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Vice Blog

CANADA - TORONTO IS SHITTY

Mounted police are by no means a new thing. Horses are dependable animals that can be used in a variety of ways to keep John Q. Public in line from Manchester to Minneapolis. Another thing you can depend on horses to do is shit an awful lot. And in Toronto, police horses shit in the street with impunity, and apparently no one really cares enough to do anything about it. We heard through the grapevine (the internet grapevine) that the mounted police unit in our fair city fed their horses a special diet, some kind of enzyme or something, that was supposed to help their shit get off of our streets faster. We got our intern, Sean, to find out the truth behind this story, and we also asked him to find out what happens if you feed a human the diet of a horse.

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The following is a tale of mystery and intrigue, and shits filled with hay, equine and otherwise, as described by Sean.

The Toronto cops keep their horses in a building called the Horse Palace that was originally constructed in the 1930's to provide quarters for animals being used in the Canadian National Exhibition. In 1968, they took over a portion of the building and it is now home to all of Toronto's police horses. I went over there in order to inquire about the diet these animals are fed, and ended up learning more than I ever thought there was to know about police horses. I spoke with PC Elise Higgitt, who rides a horse named Blue Moon, who was won in some sort of bizarre-sounding horse tournament, which is apparently a common way for the force to acquire horses. That, and buying them from Mennonites. PC Higgitt told me that they don't actually feed their horses anything special, and that their shit makes fantastic fertilizer that people frequently visit the stable to take home with them. She also told me that they shit upwards of 20 pounds a day, which I guess explains why they're so eager to get rid of it. I took a bag full, along with a bag of hay and some kind of pellets that the horses eat, which I was going to eat. I also hung out with the horses for a while--how often do you get a chance to do that?

After leaving the Horse Palace, I sat around for a bit and contemplated eating the hay and pellets I had been given. I also compiled a list of other things horses like to eat, things the internet told me horses could eat that I like to eat. At this point, I realized that there was no way in hell I was going to eat a bunch of hay, so I called up my little brother and his roommate and asked them if they wanted to help me. I told them my hypothesis, that eating like a horse would make you shit like a horse, and they told me that it was just stupid enough to be kind of funny and that they were in. The next day, they embarked on a weeklong journey of apples, carrots, granola, oatmeal, hard-boiled eggs, hay, and pellets that had very different effects on both of them, while I sat back and ate cheeseburgers and laughed. It just so happens that my brother is a full-fledged carnivore and his roommate is vegetarian, so I was able to get different perspectives on what it's like to be kind of like a horse. Also, in an effort to be somewhat scientific, we weighed each of them before hand; they both started off at a lean 145 pounds. We Googled whether it was okay for humans to eat hay, and the general consensus seemed to be "You can, but you probably shouldn't." We (well, they) threw caution to the wind in the name of science.

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They also ate the weird pellets. They only ate this part of the diet three times throughout the week because we decided that, although horses eat a bale of hay a day, a human is not a horse and, well, it would stop being funny if they died or something. Regardless, apparently eating real horse food sucks, judging by the looks on their faces, which were eerily similar every time they repeated this part of the experiment.

During the course of this week, we also did various tests of endurance and stamina. We got drunk in the park and they tried to jump over benches as if they were horses clearing hurdles in competition (possible near the beginning, but by the end I think they were both getting kind of weak and malnourished). They also ran laps. Horsies need their exercise. We also tried to document how often they were shitting, which proved to be kind of difficult. Over the seven days that he was on the meat-free diet, my brother the carnivore took a grand total of two shits. His roommate the vegetarian, though, was shitting upwards of four times a day. The one thing that both could agree on was that they were definitely not shitting like horses. Minus the fact that my brother's roommate took a couple shits full of hay.

By the end of the week, both of them were completely bummed out and refused to eat any more apples, carrots, oats, or hay. Even by the third day, when I asked my brother how he was doing, he said, "I'm sick of eggs and granola and apples." After a week, they had both lost weight, between 5 and 7 pounds. We wanted to get a picture of one of them shitting on the street next to a police horse shit, but as time went on and it became evident that the lack of solid food was leading to a lack of solid waste, we decided that we would save our streets the indignity. After all was said and done, we sat down and talked a little about their experience. Both my brother and his roommate agreed that it would be really boring to be a horse. I asked if they minded eating like one, and the vegetarian said, "I didn't mind eating like a horse, I just minded not eating like a human." Apparently even vegetarians need a little spice in their diet. My brother just said, "Fuck this," and, while walking away, "I don't ever want to think about this again." Upon further prodding, though, he gave a little more insight. Basically, he said it was one of the worst weeks of his life. He was hungry all the time even though he was eating a lot, and despite the apparent high fiber diet, it wasn't going anywhere, which is not a position any man wants to be in. By this point I felt kind of bad, and we went out to get burgers. He took about three bites and then said that he felt like his stomach had shrunk so much that he never wanted to eat again. A couple hours later we got some chicken, and then a couple hours after that he took a huge dump and now he's back to normal, although I'm pretty sure that he's secretly bitter about the whole thing. I also discovered that the Toronto Mounted Police have a full line of trading cards. Next time you're in Toronto and see a horse cop on the street, ask for a card and they'll probably hook you up. My favourite is the stable manager, in the bottom right corner. I like his moustache.

Photos by Sean Calbeck and Thursday Friday