Posts Tagged ‘animal neglect’
When is it ok for the authorities to NOT do their jobs?
When an approximately 1 year old filly gets buried alive, or so it seems.
It has been reported that by March 30, 2012 this filly had been starved so badly that she was no longer able to stand. It was at that point the owners decided to dig a large hole near the fallen filly, drag her into it using their truck, and proceeded to bury her alive.
Pretty unbelievable, right? Except there are pictures and even video footage of filly and her future grave, and when it gets too dark to see, the neighbors videoing this atrocity narrate the event.
The following is an excerpt from a rescue’s website, reporting on a conversation with a girl living on the property. The report has since been taken off the website, more on that later.
“There were two horses there, one bay emaciated mare, one chestnut gelding that was also horribly thin. A girl came out of the house and Valdia confronted her. She claimed that they just moved there two days before. This was obviously a lie, since she went on to divulge information about the horses and their “racing careers”. The gelding was apparently a Standardbred and the mare apparently a Thoroughbred, although it was impossible to tell the breed under the matted muddy dull coats and jutting bones underneath. The girl mentioned a lip tattoo common in Thoroughbred racehorses and motioned to the bay mare. When Valdia asked her why they hadn’t fed the horses, she shrugged and said “We don’t like horses.” As she was questioned, she slipped and said that “Someone got drunk and hurt him” motioning to the gelding. She promptly realized that she shouldn’t have said that and wouldn’t say another word.”
Moving on. So the AC is investigating – that’s awesome! Their first stop on that investigation? The horse rescue that brought hay to the starving horses. That’s right, they went there and insisted upon reviewing their nonprofit paperwork and then took copies. Does anyone know what that’s about? Neither the rescues, nor I, can make sense of it.
What do you do if your local Animal Control doesn’t seem to care? You contact the local Sheriff’s office. Except, apparently they’re not answering their phones… One lucky person who got through reported that they were told felony charges are “pending”. Which I find particularly interesting seeing as, according to an email I received from the DA, my email was the first he had heard of the issue. I had been under the impression that criminal charges were prosecuted by the District Attorney. Quick! Someone tell them there’s a breakdown in their communication system!
WHAT’S GOING ON HERE PEOPLE?! There’s a dead filly, possibly that was buried alive. There is photographic evidence of two starving horses, one of which is already dead. Is that not enough to act upon? Can’t that get you onto the property and into a position where the body of the filly could be exhumed, then a necropsy performed to see if her lungs were full of dirt? I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV but that seems fairly logical to me. Or is there no room for logic in the legal system?
I understand it’s still pretty early in the process of investigation but the clock’s ticking! That filly was buried March 30th, that’s almost two weeks ago. If anything is going to happen, it needs to happen fast. Unfortunately it sounds like the Animal Control office has already dropped the ball. Why didn’t they investigate three weeks prior to April 1st when they were originally made aware of these people?
Why are the neighbors so afraid of them that they hide across the street filming and are so scared they’re hesitating to file a report with the DA? Could it perhaps have something to do with this excerpt from the original account reported by the rescue?
“The neighbors were interviewed and told us more and more horror stories about the people – apparently these horses had been the victims of beatings and God knows what else, for entertainment they would abuse and hurt them on top of starving them. The owners had been shooting at people, scaring the horses, had been running the horses into barbed wire fences on purpose when they were drunk, had tied the horses heads back with bits to their chests and left them like that for entire days.”
There is something wrong here, above and beyond the preventable deaths of those two horses. Grab your pitch forks and light your torches folks because we’ve got monsters among us!
Siskiyou County Animal Control
525 Foothill Drive. Yreka,CA. 96097
530-841-4028.
da@co.siskiyou.ca.us
Yreka Sheriff Department
305 Butte Street. Yreka,CA. 96097
530-842-8301.
No email listed.
da@co.siskiyou.ca.us
J Kirk Andrus (District Atty)
311 Fourth Street
Room 204
Yreka, CA 96097
For more information, check out this thread on Horse Grooming Supplies or the rescue’s facebook page.
From SR: Die a slow, horrible death
Since I don’t normally publish on Tuesday’s and this post generated a lot of comments on Snarky Rider yesterday, I thought I’d bring it over to Fugly and see what everyone here has to say. Please note that it has been reported that this filly did find a new home – no word on the quality of that new home, but we can hope, right?
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I know there’s a ongoing debate, dividing the horse world between those that think 2 years old is an acceptable age to start a horse, and those that don’t, but I’m sure we can all agree THIS IS SO VERY, VERY WRONG!
