Thomas_1, I do absolutely see your point, I really, really do. There are issues there that I personally would not have at my farm ever. And maybe I would have made different personal choices, but at the end of the day I am not PP and I don’t walk in her shoes. I am me! And like you I have very strong opinions of how my farm and my animals should be cared for.
I would prefer to reserve judgment for things I can see and judge in person. Maybe that is because I work with people daily in a capacity where I have to take each person as a whole and look at their whole lives and work with them to make my small piece benefit them. My job is to extend help and services to them in one way or another, and holy moly have I seen the gamut of personal and family situations! Maybe it makes me sympathize more with people than I should. It probably does! But for the most part my instincts are good and the helping hand I have extended has only come back to slap me once.
If it comes back to slap me in this case, then so be it. I own that. And you can come and find me and I will change my signature line to “Thomas_1 told me so and he was right and I was a foolish PollyAnna sappy woman”.
Cool you have a point about being neighorly, I can see the point completely if neighbors have been havig problems with each other, that you can’t expect them to help each other out.I am pretty sure if I hadn’t helped my neighbor several times with her horses, she wouldn’t have been so quick to help me during my unplanned disaster.
[QUOTE=CoolMeadows;5157485]
Thomas, just because you get to keep horses on your lawyer wife’s dime doesn’t mean everyone married cash for their hobby.
Asking a friend for 2 hours of help putting up some fencing isn’t the same as asking for donations. I don’t believe PP’s asked anyway.[/QUOTE]
I agree with a lot of what you’ve said, CoolMeadows, and think at times Thomas might be overly harsh in absence of the whole story.
But that’s a bit much. He’s quite well-respected on the international front, I believe, and his farm looks very much like it’s a demanding, time-consuming, revenue-producing business in its own right. Definitely not a “hobby” requiring a spouse with a healthy income to prop it up.
The first firm I worked for took a similar case for no retainer, since we were also planning to sue the city for seizing and destroying the animals (pit bulls, in that case) and we were going to retain a third of the award if successful.
Although in this case, I don’t know if PP would have similar damages, since her animals were not destroyed.
Depending on the facts, of course, she could have other tort actions, which a lawyer might take on contingency.
I don’t know how things work in Maine, but I managed to settle a dog seizure in a small town simply by calling up the town’s attorney and working out an agreement. That case was somewhat similar in that the dog kept escaping and frightening people. In that case, I think my firm only charged a couple hundred bucks. If it’s a small enough town, that’s a possibility.
Or she may find a animal-owners rights group willing to take the case pro bono.
But yes, I agree she needs legal representation if she hopes to recover her animals.
Maybe it was inappropriate, but he’s a big boy and has dished out far worse. His years of feigning ignorance and being purposefully obtuse about the differences in UK and US regulations irk me. He may hold his own, fine. Not everyone lives in a well regulated equine utopia. Suggestions on how we could help guide the country towards that would always be welcome.
[QUOTE=pAin’t_Misbehavin’;5157614]
I don’t know how things work in Maine, but I managed to settle a dog seizure in a small town simply by calling up the town’s attorney and working out an agreement. That case was somewhat similar in that the dog kept escaping and frightening people. In that case, I think my firm only charged a couple hundred bucks. If it’s a small enough town, that’s a possibility.[/QUOTE]
The animals weren’t seized by the town - they were seized by the state. So unfortunately that puts the cost factor into a whole different bracket than it would if it were a town seizure.
This subject matter/thread is contentious enough without sniping at each other or PP. Again, discussion, not barb-slinging…
We’ve removed a tangent of posts.
We’re leaving the thread open as it’s a valid topic of discussion as explained previously, and based on past experience, closing this thread would almost certainly result in Hydra-like resurgence of the topic in new threads due to the obvious level of interest in the situation.
So, let’s all please work together to maintain a civil discussion.
Thanks,
Mod 1
I love guinea pigs, too. I need another two, my one just died, sad, and they need alwasy to be two, for company to each other.
Please look into a rescue (yes, there are guinea pig rescues) or your local shelter for adoption. The breeder pigs used for stores are kept in inhumane and horrific conditions. So much inbreeding as well and there’s too many of them. This shouldn’t happen to any animal. Feel free to contact me for any information about rescues local in your area.
[QUOTE=AnotherRound;5157252]
I love guinea pigs, too. I need another two, my one just died, sad, and they need alwasy to be two, for company to each other. [/QUOTE]
I’m down to my last two personal pigs after doing rescue/foster for a while. Love them, but I’m ready for a break and will not start the cycle over again when one goes. Now I’m fostering/hoarding cats. :lol:
It was very frustrating, especially since I was there alone most of the time. I even worked extra hours at my “real” horse job to get my boss come over and help with some of the more scary things. Owners were useless for that AND thought the excellent temperament they were breeding for would keep me from getting hurt. Wow, I forgot how brave (stupid) and lucky I was back then. :lol:
FWIW, I don’t believe PP intended to leave those horses without care for two weeks. I do think, however, it was probably an every other day thing to refill water and make sure they had something to eat. But… I also think it was totally unfair of her to expect anyone to deal with the ongoing problem of the horses getting loose. IF it’s true (because that is also hearsay) that they ended up in the round pen with no water because they were in the neighbor’s yard again, she is very lucky that someone cared enough to do that and call for help when she couldn’t be found. I’d sure as hell rather non-horse people tried to give my horses apples as food than think “they’re big so they must eat a lot” and dump a few bags of grain out for them.
Bottom line for me is that she was on their radar and the stars aligned for this to also turn into a suspected abandonment case. Not sure if she’s ever discussed the previous charges here but, since there are two of them, what do you think the chances would have been of her mentioning anything HERE, had she been in town and the same exact scenario unfolded? Just something to think about if you believe you are getting ALL the facts as her friend or supporter now.
Please look into a rescue (yes, there are guinea pig rescues) or your local shelter for adoption…
apologies for the off-topic post[/QUOTE]
I deleted my sentence about GP rescue because I didn’t want to go totally OT, but yes! Rescue a pig and you will do yourself and the world a big favor.
Well, you can take a number behind the USDA, sister.
In the beginning of the 20th century, they started a guinea pig colony for the purposes of understanding the physiology of inbreeding in terms of Mendelian genetics. Experiments went on for 15 years and included some 60,000 animals, IIRC. Sewall Wright, who became the most important theorist of evolution of the last century, got his start on some of these problems working with the USDA guinea pigs.
Your grandpappy’s tax dollars at work… supporting the US government’s “hoarding” in the name of science. Where would be without many cheap, quickly reproducing little animals?
The facts, as gave been presented thus far within this thread and via PM’s, are that PP left the horses in the care of a sitter. The horses got loose one day and someone (not sure who) put them in the small paddock/pen/corral where “banging” was heard “all night” (again, not sure who heard this). AC informed someone (the sitter?) not to feed or water the horses until they could get there and pull blood. Now, whether there was enough hay to last all the horses the remaining days, I do not know. All I’m trying to remind folks is that there was a sitter that was coming at least once per day until the horses were removed by AC.
You do not have to like PP or agree with her horse-keeping and/or personal decisions, but please do not base your opinions on false information.
I personally would not want to live near those neighbors, after seeing the video, but I also would not expect the neighbors to be helpful. PP’s horses are not their responsibility. I imagine, based on some older posts, the relationship between PP and her neighbors is not exactly “neighborly”. Of course, I thought “horselips” was a friend of PP’s as based on older posts, I think she bought a filly from PP. :eek:
