The two Mini Horses peered fearfully at me through the rails of the pen. The pen was wired shut, and several feet of packed manure was built up against the gate. It was clear that the little animals hadn’t left this enclosure in a very long time—a clear case of animal cruelty and neglect.

I signaled to one of the animal control officers on scene who was looking into a dark and dismal chicken coop.

“I’m going in!” I shouted. She waved in assent, and I hoisted myself onto the shaky panels and swung a leg over the top.

The Minis crowded against each other, trying to get as far away from me as possible. I spoke gently to them from my awkward perch, and soon had climbed down into the filthy pen.

The little creatures were emaciated, ribs and pelvic bones protruding from filthy and matted coats. Both had runny noses and weepy eyes, and the smaller of the two, a black mare, was coughing. I hunkered down and they turned toward me, the mare daring to stretch out her muzzle toward my hand before retreating in confusion.

Then I saw their feet. Their hooves had grown into a horrible corkscrew shape, and they limped painfully, shifting their weight from foot to foot. I concluded that this was at least several years’ worth of growth.

Examining the Horses

I was able to get a soft rope around the black mare’s neck, and soon I had a halter on her. She trembled in fear but allowed me to stroke her and get a quick look at her teeth. She was only 4 years old.

I put a stethoscope on her little chest and winced as I listened to the squeaks and rattles indicative of pneumonia deep in her lungs. Her companion, a chestnut mare, had labored breathing and her eyes were dull.

I climbed out of the pen. The animal control officer, a woman named Jackie, was waiting.

“What do you think, Doc?”

I shook my head and looked sadly at the Minis, huddled together watching us.

“We’ve been trying to get on this property for months,” Jackie said, wiping her eyes furiously. “The judge kept refusing to sign the warrant.”

I felt a surge of anger. “How could anyone knowingly leave these animals in these conditions?”

Jackie shrugged. “We’ve had endless problems with this judge and the district attorney. If we file charges, the DA usually won’t take it any further. If it does end up in court, we almost always lose, and the owners get their animals back. But that’s not going to stop us from impounding every single animal on this property today.”

My coworkers were already backing the horse trailer up to the pen, and I pulled out my multitool and started cutting the twisted wires holding the panels together. Deputies struggled with flapping chickens, and several walked by with yowling cat carriers. There were three more full-sized emaciated horses to catch and load.

At the hospital, the big horses unloaded quickly, but the Minis huddled in the trailer and refused to move. We brought an electric saw into the trailer and lopped off about 6 inches of overgrown hoof from each foot. The black mare moved gingerly on her new feet in a high stepping gait and her companion did the same. We named them Charlotte and Emily.

A Long Road

Over the next few weeks, the big horses slowly began to gain weight and recover from the animal cruelty they’d faced. I did everything that I could for the little horses, but I found Charlotte unconscious in her run early one morning and her faint pulse had stopped when I returned with my emergency kit.

Jackie called almost every day to check on the horses, and she broke down when I told her about Charlotte. I knew we were both thinking the same thing: If only we’d gotten her out sooner. I silently cursed our idiotic system, which could cripple an entire investigation with a single flawed decision, and I knew things had to change.

Emily pined for her lost friend. The pneumonia was improving, but she was eating less and less each day. I switched her medications and added electrolytes to her feed, but nothing helped. Her heart was broken, and I feared we would lose her too.

There was a fat little donkey on the premises named Chico, who was notorious for being difficult. In desperation, we moved him next to Emily, who resolutely ignored him. Always an opportunist, Chico spied Emily’s uneaten ration and stuck his head into her pen. He seized the edge of the rubber dish with his teeth and took a few gleeful bites.

That undid Emily, and she rushed Chico and fired a few kicks in his direction. Then she surprised us by taking a few bites of the feed, pinning her little ears fiercely whenever Chico got too close.

On the Upswing

Emily and Chico were not exactly friends, but now Emily had a purpose in life: to get mad at Chico. Soon she began to gain weight, and her pneumonia cleared up. Jackie stopped by to visit, and after watching them biting at each other through the panels, labeled them “frenemies.”

Eventually another young Mini arrived at the facility, and she and Emily bonded immediately. They were both adopted by a lovely family that also ended up with Chico—he brayed heartbrokenly for days after the Minis left, and we begged them to take him too.

Jackie and I are drafting a series of bill proposals called Charlotte’s Law. These would automatically grant emergency exceptions to search warrants for animal control officers and investigators seeking entry to a property on the grounds of animal cruelty, as well as tighten up existing laws so that skeptical DAs would have much stronger cases.

We will be seeking sponsors for our bill, and while it may never make it farther than committee review, it’s comforting to try to do something more for Charlotte, whom we could not save.

This article about Dr. Diehl’s experience with an animal cruelty case appeared in the November/December 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Vet Adventures: Justice for Charlotte appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

I’ve been privileged to provide vet care for many horseback outfitters, guest ranches and dude ranches throughout the course of my 22-year career, and I can attest that the majority take excellent care of their animals. They provide high-quality feed, stay on top of preventive care for each horse, and have the vet out promptly when an animal is sick or hurt. These horsemen and horsewomen develop a strong bond and partnership with their horses and mules. They’ll always put the needs of their working animals first, and I am proud to be their veterinarian.

The Dark Side

But there are some businesses out there that represent the dark side of the horse industry. These places spend little to nothing on their horses’ care. They ignore injuries and ailments, overwork their animals, underfeed the herd, and send visibly lame and sick horses on long trail rides. The property is usually filthy and run-down, and the staff are unkempt and unfriendly.

In the staff’s defense, they’re not treated much better than the horses. They’re also overworked, grossly underpaid, and depend mainly on tips from the guests to pay their bills.

There’s always an owner somewhere making a darn good living off their shoddy business. They usually live in a different state, own multiple dude outfits or horse-leasing businesses, and if they’re ever on-site (which is rare), you’ll recognize them by their fancy new diesel trucks, expensive clothing, and complete disregard for the law.

Although there are cruelty laws in place, they’re often vaguely worded and leave large, clumsy loopholes for owners like these to take advantage of when it comes to horse care. There’s occasionally a day of reckoning for some of these outfits, but it’s the horses who ultimately pay the price. And there’s always a very long line of complicit people who help the owners by remaining silent when they should be reporting the situation.

Law Enforcement Case

One day, I was visiting such a place at the request of a law enforcement officer who had received complaints from the public, and it was not a happy visit. The horses were overcrowded and packed into small pens. The few feeders that contained hay were populated by the stronger, healthier animals while the weaker and lower-ranked horses eyed the sparse hay from a safe distance.

Judging by the protruding ribs and bleeding injuries on the horses who weren’t at the feeders, it was sadly obvious who was getting the lion’s share of the calories and who was not. And horses are not kind to one another when competing for resources.

As I walked through the herd of horses with the police officer, more and more injuries became apparent. There were bleeding legs, infected cuts and scrapes, and dozens of horses had horribly overgrown hooves and limped painfully around the pens. Ancient, skeletal horses with bulging, arthritic joints stood quietly in the background.

They closed their eyes and lowered their heads for a face rub when I walked over to examine them. When the horses still trust us after humans have utterly failed them, it kills my soul in ways that I cannot explain.

I could see something odd on one horse’s back. As we got closer, I realized that I was looking at a cantaloupe-sized and partially ruptured abscess where a saddle had rubbed deeply into his flesh. Another nearby horse had an eye that was swollen shut, his face soaked with tears and discharge from the untreated injury.

I gestured to the officer, and we haltered the two horses after taking some pictures and video. The horse winced as I gently probed the enormous abscess on his back and thick pus flowed freely down his side. He was shaking in fear, probably expecting to be saddled and ridden despite his condition.

I ran a hand over his neck and murmured to him, then reached for my medical bag and drew up some pain medication for him and for the horse with the eye injury. I knew I wouldn’t get reimbursed for the medications, but I didn’t care.

Who Pays the Price

“You’re going to file charges, aren’t you?” I asked the officer.

He shrugged. “Oh, we absolutely will, but I can already tell you that nothing will happen. The DA claims that we can’t prove that this owner knows anything about the neglect, and he’s already blaming his staff for everything. They’re filing charges against the staff members, so the owner just drives off in his fancy truck while they take the heat. As usual.”

I exhaled in frustration. “So, nothing changes for the horses? Does he get any sort of follow-up from the department to make sure he cares for these injuries?”

The officer looked sadly at me. “The horses are his property. If the DA won’t charge him with anything, our hands are tied. Yet our department faces the wrath of the public who don’t understand why he gets to keep the horses. They blast us on social media and send us hate mail. And he goes and opens another dude outfit somewhere else, and it begins all over again.”

I looked again at the sad herd standing quietly in their filthy pens and had to fight back tears. I knew that the officer felt the same way.

“How do you keep going?” I asked him. He patted my hand sadly but didn’t answer me.

Need for Change

That night I stayed up until the wee hours looking up every cruelty law and reading every statute related to horse businesses that I could find. By 2 a.m., I’d given up.

Until someone with the know-how and the power to enact a change gets involved, this will indeed happen again and again. Owners need to be held fully responsible for the well-being and care of their animals, and there need to be much higher standards for animal care in operations like these. The laws for horse care need to be crystal clear, and unfortunately they aren’t.

Maybe you’re the one who can help close these loopholes and change the law.

This article about the need for stronger laws to ensure good care of outfitters’ horses appeared in the May 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. This is an edition of Vet Adventures, which appears in each issue. Click here to subscribe!

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