Locking the Barn Door

Ever heard the saying “that’s like shutting the barn door after the horse is gone”?

Lots of truth to that one-unfortunately, there’s also a ton of truth to this observation, “Locks are only to slow down good people.” Now THAT one is gospel truth.

People who slap a padlock on a gate or a barn door have the best of intentions-and the lock makers are making money off that. What a lock does is keep idle fingers out of your possessions. These are the people who ‘just want to borrow’ a brush, see if that saddle would fit my horse, use your bridle because I forgot mine, …..and so on. At least 50% of the time, they also forget to put your stuff back. So you put a padlock on your stuff to keep these nimcompoops out of your stuff. I get it. I’ve done it myself. They are irritating as heck. But they’re careless-not necessarily dishonest.

Unfortunately, padlocks barefly slow down the truly dishonest thief. They consider a padlock a challenge IF they consider it at all. They’ll use a bolt cutter on the hasp or a couple of wrecking bars on the hasp. Give them 5 minutes and they’re in.  Fifteen -thirty minutes later, they’re gone with your stuff. If that includes your horse-well, that’s just too bad for you.

Now-how do you stop them? Answer is-you really can’t unless you take the horse and all your stuff in the house with you and I doubt that’s going to happen if you’re at all like me. So you have to step back and try to look at your place like a bad guy. What can you do to make it less attractive?

• Motion detecting lighting and cameras
• Allowing briars and thick brush to grow along fence lines (also ecologically good idea-gives small things a place to live, eat, reproduce)
• Check property lines often
• Make sure gates to pastures are close to buildings-not the road
• Microchip
• signage
• Freeze brand
• Neighborhood watch
• Tire boots on trailers and equipment
• engrave or etch metal
• vary your routine
• photograph and keep your records up to date-
  • vet/breeding/show
  • registrations
  • news clippings, etc.

Never slack up-because the people who can profit from your laziness sure won’t.

 

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