[QUOTE=Mara;5147198]
If the petsitter pulled a no-show, there had better be a hospital somewhere in their story. At minimum.[/QUOTE]
To clarify…I’d cut the owner some slack…not the petsitter.
I give out about Ireland quite a bit for a few bad apples not taking care of horses and there is some real neglect, but the one thing that will never happen is pesky neighbors complaining about smells of the farm, any farm. This is very much a farming country and if you don’t like the smells move somewhere else.
And in general, if you have horses here, chances are you live on a road that has other horses and livestock. Occasionally we get a loose pony from next door in our place. Generally by the time we’ve noticed her, the neighbor is already on the way over to pick her up. But I would in general say, that most of us would help each other out in any way we could. And if we saw things going wrong, we may have a word with the people who own the horses to see if maybe they are having problems.
I didn’t see much wrong with PP’s horses and mud is not a crime. Good lord, you should see mine at the moment. I’m already fet up with the freaking mud and it’s only October. As far as generators and the other things the article says, I know quite a few people in Ireland who are doing the very same thing because they fell on hard times. It really isn’t a crime. And yes, the animals are all taken care of. So really I am going to have to reserve judgment at a latter date.
I went off to Cavan sales last week to help my trainer with 6 horses. I was up each day at half 3 am to water, feed, hay, turnout, muck out, and pray that nobody killed themselves while I was gone. I left my house keys for the other barn people to let my dogs out and to check the horses. Now I must admit I am very lucky in that the person I entrusted this job to would probably make sure mine were ok before she started her horse. But still I worried constantly and her texts were a little bit of relief. Was home each night about 12am and I made my checks with the dogs before sleeping for 3 hours and starting all over.
I am on my own right now so if I choose to have a job, and choose to go away from the place at any time, something could happen that I may not forgive myself for, but yet if I don’t work and don’t get away, I find I don’t have much to look forward to. You may not understand that statement as I am only now just realizing how important it is. But PP seemed to have plans in place and people screwed that up for her. Not really nice and I hope everything is resolved for her quickly.
I too, think I will reserve judgment in any future abuse cases until all the facts are in.
Terri
Well, I am going to have to side with French Fry the Eq Horse and Lisa Cook on this one…
Lavendar Farm said there were prior red flags and I have to agree with that too.
She has a prior conviction for cruelty to animals. If anyone else other than a prolific poster had a prior CONVICTION they would have been drawn and quartered by this board. How do we reconcile that? A prior conviction.
Now, I don’t for a minute think she just up and left them for two weeks. And those horses aren’t starved. But you know, responsible horse owners don’t leave two cats alone for two weeks either. Or let their livestock habitually get out. That is dangerous to their wellbeing and that of others. Sure, it happens…but frequently?
She posted many, many times of having financial difficulties and health issues and yet…did not scale down the horses. Continued to breed. Continued to buy stuff. Something is off. If money is tight and you are unwell you have an obligation to NOT take on more responsibility than you can manage. What if one of those horses required more medical care than what she could do herself?
She is employed, isn’t she? Has she not implied that she is a police officer or in law enforcment somehow? Odd that someone in law enforcement would have the full force of animal control on them with no cause.
I don’t doubt those neighbours were looking for reasons to get the authorities involved. But given that we ALL know that AC is very slow to act…This is not a case of all was well until the darn farm sitter didn’t show up.
The problem is that we can’t reconcile our impression of PP with someone who has a conviction for animal cruelty, skates close to disaster in terms of being able to look after her horses and would leave cats alone, with a bunch of food, for two weeks.
Sad, all of it.
[QUOTE=Fairview Horse Center;5146545]
Yes, this is a neighbor that says she is feeding them - apples. :rolleyes: Not a person that has a clue about horses.
I didn’t see horses is poor b/s condition. Does the fencing/enclosure need work, absolutely, but that is not a crime. Leaving round bales and water, with someone checking on them is what MANY people do.
From the article “Well-bedded bluffs, coulees and treed areas can serve as alternatives for sheds” Woods have always been considered decent shelter for horses. I also remember my old vet helping one of his clients build a shelter for her horses. It was a 2 sided corner, and no roof.[/QUOTE]
For goodness sakes! You must be blind. Take a look again at the grey and the bay horse.
Clue: NOTE the prominent backbones!
Appreciate that doesn’t happen in a week!
Now these might be 2 unwell or ancient horses but you can’t say they’re in great condition.
The place is a dump. The fencing is entirely inappropriate. The horses are standing in filth and dirt. They’ve no food, no water.
The owner has a previous conviction.
We have now come to know that the “perpetrator” is a poster here and if that’s true then we also know that that she’s been posting here while she’s away. So she’s not incommunicado.
Neighbours alerted authorities QUICKLY and the authorities acted QUICKLY. Which is what they tend to do when there’s been “form”.
Appreciate that this lady already has one conviction and another outstanding.
I’m sure the owner will have excuses but she’s responsible.
The kindly lady who fed apples has an entitlement to ignorance.
The owner doesn’t!
[QUOTE=butlerfamilyzoo;5146586]This neighbor chick seems way to smug and happy to be in front of the camera tattling on PP. Which to me is blaringly obvious the chick is lying out her rear end and just wants to see the horses gone. Maybe they are getting out of the fencing now and then, heck, mine do that and i have WAY better fencing!
These horses do not look very thin to me honestly, most look fine, the ones i know are young look like they are in a gawky growth spurt and gangly/thin, not ribs poking out, hips sticking out, etc…
Some states have retarded, close minded restrictions on shelters for animals, i really dont hold that fine over PP’s head, the ruling could have changed and she didnt know about it, or didnt know about it in the first place. And i can tell you that animal control can be downright RETARDED about who it picks on and why. I was once turned in when my horses charged a gate (smashed it to pieces, looked worse than PPs gate in the pics) due to a herd of deer running through the pasture. Horses took off down the road, me following close behind, but a driver called animal control because my horses had “blinders” on and couldnt see, they were “crazy running all over the place…” They were wearing fly masks. I had to go to court and show the judge a fly mask to drop the fine. Seriously. Some animal control guys dont know horses period and we all know neighbors can be stupid idiots as this chick appears to be!
I sure hope we hear from PP soon. I bet she’s freaking out. [/QUOTE] Remind me not to ask you when I want opinion on what horses require in order for them to be kept well and responsibly!
Too often we read and see on here about horses who on close to death because they’ve been starved. On this occasion there’s been intervention when they’re just in mud and with no water and no food and just a couple have prominent back bones.
I know what my preference is and for sure I’d not say that it’s “retarded, closed minded, stupid, idiotic” to care and to intervene at early stage.
[QUOTE=horsefaerie;5147155]Perhaps Cothers could all email the two news stations that carried the story and tell them that those horses are NOT starved or thin. Muddy, yes.
The place needs some work and if people really want to step up to that plate, tell them that too!
Tell them that horses do quite well without amenities. That Disney movies are bunk when it comes to horses.
Anyone could be the victim of a vindictive and (horse) ignorant neighbor.
Maybe this is an opportunity to get the word out that horse people stick together.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=mbm;5146598]one thin horse out of all of them? so?
SPECULATION!
lets just wait and see!
innocent until proved guilty , remember?[/QUOTE] One horse that the poster could see. I personally thought the grey and the bay looked underweight. What I couldn’t understand though is why 3 horses should be crowded in a tiny space of mud with no water and no food. But hey whether it’s one thin horse or 2 or 6 it doesn’t matter. Seemingly none of them had food or water left for them.
[QUOTE=mbm;5146700]you know, the internet is great for a lot of stuff, but this circling of the vultures is really just gross.
its like people hope someone does something wrong so they can revile them etc.
it is just sick, and not very - well - nice.[/QUOTE] Sounds like you’re never going to cope with life, let alone the internet. If you haven’t come to appreciate that folks will offer opinion and that ordinarily the opinion is that neglecting animals is indefensible then I’m amazed. To jump to the conclusion that means people are like vultures and want it to happen is well… batty and bizarre!
This is all somewhat astonishing…
But to put the “strange neighbor” and poor facilities into perspective… this is rural Maine we’re talking about. I’ve lived most of my life in Maine, with the exception of 6 years in Connecticut, and you definitely see some craptastic properties in this state. It is somewhat “normal” for a person to have a yard filled with junk and trash. I’m not saying it’s GOOD, just that it is much more socially acceptable here than it is elsewhere. The most well-respected boarding stable in my area has fencing that I would NOT consider to be acceptable, and wouldn’t board my horse there because of it. It’s just normal here.
That “strange neighbor”–she’s a Maine girl. She struck me as, clearly, ignorant about horses, and perhaps somewhat uneducated, but otherwise a very typical Mainer.
It remains totally weird that AC actually seized the horses. I don’t know what to make of that.
Years ago I had a pet+housesitting job, and I got off work, did a few errands, and arrived at the house. After dark I’m sure, but it couldn’t have been later than 7PM. Fed the dog, took care of the cat, got unpacked and ready to settle in for the night and who shows up but one of the homeowners. The neighbors had called him up, telling him that the sitter was a no-show, and he had driven two hours back home to care for the dog. No cell phones so no calling him in transit to let him know that the lights were on. Needless to say I apologized profusely but also at that point terminated my agreement and headed home.
My DH always makes snide comments about my “real friends” on the interwebz. Asks me what good they’ll be if we have a problem. Well in PP’s case he may be right, I know I can’t do her a lick of good being down here in KY.
Being a shift worker is very hard, and rotating is even worse - “recluse”, I like that, it just means she’s working some God-awful hours.
I just wish her the best and hope that she is able to put together a local-to-her, reliable support system to keep the fences up and the bushes whacked down some and water and feed in evidence - such that her neighbors never wind up making A$$umptions about whether her animals are abandoned again. Definitely hope the animals are OK.
ETA Thomas1, you would faint dead away if you could see what passes for appropriate fencing and pasturage here, not 20 miles away from the KHP and glorious TB farms. Steep rocky degraded slopes, barbed wire falling down, boards falling down, holes with barb wire laced in them - heck - my neighbor’s GOOD section of fencing is cattle wire with a barbed top wire. Equipment and implements, “materials”, stacked out in the same area the stock roams freely. It’s a paradoxical situation.
I just hope everything is okay all the way around.
[QUOTE=Daydream Believer;5146725]
I may be one of the few folks on here who have met PP. She and I met at the Equine Affaire in 2007 and she took home a weanling I sold her. That is the cream looking filly with the ill fitting halter in the one pic. She does not look skinny to me. Anyway, Jaime impressed me as a very nice person and super sweet. She was very good with the filly. I shared my camper with her for one/two nights and she is not some kind of psycho nutcase.
I do recall her posting on here and she emailed me as to how to contain this filly who’d grown up into an escape artist. She told me she was cited for her being loose. If there is a prior issue listed, that may well be it.
Mao, a poster on this forum that I also know personally, did seen Pintopiaffe at WEG. She is/was there. That is fact.
I suspect this is a situation of pissy neighbors and perhaps a farmsitter who did not do what they were supposed to do.
I’m going to call tomorrow and make sure someone knows that I am the breeder and former owner of that filly and that if there is to be a disposal of Jaime’s horses, that she comes back to me. I hope that does not happen but as a rare breed horse, we can’t afford to lose her. Perhaps some of us on here might be able to help with Jaime’s other horses to keep them from disappearing somewhere. I need another horse like I need a hole in the head but I will take back any horse I’ve bred.
