Animal cruelty in my state is an aggravated misdemeanor. I did not check all states so I can’t speak for yours. While the NAHSC is trying to pass legislation to make transporting horses to slaughter a felony, animal cruelty involving horses or the family is an aggravated misdemeanor. NAHSC note: I said animal cruelty, not neglect.
There is a vast difference between neglect and cruelty. I don’t understand the mentality that allows an individual to hoard, or keep an animal in constant discomfort but it is vastly different from the mind needed to purposely inflict torture and death to an animal. Many people I consider a big part of “THE PROBLEM” feel they are competent horsemen and more than a few feel they are more than competent trainers. Most of them at least mean well although they make the rest of us crazy. We have cussed and discussed how the lack of floor value has made horses available to these and others who really have no business in the horse industry. I like to compare these folks, the Kool Aid Klub, and the NAHSC brigade to a blister on the butt of the horse industry. They are a pain in the ass but not fatal.
Others, those with the intent to torture, maim, and kill for the adrenalin rush or whatever sick mind trip, are a whole ‘nuther breed of cat. They are not only a humane nuisance but both a societal symptom and problem. They are a cancer instead of a blister. Unchecked they will be fatal and it seems we have added yet another animal to the list they can torture.
Pro-horse/pro-slaughter/pro-profit oriented horse industry horsemen have used the increase of neglect, abandonment, and the host of other bad things which happen to animals who have become a no value liability (pets) instead of a salvage value asset to justify the necessity of horse processing/slaughter/butcher. Whatever term you choose to use, whether you support this belief, if you are pro or anti horse is not the point, the universal rebuttal to this? These things are against the law. The law will protect the horses and prevent these things from happening more frequently. HSUS and PETA are supposedly to busy using the vast donations they continue to suck in to lobby for animal protection and animal rights laws to fund any real hands on care of the animals. These organizations and their mouthpieces have been so involved in stamping out an industry, which could have and perhaps should have been more tightly regulated to correct its problems, they haven’t even paid lip service to animal cruelty syndrome.
Back to the Fourth of July. Late in the night of July 4, 2009 and early into the next morning Flint Dahl and his buddies were torturing Dually, Wendy Halweg’s good barrel horse. HSUS and PETA wanted nothing to do with the prosecution or investigation of the case. He was a rodeo horse, they don’t condone rodeo. A glance through the comments on AHL (American Horse League) website shows a couple of “compassionate horse lovers” berating Chase Anderson and the organization’s press release calling for prosecution and harsh punishment of the violators. Why? They are pro-slaughter. How can they possibly have the unmitigated gall to stand up against the cruel treatment of this one horse when they were for killing hundreds of others?
There is a difference between feeding, shipping, and processing any animal and torture killings. Trust me I can say this with a clear conscience, in large part because of the events of this July 4.
My two yearling colts get out of their pasture and were hit with a Jeep. The land owner was away camping so it is unclear how these colts got out. They and their two year old brother were out while two other horses stayed in the same pasture and continue to do so now. Supposedly a 16 year old witness in the Jeep that ran them down who testified the driver (a 30 year old male) drove by the colts, then turned around to chase them for fun and to see if he could hit one. He did well, he hit both. The witness later recanted, so again the facts are unclear. The stated facts in the sheriff’s report are:
Absolutely no skid marks were present on the rain soaked little traveled gravel road.
The colts were left with broken legs while the driver called help and towed his Jeep away as there was no sign of a vehicle when a second unrelated vehicle found the colts in the road and called for help.
Supposedly later on the deputy and the landowner’s son tracked anti-freeze and other fluid leaks to a nearby residence to find who had actually hit them.
Here is pretty much how this has played out to date. The witness recanted….she is 16, she and the driver were leaving a party intoxicated so her parents are clamming her up. The county sheriff has little more interest in prosecuting this case than if the family dog was hit and killed. The value of the colts was questioned immediately. My friend who is the landowner valued them at the princely sum of $1,200.00 or $600 apiece for the sheriff’s report. He didn’t call me until the next morning. Logically there was nothing I could do and he knew how upset I would be over the way they died. We all know horses aren’t worth ANYTHING.. Hell, there are people all over trying to give them away. They were out. If they hadn’t been where the drunk S.O.B. could see them, and it didn’t happen in an open range state/area so, well you know the rest of the story…….. Sounds kind of like blaming the date rape victim for being female if you ask me.
Turning Woody out into the hill pasture made a happy story but as I drove up to the gate to unload, about 300 yards away on that same road were the bloodstains where the yearlings had bled out. It’s the horse business, if you don’t own them you can’t lose them but for a time it was easier to talk about Woody. Really it still is.
If there is any doubt in your mind about the connection between animal violence and human crime, read on. Interesting reading on this subject at :
They do help answer the question all my friends and I have had….What kind of person does that sort of thing?
Names conspicuously absent from these pages detailing research and reasons for more funding, attention, and stronger prosecution of this syndrome???? PETA???? HSUS????? Must be something about July 4, the full moon, alcohol, and all those good designer drugs.
By RH1
Update on Dually- June 24, 2010
"The man charged with stealing and abusing Dually was recently sentenced for the crimes. For the next three years, every 4th of July, Flint Dahl will serve five days behind bars."
