Should charges be filed and the horses seized, the owner has fifteen days to notify the court whether they want to regain possession. For at least that two weeks AC must pay all the expenses of the animals. If the owner wants to fight for custody, AC must support the animals until the case goes to court. Rescues and individuals can offer to support the horses with no remuneration. With most rescues full, that leaves individuals to step up to the plate. I assure you there are not many appropriate foster homes available.

So, yes call them. Call them often! They won’t like it. Who cares? I believe my next call will be to the Monroe Monitor for a little follow up story to Judy Caton’s building being auctioned. Snohomish Animal Control won’t like that at all.

As for her buddy, 5minpins, you are enabling her with your support. I know she has assets that could readily be sold to buy hay. How about the truck? You do what you have to do when your animals need feed. Or you give them up. By the way, since those two vets support her horse care how about you share their names so we can ask them directly?

So it comes down to money. And social responsibility.

Has anyone ever heard of a horse casting in a three-sided run-in shelter? My BO was concerned about leaving the bottom of the shelter we are improving closed, but I have never seen one open at the bottom, and have been more concerned with building up the footing (dg, sand, and stall mats) so that the horses are not standing in mud all winter. If they won’t hang out in the shelter, I intend to have them fed in there to force some dry time.

If this is a concern, do I need to bank the sides? What is the easiest/best way to do this? It’s not a huge shelter to start with, so I don’t want to take up a lot of space.

Thanks!

My crippled sweetheart well-bred, well-built AQHA mare is crippled because of barbed wire, and ice. She was galloping in the pasture in winter, slipped on the ice, and ran into the fence. She was a yearling. She had a horrible cut right in the muscly part of her forearm, way into the muscle. She still has a good dent there – but the awfulness, and care, of that wound covered up the fact that she had a badly chipped knee. She was sound on it for a few years – never ridden. When we noticed something wrong, there was already arthritis all over it. The vet said, no riding, no breeding, and keep her thin, if we wanted her to last. She’s just ten, and we have maybe two years left. We have to move, and will put her down when we do. She’s a heartbreaker, all right. When she was still sound, she would run up to the fence and do a nice sliding stop – for fun. And let’s not talk about how sweet, and “bomb-proof,” she is by nature… now something has gotten into my eye. BRB.

Ruthie

If you are trail riding/driving with others, don’t be an a$$. If your horse is behaving like one, GO BACK. We went on a trail drive a few years ago, and this woman kept running her Mini up to us, then stopping and holding back until her friend caught up. She did this several times, we kept pulling off to the side, thinking she wanted to pass. Nope. Finally, her horse had enough and took off. Almost took out my guy, and cut right across my friend’s Mini, who jumped and then he exploded- his harness BROKE ( it was brand new!) and he promptly kicked the slats out of our brand new (to us) Meadowbrook cart. My friend got him stopped, she did not fall out. We got him unhitched and led him back to the parking area. Our drive lasted all of ten minutes. Ruined the whole day. The wench who caused the accident? She had a WONDERFUL time. Fortunately Dunny was cool when we put him back in harness a few weeks later. This was a 13YO been there, done that fella. Never assume….

Carry a knife at all times. Went to feed my young colts, everyone was fine. Came back three minutes later and Dartagnan has pierced his nostril with a bucket! He’s pulling back, the hole is stretching (I feared it would tear!) and he was not people friendly at that time, so approaching him was not an option. I reached over and cut the baling twine holding the bucket to the fence. I had the bucket in my hand and he was free in a second. I did catch him then to check him over and the hole had instantly closed. Barely any blood at all. It healed perfect and you can’t even tell which nostril.

If you use smooth high tensile wire, KEEP IT TAUT! Found another colt one evening just standing along the fence, didn’t want to come in for dinner. I looked out the other door, and he has a corner guy wire wrapped around a hind leg- don’t ask me how he did that! I had to physically pick up his hiney to free him. He stretched, then sauntered off to dinner, no worse for wear. No marks, nothing.

The best saying I ever heard: “Horses spend their entire lives trying to commit suicide”. Don’t give them any options….

I agree on not punishing from the ground. The best punishment to aim at a horse that deliberately dumps you is, in my experience, extra work. The real key factor is that *somebody* should, if at *all* possible, get right back on that horse. If you can’t, and you’re at a boarding barn, ask the trainer or somebody, even if you have to bribe them to do it…otherwise a horse can rapidly learn that dumping a rider is a way to get out of work, and that’s outright dangerous. This goes for whether the dump was obviously deliberate/malicious or whether it was a pure accident. Unless the *horse* has managed to end up injured…

The horse’s each had a stall in the barn and a separate “all-weather” gravel turnout, shelter and 1/4 acre grass area. It was a really nice setup, but she wouldn’t let your horse onto the grass until she mowed it because “horses grazed unevenly.”

After my horse had been there 2 weeks, she finally mowed, but didn’t bag the clippings. I asked her when she was going to rake up the clippings so I could turn my horse out, she said she wasn’t going to. She insisted up and down that grass clippings were just like hay, she had worked at a vet, and they were fine for horses to eat.

Um, I don’t think so. The grass was green and wet and was already fermenting when I got there a few hours after she mowed.

I had to spend 3 hours raking up the clippings before my horse could go out. It was actually a good thing, because I was able to clean up all the baling twine, trash and other junk that had been hidden in the grass.