You Gotta Start Somewhere: Craigslist Follies

I was poking around on Craigslist, and saw a headline that made me wonder if the person doesn't speak English as a first language:

Clubs and you wanted for horse riding and training clinics

The text of the ad:

[Name] is available for training lessons and sales. Do you want to excel suceed and become a great rider trainer for your money spent? See for yourself that [name] is one of the top riders trainers clinicians you will ever find from beginner to world class rider. We all know how many people think they are such great barrel racers reiners , western profesional trainers... ALL welcome who are honest and want to join a team to suceed by riding a great world champion producing system that you will know is [name]s [no apostrophe in the original] God given talent. Do the right thing and call today. Available for clinics lessons training and more! Older rider? Do you want your kid safe and riding great? Do you want your horse treated wonderfully nd trained to the highest levels possible? Trainer of National title horses in Appaloosa ,Paint, Quarter horse, Arabian and morgan. [Name] wants to train you!

There are a lot of links to the trainer's website, which is a scary-looking homemade site with just photos of horses he's supposedly trained.

The clincher, though, is the photo. I know it convinces me that he's an expert (or even that he's the same person pictured in any of those photos). Oh, and his name is a totally American-sounding name, so it doesn't explain why the only public mention of his skills, apparently, is in a foreign publication.

Okay, different ad. The description of the horse is nothing notable, but the photos leave a little to be desired:

A different ad, presumably the same seller. Seriously, people, can you not SEE what the photo looks like when you post it? Do you have cataracts and this is what you always see?

Someone is advertising that they have a blue-eyed buck (i.e. male goat), but these both look like does (i.e. female goats) to me. Dontcha think?

Oh, here's a good one. Yeah, good luck with that:

I am just starting out in my horse 4-H project, and I need a well trained mare or gelding that gets along with other horses, trained preferably English, and is 5-10 years of age. The horse must be 15+ hands and have a jumper build. I don't have much of an income, so i'll need the price to be under $1000.

This person wants a well-trained jumper horse for under $1,000. Wonder how she'll be paying for the horse's upkeep and lessons and show fees on her limited income. I looked on DreamHorse and within THREE HUNDRED miles and with her other search parameters, I got five results. One is already sold (not sure for how much, but was listed at $1,000 including tack!), and the other four are leases or part leases, which is probably what this person should be looking into anyway, but of course (especially for the part lease) she'd need to look a little more locally than that. :-)

Oh, man:

Free to good home to Parakeets. I bought them for my friends son and he couldnt take them back to montana! Also have a nice big cage for sale for 100.00 with all of the toys and food and extra parakeet items. birds must go together

Who buys LIVE animals for someone without making sure they'll be able to KEEP them? Crazy! Also, parakeets themselves are pretty cheap, so depending how nice the cage is (or isn't), this probably is a really crappy deal, considering you won't get to pick out the animals yourself.

Wow. Seriously, people, if you can't figure it out yourself, borrow a friend to help you (a) spell, and (b) rotate your photos:

Mini horse studd & through bread - $400

Through breed mare , great as a first horse great with children and teenagers. Won racing ribbons. Mini studd horse. Needs a little work. Both for $400.00 OBO

Oh, here we go again. Unrideable horse, but want someone else to pay to feed it:

8 year old quarter horse. She is a very gentle horse. I can touch/brush her all over. She would be good for kids to pet/brush. Not sure on the ridding I would say no. I can catch her...getting better about that. She does fine once on lead line. Once caught she just stands there and lets you do whatever.
She can only be used as a pet for someone or a buddy for other animals.No ridding or breeding period.
Her leg seems to hurt her...she does alot of touch toe weight. However she is all over the pasture and can move if she wants too.
I have had her feet trimmed and wormed.
The farrier thinks she hurt her leg got a bone spur and arthritis has set in. The home she came from said she hurt it over a year ago...they were giving her bute.
Perfect situation for her would be to just be out in the pasture forever with a buddy/ or for kids to give her attention. Someone not worried about feeding another horse.

Maybe, and this is just a non-expert talking, you should get an actual VET to take a look at her, possibly X-ray her, and give you an actual diagnosis and prognosis. If she's in pain and would need drugs to keep her feeling good, but in such copious quantities that it would cause other issues, maybe the kindest thing to do would be put her down. If there's something you can do to make her actually rideable (even if it's slow walk-only trail rides), then do that and sell her to someone with full disclosure of her limitations, but at least fully read to do the job she is capable of. Don't just pawn her off on people with a "think it might be" comment from the farrier and no other knowledge of what's wrong with her.

Okay, this is one I'm actually not going to bitch about. This particular one is for all the people who say they can't keep weight on a thoroughbred or an older horse. This is a 19--year-old TB, apparently: