Palmetto Carriage Works Blog

“Nothing Will Silence Some [Horse Carriage] Critics”

What’s it going to take to appease radical activists set on ending the Charleston carriage industry?

According to the Post & Courier, “nothing will silence some [horse carriage] critics.”

As some background, city of Charleston has created a committee to review the ordinances that dictate the temperatures our horses and mules can work – guidelines that we have followed since 1986 and were codified in 2011.

Over this time and by following these rules, ZERO heat-related incidences have occurred.

The Charleston Animal Society would like you to believe otherwise and is pushing for this committee to lower the working temperature.

However, there’s a problem with that.

From the Post & Courier article:

The problem here is folks who love animals but don’t understand their physiology.

To them Charleston is a sauna, so they figure it must be the same for horses.

For some it may be, others not. Horses have higher body temperatures than people, and the city will pull them off the street if that body temp rises by 3 degrees (they take their temp after every single tour).

The other thing that people don’t understand is that the folks who run these businesses love animals, too. Doyle has been around horses all his life, has his own farm where a lot of the carriage company horses vacation or retire.

He says many people just don’t understand.

“They confuse use with abuse,” he says, “and I am personally horrified to be labeled an animal abuser.”

We love our animals AND we know how to properly care for them. We provide them with ample vacation time in addition to giving them care from an expert farrier, a Certified Master Equine Dentist and a equine veterinarian.