Get the fuck off that baby before I yank you off, reach out and manually remove your babymaker, you fucking ignorant hillbillies (I’m referring to the parents, not the kids – they don’t know any better and are um like 3…)
People like you make me want to maim and kill. What kind of assbackwards thinking leads you to ‘hey, she’s 10 months old! let’s ride the stuffing outta her!’?
I would love to know how the hell they broke this filly (and here I’m using the term both in the equestrian-specific way and as in “Hey Virgil! You dun broke the chair, ya good fer nuthin’ sumbitch.”). Seriously, did an adult break her or the three year old child? I honestly do not know which is worse. Well, worse for the filly would obviously be if an adult broke her…
Anyone else hoping that it’s just the photo/stride – because that appears to be one painfully tight girth.
Your three year old works the filly in the round pen? HOW?! The kid is three! Looking past the abuse you’re heaping on this poor filly, what about the danger you’re putting your own child in?
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As I was rereading this post I realized it’s not very well put together; however, it’s been four days since this ad was emailed to me and I am still so very mad at these horribly stupid people that I can’t see straight. So I’m just going to end it. There’s nothing funny here. There’s nothing to learn. Anyone who isn’t married to their cousin, in the horse world or not, knows this is beyond wrong for so many reasons. Please feel free, and encouraged, to share in my rage.
Don’t let the rescues steal your horses too!
Our favorite humanitarian, Dave Duquette, is rallying supporters on United Horsemen’s facebook group and asking them to donate their money to aid the legal defense of Nancy Skakel. Skakel is the recent victim of the long arm of the law reaching out and snatching away her precious Shagya Arabians.
Long time readers of the Fugly Blog may remember Skakel from her previous feature seen here. Refreshed your memory? Good. And yes, that’s correct, this woman was featured TWO YEARS AGO! Back in 2010, Skakel gave away several horses because she was unable to properly care for them. Looks like she didn’t learn her lesson at all, seeing as since then she’s continued to breed and has amassed 19 horses under her “care”.
Some background information on the current Skakel debacle: 19 horses were seized and are in the care of Sound Equine Options (SEO) and Columbia Gorge Equine Network (CGEN). The condition of the seized horses is unclear at this time – there are numerous reports floating around. One thing is clear, however; Skakel has been charged with “1 count animal cruelty in First Degree” and “10 counts of transporting or confining animals in unsafe manner”.
Given that Skakel has been charged, why then is Duquette’s UH veritably slamming SEO in their facebook group (see above link)? Unless you want to spend almost an hour wading through the 147 comments associated with that particular thread, the following are some highlights.
1. Dave asks, “why people didn’t help her” – and many people second that sentiment.
-Yaaaa, people have been trying to help her since 2005! Here’s a scan of a letter to the editor of an Oregon newspaper that a kind Oregonian sent in
You cannot help people who are too stubborn, stupid, ignorant and/or proud to accept and utilize that help.
2. Someone mentions that the negative publicity Skakel has been receiving could deter her from going out and asking people for help.
-Who cares?! At some point, when your horses are starving or you’re unable to provide proper and safe shelter and turnout, you put your damn pride aside and ask for help! As nice as it may be to think so, it’s not the responsibility of others to knock on your front door and insist upon providing assistance to look after your horses.
3. One commenter questions “why are her [Skakel's] horses quarintined (sic) from all other horses at the rescue…”. You know you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when your “supporters” ask why newly rescued horses are quarantined.
4. Another commenter gem: “why don’t you put together a fund to hire a lawyer to work to help fight this crap. The publicity from that fight would do as much or more to legitimize the stand and rights of horse owners.” So now this is a political issue to gain publicity for UH? Horse owners do have rights – the right to feed and care for their goddamned horses.
(BTW – UH is accepting donations “if people want to help this poor desperate woman” who Rate My Horse Pro reported, “admitted to letting her prized stallion, Savar PFF, lay in his stall for four days [until he died] with no veterinary care or humane intervention after he was kicked by a horse.” Although, according to another commenter RMHP is run by “animal rights folks” and we can’t expect them to write objectively.)
5. A number of UH’s supporters feel that rescues are getting greedy and instead of saving animals from bad situations are, in fact, stealing the animals so they can resell them. They feel it’s a growing plague wherein rescues are reaping the monetary benefits undoubtedly associated with refeeding starved horses and retraining abused horses and then selling them at a colossal profit. Yup, that makes perfect sense.
-As a fun side note, I spoke to the people at SEO and guess what? “SEO does not have ownership or control over who will get the horses from the Skakel Case. The courts and Klickitat County will decide their future.”
6. This one’s just funny: Dave says, “we are educated and won’t take this crap and we know our rights. If you hear of this kind of shit you need to tell people to get ahold of us. Or if they try it on you DO NOT allow them to take anything. No matter what they say…”
-So, the dude who is orchestrating the opening of an equine slaughter house in Oregon wants people to fight against having horses they can’t properly care for seized… Could it be that he wants people, instead, to bring them to his “rescue and rejuvenation program” where horses that are deemed to old, ill or unfit for rehabilitation will be slaughtered? Food for thought? (Or would that just be food for the dinner table of rich Frenchmen?)
There’s a lot more stupidity contained in that thread but those are some of the main themes. Before we leave this topic, though, I want to share a post from another blog with you. It was written in response to a comment on the UH facebook group thread I’ve been referencing herein. I’m not going to say anything about it, I want to hear what you all think – come on, it’ll be fun! 
Enjoy 
Guest Post: Being Unfuckingbelievably LAZY
You all know her; y’all love her. So for a limited time, I give you: THE ORIGINAL FUGLY!!!!
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After reading two news stories this morning on Facebook, I felt compelled to write a blog entry – a compulsion I have not felt for a long time. In the months since I sold the Fugly Blog, I’ve read many stories about abuse, neglect, poor training, backyard breeding, and all of the topics I used to rant about on a daily basis. These particular stories hit a nerve.
The first was about a woman in Galesburg, Illinois. Her name is Sara J. Feighner. http://www.pjstar.com/news/x760605403/Woman-charged-with-cruelty-after-two-horses-die
Sara had two dead horses on her property. “Feighner told officials one horse had died because its hoof became caught in a fence and remained there until it died.”
OK, you got that one? Now on to the next story, which is about a man named Bob Trocha. The article states that Bob works as a “farrier, hay deliverer and personal trainer.” He had 11 horses seized.
http://lincolnnewsmessenger.com/detail/202155.html
Bob is now throwing a hissy fit because the authorities want to lop the balls off his stallion:
“He’s worth a lot of money,” Trocha said. “If I were to sign him over and just give him up, I lose the potential of selling him and making money from him.”
Bob, if Studly Pants was worth a lot of money, you would have sold him back when you had NO HAY to feed your other horses. I’ll leave it to the fine readers here to ID Mr. Oh-So-Valuable (I have no doubt you will do so quickly and save me the trouble), but allow me to put on my Madame Cleo hat and predict that this valuable stallion is worth under $1500 and has never sired a single foal of any distinction.
I’m off track though. What really gets me about Bob’s story is that his horses all desperately needed hoof care even though – scroll up – HE IS A FARRIER. Which brings me to the topic of this blog entry:
Being Unfuckingbelievably LAZY
I mean, really. Although I tend to accomplish a lot in a day, this is not because I am some amazingly high energy person. It is because I feel guilty when shit doesn’t get done. So, even when my body is screaming “crawl under the covers and stay in bed,” as it was doing at 6:00 a.m. today, my mind says “get your lazy ass up and go work your big yellow money vacuum.” My mind won. And we are talking about simply working a horse so that he continues to get fit, because fitness is good for his wonky stifle, not removing his hoof from a fucking fence so that he doesn’t DIE.
Sara is 52, not 82. She is only seven years older than I am. Sara, how exactly do you let a horse stand tangled up in a fence in your own yard til he dies? This is a criminal level of laziness. And it’s responsible for far more horse neglect and cruelty than anyone ever really wants to talk about. No, people want to give out excuses. Excuses abound:
I was sick.
I’m out of work.
I was away and a caretaker was taking care of the horses. (People use being gone for a WEEK as an excuse to blame someone else for poor condition that took months or years to get that bad)
I’m depressed. This is one of my favorites. Please raise your hand if you have ever been significantly depressed and genuinely wanted to curl up and die or even seriously thought about ending it all, but instead, because you are responsible, got off your butt and fed your kids and/or your horses and went to work anyway. My hand is up. I bet most of your hands are, too. I simply do not believe that any significant portion of society suffers from depression so crippling that they cannot function at all. Most of us have the ability to kick ourselves in the ass and get moving again, and most of us do just that. Bear in mind, I am not saying that catatonic levels of depression do not exist – just that they are rare, and that too often, depression is an excuse for lying around like a lump not even trying to improve your life or live up to your responsibilities. (Cue flaming from people who do not understand this paragraph and will feel the need to write 2000 words on their horrible depression and how I just don’t get it).
