Working Animals' Unbearable Lives of Pain
September is Animal Pain Awareness Month, as promoted by the International Veterinary Academy of Pain Management: https://ivapm.org/animal-pain-awareness-month/. Therefore, this month Animal Aid Abroad (AAA) is focussing on the unbearable pain millions of working animals endure each and every day around the globe. Please read the animals’ stories below and imagine walking a mile in their shoes, to experience for a moment the suffering they must withstand on a daily basis. Then, continue reading to discover the ways in which AAA is effectively addressing the issue of pain in working animals, along with how you can help.
My name is Kofi and I am a donkey working in Tanzania. Early every morning, a heavy yoke is laid across my neck to enable me to cart heavy firewood, building materials or other goods around my village. It is so cumbersome and heavy on my small body that it has created a large, deep wound on my neck. My owner poured diesel on the wound, thinking this would heal it, but the diesel only made my neck sting horribly. The discomfort of the yoke constantly rubbing against my red, raw skin is unbearable, so I often stop walking to try and alleviate the pain. However, this just leads to dreadful beatings that force me to continue pulling the overloaded cart, despite the terrible pain I’m in.
I am a camel in India named Deepa and I work all day giving tourists rides. The tourists think this is such a fun thing to do and don’t seem to know any better. My working days are endless and all I can think about is the burning pain in my nose. As a young camel, some humans forced a horrible wooden peg through the fleshy part of my nose, then tied it to a rope so they could control me. It tears at my sore nostrils constantly. I often call out loudly to try and communicate the pain I am in but my owner will continue to pull at the rope until my ripped, infected nose bleeds. I feel desperate and am not sure how much longer I can go on working like this.
My name is Batsa and I am an elderly mule working in the brick kilns of Nepal. How can I describe my life? Only that my entire body is riddled with pain, yet the work I do is relentless. There is intense aching across my back, where the load of bricks constantly digs into my spine and skin, creating wounds that never heal. My knees and hips are now so worn out, some days it takes every ounce of effort to make my poor, arthritic joints move at all. I hate to tell you, but this is not even the worst of it. When I am sick with colic, my owner burns the skin on my stomach with a red-hot iron. I’m not sure why he thinks this will cure my stomach when all it does is make me groan with pain and tremble in fear for days. I don’t understand what I did to deserve such a harsh life.
My name is Amirah and I am a horse working in India. My job is to cart bricks around each day in the hot sun with no shade or water. Last week, I experienced the most traumatic day of my life. I was heavily pregnant, so it had already become incredibly taxing pulling around a cart full of heavy bricks with very few rest breaks and little food or water. Then, the most terrible thing happened. I went into labour while I was working and was in excruciating pain, desperate to lie down and safely deliver my baby. Yet, no one noticed or cared that I was in labour and, in the end, I had no choice but to give birth to my precious foal while I was standing and still harnessed to the cart. I don’t think I will ever recover from this trauma I have experienced.
My name is Guneet and I am a bullock in India, working for a farmer ploughing the fields from dawn until dusk. When I was still a very young animal, my tender nose was roughly pierced and a horrible rope forced through it. The pain was unbearable as I was not given any anaesthetic, so I struggled hard but the humans held me down. Although I have had this rope in my nose for years now, I will never get used to the ceaseless burning and throbbing it causes when it drags across the inside of my sensitive nose or how tightly it is tied behind my ears. To make matters even worse, when I am pulling the plough the farmer attaches a cylinder made with barbed wire to the yoke, so that if I dare to turn my head the awful contraption stabs me in the face. He does this to try and make me work even harder. When I wake up in the morning and see the farmer coming to collect me, my body shakes with distress thinking about all the pain I will have to endure for yet another day.
Sadly, the animals’ stories above are based on commonly used practices and provide just a few examples of the many types of pain working animals are forced to endure. It is the unrelenting physical and emotional agony these unfortunate animals are subjected to every day of their lives, without respite, that drives us to continue our work at AAA. Indeed, our primary mission is to mitigate the pain working animals experience on a daily basis. Together with our many wonderful partner organisations, we seek to address and reduce the pain of working animals by:
* Providing essential veterinary care to treat already-existing, painful wounds
* Designing, manufacturing and distributing humane harnesses and carts, which reduce the risk of wounds developing
* Distributing padding and keens for working equines to reduce the friction and discomfort caused by ill-fitting saddles and heavy loads
* Providing thousands of plastic nose pegs for camels, which are kinder to their noses than wooden or metals pegs
* Implementing programs for owners that teach the basics of animal welfare and humane handling
* Funding education that aims to eliminate cruel practices, including beatings and the use of old cultural traditions, such as applying diesel to wounds or burning areas where pain is present
* Providing dental treatments and farrier work to increase working animals’ levels of comfort and overall quality of life
* Supporting educational programs for children and young people that teach them kindness towards animals, thus creating long-term cultural and social change
This September, we are more determined than ever to raise awareness and funds so that, together with our amazing partner groups around the world, we are able to effectively reduce pain in working animals. Please help us NOW to alleviate their terrible, unnecessary suffering by making a donation. Small or large, every dollar you donate provides hope for these forgotten animals and offers them the possibility of a life worth living. Thank you.