As for enforcement and standards for the different states…it can vary enormously. Wyoming is very lax for example and they have done nothing after years of complaints of a certain ranch I know of that has “winter kill” of horses yearly, none receive vet care, horses left out to die alone, etc… and it’s gone on for years and nothing has ever been done. Here in Virginia they’d be in prison for the same things…so what is tolerated in one area is not in another and it seems like there are neighbor issues to be taken into consideration.[/QUOTE]
I sincerely hope you’re right and that you’re able to ensure the horse you sold her is o.k.
I don’t know how much screening you did before you sold the horse or if you visited her or spoke to others who personally knew her and hence get first hand verification on how she kept horses in her charge and ascertain what facilities and resources she had.
But fact is you can’t form conclusion about values and behaviour of people from the internet and you certainly can’t after just a short meeting or even a stay in a camper van at a horse event. You might have opinions formed and there may be indicators but I know that unless someone is really off the spectrum that you’re not going to form a conclusion that someone isn’t a “psycho nutcase”
Heck it’s sometimes difficult to do that even when you know people for a long, long time.
For years my partner in life worked with a computer crime investigation team and specifically on Operation Ore. That was an international initiative (with the USA) which went on to prosecute thousands of users of the internet and particularly relating to child exploitation and pornography. I found it incredible beyond belief how many “nice” people were prosecuted and became quite cynical about how much you never know about people.
Yet I still never saw my biggest mistake in judgement:
Many years ago I sold a hunter to someone I knew was a pillar of respect and niceness in a small community. NOTHING prepared me for having to go and get the horse back 6 months later and then spend time and effort recovering the horse from starvation and neglect for the next two years and also providing evidence to secure a prosecution.
By that time I personally knew he was scum and I wouldn’t tolerate anyone trying to tell me what the excuses were. I heard them from him and when in court and thankfully the judicial system didn’t give the reasons much attention.
I wasn’t surprised when subsequent to the prosecution he moved from the locality.
But NOTHING prepared me when I later read that he’d been arrested for sexually abusing children between the ages of 7 and 14!
I also personally know of a high level competitor who has starved and neglected horses - though that one didn’t surprise me! But I know it would a lot of folks if it had been public knowledge.
Likewise we had a situation here not so long ago that shook this community. Just 20 miles from here we had a “respected” vicar who ultimately had animal welfare call round following a complaint about smelly drains from a neighbour and who removed about 70 cats from his home. There were about 20 already dead! A load more on the brink of death through starvation and the rest in pitiful condition.
I’m sure the owner will have reasons why this happened but on the face of it, there’s clearly every right to be concerned. If I had a horse I’d sold there then for sure I’d be hot-footing it to the premises for an unexpected social call and specifically when I was told the horse had escaped and she’d been cited and seeing for myself what it’s like and I’d be talking to the enforcement officers and to the neighbours and getting a lot more information to help me form opinion.
Everyone who has ever been involved with such matters knows how difficult it is to get intervention when there’s serious neglect and cruelty. We also know how sparse the resources of Animal Welfare enforcement is and how much you have to do to get them to prioritise a case and intervene or bring a prosecution to court. My presumption is therefore that when there is intervention that there’s justification and I wait to be proven wrong.
The courts of course have an obligation to assume innocence until guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt.
But I prefer to err on the side of caution and to form opinion from reasonable belief and from what I personally know and see and read and hear.
If I were you I’d be concerned enough to go find out more personally and not from the perpetrator. Go see for yourself how your horse is being kept. It didn’t look suitable to me but I accept that evidently different strokes for different folks!
[QUOTE=DressageGeek “Ribbon Ho”;5147231]
I just hope everything is okay all the way around.[/QUOTE]
Ditto this.
P.
I too have no dog in this fight but speaking from personal experience, I can believe that this is a “sitter” gone AWOL. I had a very near and dear friend of mine caring for my two corgi’s while I and my (now ex) husband where overseas. I thought they were in good hands cause she “loved” them. This person was also staying in my townhouse for the price of ulitilies, no rent. Well my mom stopped by the house to get my mail and check on the dogs. No sight of my friend anywhere…and all of her stuff was moved out of the house. Turns out, not only was said friend moving out of my house without telling me, she was away for a long weekend. You know what her solution was? Having a guy I hardly knew come over to the house once a day to feed them and let them out. They were also being kept in their crates…with no water:mad: and only being fed once a day and let out once a day. Mom took dogs right away and my jewelry since the house was vacant. You know the kicker…my friend got offended and hurt that my mom took the jewelry because she said I should “trust her”. Yeah…there are some real winners out there.
Kind of ironic that before she left, she was worried about what could go wrong at her farm. 
http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=273655
If not having shelters in every single paddock or sometimes not having access to water in winter is a crime, then I can confidently say most of the barns in my area could have their horses seized at some point…
I’ve boarded at multiple barns (nice places too!) where the horses sometimes went without water during the day (had 2 full buckets in their stall overnight). Barn owners had to often come out in the middle of the day and break the ice in their troughs.
Also, a number of barns i know don’t necessarily have shelters in every single paddock - the 24/7 turnout ones? Absolutely.
Right now, my mare is on single turnout in a grass paddock that has no shelter - she’s blanketed, comes in at night or in horrible weather and has plenty of hay in front of her at all times. I don’t see the problem.
PP has always seemed like a wonderful person - I will reserve comments until she chimes in. The horses in the pics looked FINE.
I have one freaking horse that normally has the trough overturned by the time I get the hose turned off.
PP has always struck me as a caring-- if fragile and needy-- individual. I often look at situations like this, and think about how horrifying is it for someone who may be well intended, and in over their head. I also think “there but for the grace of…”
We are always ready here on COTH, as a community, to step in and help people who we do not even know. Then there will always be the lower end of the barrel- the “vultures” if you will, who swoop in, and look for the leavings, and offer nothing positive.
Absent any information to the contrary, and in spite of appearances, I believe we should stand ready to offer a hand to someone in need. Even if this is not simply a “slip up”, the horses will surely be in need, and aren’t they the ones we always need to be ready to help, first and foremost?
[QUOTE=Lisa Cook;5146963]
I’ve tried to get horses seized before…and found the situation incredibly frustrating. It involves moving heaven & earth, and again, it is not an act that is done lightly.
Northern NH & Maine…it’s pretty rugged country…live free or die and all that.
I am assuming the previous fine and the pending abuse trial probably ushered the seizure process along a bit faster than usual in this instance.[/QUOTE]
But see the same people who would flame animal control for not seizing someone else’s horses found without water are defending someone who has a previous conviction! Gotta think that people just like to argue. She’s done it before, been convicted and now has done it again. Thanks Lisa for trying to help the horses out all these years.
I have seen her on several videos now and she looks fine. She is the blue eyed cream (perlino) in the pics…a smaller horse which is perfectly normal for our breed.
I appreciate your advice but I’m still not convinced PP deserves this treatment from many of you in her absence to defend herself and explain what much of this means.
Again folks…try not to do knee jerk reactions to this and try to take these poorly written (as usual) news articles to heart until you hear what is really going on. I’m withholding judgment on her until that time.
Yes, I have contacted the authorities about the filly I sold Jaime before they “adopt” her out to someone who sells her to slaughter but I sincerely hope this can be worked out and it is just one huge misunderstanding.
[QUOTE=ToN Farm;5146977]
Would you want to live next to that dump? What do you think that does to your home value should you decide to sell? There are ordinances in nice townships where you must maintain your property. Smell, noise, accident hazards, etc. are cause for complaints. In my township, PP’s place would probably be cited with a dozen infractions.[/QUOTE]
Seriously? If people would just worry about their own damn property and stop worrying about what anyone else is doing. I get so tired of the Yard Police because “OMG, you are lowering my property value”…give me a break. If you have time to worry about someone else’s property and how it looks, you obviously have way too much time on your hands and need to find a hobby to keep yourself entertained.
I have no idea what happened and I don’t know her, but I am with genevieve17, the horses do not look starved. I have learned a ton from PP regarding milk testing (pH) and so forth, so I find it hard to believe she knows nothing about horses or their care. I try to look to the best in everyone and I’m hoping it’s a sitter-gone-bad situation…
To start a user name just to try to out someone is cowardly and cruel IMO.
