The rodeo travelling circus is well under way. Competitors and animals are now on the road, taking animal torture to venues all over the country.
The rodeo propaganda machine is in full swing, aiming to increase attendance at shows by informing local newspapers that animals live great lives, are used for eight seconds per year, that the crowd cheers loudest when the animals win and the kids love the lolly scramble.
Unpalatable truths hide behind these whitewashed stories.
Animals subjected to rodeo are not used for eight seconds per year; they are practised on by novices and experienced competitors alike.
How else do competitors learn and keep up their technique?
Many do multiple rodeos over several days at a stretch and are used three times at each rodeo.
One organiser admitted to sending his Texas longhorn steers - used in the animal wrestling competitions - on a five-week "holiday" to rodeos all over the North Island.
Imagine this going on at one of those old-fashioned circuses with performing animals that we now no longer support.
We'd see scenes akin to gang-assault, with animals held down while panicking and struggling so someone could have his turn at asserting his dominance in ritualistic torture.
Animals go berserk , thrashing and twisting to remove the rider inflicting pain and terror upon them.
The truth is, that is when the crowd cheers loudest, particularly during the bronc and bull riding. Do you really want your child witnessing that?
We'd see animal wrestling in the Big Top - steers getting their necks twisted 180 degrees; calves, that had already flown through the air and crashed to the ground once, getting wrestled so their heads folded against their necks so they could be dumped, a second time.
We'd see someone booting a horse in the shoulders with metal spurs while the animal went nuts and the flankstrap pulled; steers with their back legs yanked out from under them while someone else pulled at their head, stretching them out unnaturally; bulls being given electric shocks, before rushing in to the ring so someone could kick them with spurs while a flankstrap pressured and aggravated.
Some thrash so violently, leaping to considerable heights while putting their bodies into unnatural positions, that they snap their backs or legs.
It's hard to imagine in a Big Top, up closer to animals, that a crowd would tolerate such treatment, or cheer at the suffering animals endure. Yet that is what happens at rodeos.
In large arenas, with patrons quite some distance from the animals, bystander support for cruelty is much easier to activate, and the lulling commentary, the sunny day, the music that hints of country and cowboys and love, all appeal, and set the tone for some apparently harmless fun - unless you're paying attention.
Alongside all of this, clubs are consistently in breach of the code of welfare and MPI [Ministry for Primary Industries] is powerless to do anything about it because our animal welfare laws sound good, but in practice, fail animals at every turn.
The only bull anyone should be listening to are the four-legged kind and they and all the animals of rodeo are telling their story as clear as day.
- Lynn Charlton is an Auckland-based psychotherapist, writer and animal advocate.
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