Reporting a welfare concern

The British Horse Society has Welfare Officers throughout England, Wales and Scotland who will investigate reports of equine welfare concerns.

There are many reasons why you may feel that a horse or pony should be reported to the BHS. These include (but are not limited to):

• Significantly underweight or overweight animals
  

• Lack of water or food
  

• Overgrown or poorly-kept hooves
  

• Obviously untreated injury or disease
  

• Poisonous plants in the field
  

• Unsafe field or stable conditions
  

• Abandoned animals
  

• Incorrect tethering
  

If you have genuine concerns about a horse or pony, you should report it to the BHS and one of our local Welfare Officers will pay a visit to investigate.

Welfare concerns can be reported on 01926 707791 or 01926 707839. Alternatively, you can e-mail welfare@bhs.org.uk.

For genuine emergencies outside office hours, please ring 01926 707804 and then call the mobile phone number given in the answerphone message. However, this number really is for use in emergencies only.

BHS members can report concerns directly to our Welfare Officers whose contact numbers are provided in the BHS Yearbook. Do remember that our officers are volunteers, and thus calls directly to them should be restricted to reasonable hours.

However you report your concern, please provide as much information as possible. The details we need include:

• The nature of the problem you are reporting
  

• As much detail as possible about the horse(s) involved – number, colour, gender (where known), age (where known)
  

• Information about the horses’ owners (where known)
  

• The location of the horses concerned. Please remember that our officers may not know the area particularly well. Therefore, the more information you can provide, the better – details about local landmarks or directions from a main road can help greatly, even when the address is known.
  

• Your contact details (ideally a telephone number on which we can reach you). We realise that many people will want to report a welfare concern anonymously; however, we guarantee that your details will remain absolutely confidential and under no circumstances will they be passed on to the owner of the horse(s). You need not give your full name as long as we can reach you. It is, though, important that we can get in touch with you for a number of reasons, including asking for further directions if the Welfare Officer cannot locate the horse(s). Unfortunately, we have seen an increase in the number of cases reported to us anonymously for malicious reasons (for example, a dispute between neighbours) where the horses are in excellent condition and well-kept. It is not acceptable to waste our charity’s funds and our volunteers’ valuable time, on such cases, and we have found that taking the complainant’s contact details minimises their occurrence. Finally, if we know how to contact you we can provide you with feedback once our Welfare Officer has paid the horse a visit.

If you are not sure whether a particular horse needs to be reported, do not hesitate to contact the BHS Welfare team (details above) and we will discuss the case with you before despatching a Welfare Officer.