[QUOTE=Trevelyan96;5147075]
AC is pretty useless in most areas when it comes to assessing whether or not a horse is being neglected.[/QUOTE]
In this instance, a vet was brought on-site. Maybe the vet is in on the conspiracy with the neighbors!
Thomas-
I am GLAD AC actually did something for horses with no water. I do not mind that they were taken from PP in this instance. But for a couple horses to be thin doesnt scream long term abuse and neglect. I have a horse here that is thin, my other three are obese… The thin horse is a TERRIBLY hard keeper that i have fought with for months. Unlike PP i have 13 acres of gorgeous pasture, which they are out 24x7 on and get fed twice daily with access to wonderful hay. He is still thin, he medically checks out, his teeth are done, he’s regularly dewormed, my vet finds nothing wrong with him, he costs me a small fortune to feed, yet he is still thin and probably the same condition as the thin horses of PPs. Does that make me neglectful and an animal abuser?
PPs property is NOTHING out of the ordinary for a US farm. It’s not fancy. But we’ve all been there, we’ve all had this kind of fencing at some point, we’ve all had weeds, we’ve all had mud… This type of farm probably makes up 70% of the horse owning population in the US. It is not a crime to not have pretty fencing or some garbage laying around your storage shed. Why on earth would someone not sell a horse to someone because their property is not perfect? I would rather sell a horse to someone that will love it than stick it in a stall and forget about it just so it can live in a prettier facility… But i’m all about horses living like horses, in the great outdoors with ice on their hair in the winter… I mean really? Do these neighbors not see any other horses driving down the roads where they live?
I can forgive horses getting lose because quite frankly, CRAP HAPPENS. I can not count on two hands how many times i’ve had a horse get lose for various reasons, and i have had animal control visit me. In my experience, animal control will either be prompt or you’ll never see them. In this case, i’m glad they came so the horses have food and water.
Has PP moved recently? I dont recall. But i do know she’s got pictures of the last few years of her horses out in large pastures and the background hills look the same as in the photos/video on these articles. I would “guess” there is more property there than what you are seeing. In the second video posted it shows horses out in a larger field outside of the round pen walking around the round pen. Only 2 horses were in the round pen. Why? i dont know. Maybe the pet sitter put them there and left them because they were being bad. We may never know. BUT it is not a crime in this country to keep a horse in a round pen. Many LARGE gorgeous barns only turn their horses out in a round pen. I would rather they live in a round pen than in a 10x10 stall.
Their feet look in great condition, which means a farrier is out there often. People who starve their horses dont get their feet done. Even in the article it says this is a tricky case because it’s obvious that someone has done something with these horses, they are not completely neglected. Even the signs of the mane being buzzed on the bay. Isnt this PPs young andy that she recently got? I seem to remember something about that, and would explain the mane being buzzed. In which he totally looks like a gawky/gangly young andy.
I really can not hold PP responsible (in my mind) for a pet sitter not showing up. It’s the worst nightmare of all of us. And i have left my cat at home for two weeks with food and water too… And that was an indoor cat, not an outdoor one, i just had a pet sitter walking through to check on him and empty his automatic litter box. Matter of fact, i left one at home for 6 weeks with my mom checking in 3 times a week. That’s a perk of owning a cat. An outdoor cat? Geeze, slit a bag of food and leave, they are probably fairly self sufficient on their own. The gray cat in the video sure didnt look starved.
We might all be wrong and PP is a nutcase. But i want some more facts before coming to that conclusion. I can see this situation happening to any one of us if we had ignorant neighbors and ended up with a pet sitter we found out in the worst way we couldnt trust.
I dont give one wit about the prior conviction of not having adequate shelter and of a horse getting loose. Depending on MA’s state laws it can just be a really wacky situation. I also dont feel horses need shelter. Not like they’ll use them if they have them!
