. Fireworks create a sense of threat because the dogs don’t know where the sounds and lights are coming from and they can’t escape. Dogs cannot understand if these things threaten their safety.
Horses, especially our Tommi, don’t like New Year’s Eve and loud firecrackers because unfamiliar loud noises unsettle and frighten them. In the stables at Gut Aiderbichl, the horse keepers are on site on New Year’s Eve and endeavour to distract the horses from the loud fireworks: the gates are closed, quiet music is played and the horses are talked to. They should feel that they are not alone.
Quiet alternatives to loud fireworks
Fireworks have been part of cultural celebrations for centuries. However, in times of unrest and wars around the world, a rethink should begin, because for many people and animals, fireworks create a sense of threat.
Confetti or paper streamers, for example are “quiet” signs of joy and cheerfulness and can also create a party atmosphere at the start of the year. Instead of lighting rockets, you could warm up in the garden with a bonfire and bring the year to a close. In peace and serenity: for the sake of people, animals and the environment.
On New Year’s Eve, the whole world celebrates the fact that the date is changing.
I hope at some point we celebrate the date the world changed.
By: Gisela Pschenitschnig, Gut Aiderbichl