My husband left me. Another winner. If you are over the age of 16, you have, almost for sure, experienced heartbreak. I will bet your parents made you get up and go to high school anyway, crying or not. You can feed hay while you’re crying, trust me on that. This is not an excuse not to care for your animals. They didn’t dump you. Your self-esteem won’t be improved by the addition of animal carcasses to your yard.
No one ever wants to face the real reason the horses aren’t fed, or, especially in Bob’s case, the feet aren’t trimmed: That the person responsible is NOT A GOOD PERSON. They are a lazy piece of shit whose ass is grown to the couch watching the Kardashians instead of taking care of the poor, suffering animals in the backyard or trying to earn money to feed them.
Or playing Castleville, Pioneer Trail and basically every goddamn game Facebook has ever thought up. Nice, Sara. You have time to do THAT, don’t you?
https://www.facebook.com/sfeighner1
She also has time to beg for money on the Internet:
http://www.giveforward.com/mygooddeedshavebeenpunished
Give me a fucking break, Sara. If you’re a lazy piece of shit, own it. You can sit on your goddamn couch ‘til you die and the housepets you are also no doubt neglecting eat you. But put an ad on Craigslist already and say, hey, I’m a lazy piece of shit who can’t even walk outside and free my horse who got caught in a fence. Come untangle him and he’s yours!
At least then he’ll have a fighting chance, which is a hell of a lot more than he had with you.
Marion County seizure
Being out of the state does not excuse you from the responsibilities of horse ownership that you readily, if not eagerly, accepted when you took possession of the horses!
Marion County deputies recover eight malnourished horses from “deplorable” conditions in South Salem field
There are some out there who would say that the out-of-state owner did her duty by making arrangements with a local person to care for the horses.
To this I say: Bullshit
You can’t just pay someone and be done with it. You have a duty of care to check in once in a while and make sure your hired help are, oh I don’t know, helping! Let’s see if we can’t relate this to a non-horse world scenario. Say, for example, you’re a manager at McDonalds. You hire people to do a job, you train ‘em, give ‘em some direction, whatever. Once all that is in place, do you then leave for Costa Rica? No! For better or worse, it’s your job to make sure the job is done, because ultimately it is your responsibility!
Then, of course, is the issue of there being no shelter. That’s something the owner would have found out about when she went to rent the place. Again, you can come up with a bunch of lame scenarios where the owner isn’t to blame, but let’s be honest; if you’re a responsible animal owner, any type of animal, you’re going to inspect the place you intend for your animal to live, prior to it living there! So yes, dear readers, she knew and she was ok with it.
What about the land owner? Did they rent out 50 acres to someone they knew would bring horses onto the property? Knowing full well there was no shelter available for the animals?
I know people who rent out a condo and they make sure to do an inspection at least quarterly. And those people are sharing multiple walls with other tenants! There’s some accountability there! But for someone to rent out 50 acres and not schedule inspections? Of course, I’m making a judicious leap and assuming they didn’t inspect the property and had no knowledge of the starving and deceased horses (at the very least that would decrease the property value, right?) on their land.
None of the above is meant to excuse the behavior of the “caretaker”. I just feel that their involvement, or lack thereof, is obvious. They are, after all, the ones who willfully and cruelly neglected all aspects of these poor horse’s care.
So who’s responsible? The owner for not checking in? The landlord for willfully turning a blind eye? Certainly the caretaker is. Any way you slice it, body scores of 0.5 don’t happen overnight. Not to mention six – SIX! – dead horses on the property. It’ll be interesting (and presumably horrifying) to see whose horses those turn out to be…
I don’t claim to be an expert in decomposing animals, but it would seem to me that their being in different stages of decomp means that they died at different times, right? Still with me? Ok then, doesn’t that sound like they probably died from starvation? Logic being that different animals use up fats stores quicker than others and that alpha horse(s) likely chased the others off what little food they managed to find. This is supported by the fact that the remaining horses were found with body scores ranging from 0.5 to 1.5. Albeit that’s not much of a range.
The little bit of reassurance we can take from this latest episode of horse abuse? The swift and effective action of Marion County – they acted immediately upon receiving the phone call about the horses, got a vet out, blanketed them, brought food and water and got them the hell outa there ASAP. Good job guys and thanks from all the horse lovers!
For pictures of the poor remaining horses, check out our Facebook page.
For information on the rescued horses and/or how you can help them, check out Strawberry Mountain Mustangs (took in 5 of the surviving horses) and United SPCA (took in 3 of the horses)
