Painter Defense Fund

Last winter, we had an abnormally stormy month of January, with an abnormal amount of snow, though it was not constant-the average temperature in January is 18-45 degrees F, with an average of 10″ snow and 65% sun days. Because my husband began to lose trust in our caretaker, my husband stayed at the new place to make sure the animals were getting proper feed and water. In December, a person from a humane society showed up with a complaint that the horses weren’t being fed. But she could see there was an an abundant supply of quality hay, so left. In January, an animal control officer from the sheriff’s department came, demanding to see the horses. My husband explained that several of the horses had been poisoned at our former location which compromised their health and that their liver and kidneys were effected. He showed them the hay and explained his feeding program and disclosed his contract for 60 tons of hay. They wanted him to take a couple of the older horses to a vet, telling him he either needed to that or decide to put them down as they were older horses. They wanted him to build shelters for them, even though they were protected from the elements with trees, and horses can withstand -30 degree weather comfortably. Plus, the adverse conditions were not going to be sustained for any length of time, as is the case in this area. Here is picture of two of the seized horses taken within 5 days of the seizure:

Do they look at risk to you?? NO!

My husband chose to put three older mares down by using a single gun shot each as the situation deemed prudent to be done. This was was emotional for him as he loved these mares like children. Afterwards, he discovered these mares had lost their back teeth, so they were not going to get better or be able to gain weight. By the way, whatever the doctor had been giving our animals, we have had a lot of teeth become loose and started falling out. When the animal control officer came and demanded that these older mares be taken to a vet of her choosing and my husband told her he chose to put them down by shooting them as the situation deemed needed done, she was enraged. Eight days later, the county, with 15 deputies, 6 animal control officers and others, came to the property and confiscated our remaining 17 horses. My husband had the diagnostic reports showing the problems and questionable health issues of the animals that had previously died. It didn’t matter, they excerpted bits and pieces from the reports to build a case against us. By law, the animal control is suppose to work with you to correct the problem, not terrorize you. Procedures and law were not adhered to. We have recently discovered that the stepchildren had connected with the doctor and were poisoning our horses again to make them not able to process and utilize their food which resulted in them losing weight.

A couple weeks ago we received a notice from the District Attorney’s office that we were being charged with misdemeanor cruelty to animals, Now, last week we discovered we are being charged with felony animal cruelty…9 counts for my husband, 6 for me-even though I hadn’t been to the new property since August of 2007 and have no ownership or legal rights to the horses. We have a attorney picked, one who has successfully defended these types of cases. But, it will take $25K to do it, we are told, and we do not have that. Let me emphasize again, my husband has a passion for livestock, particularly Arab horses, and would and did everything he could to protect and care for them. We need your assistance.

If you have, or know of anyone with animals, you are vulnerable to hateful attacks by anybody you may or may not have offended. What the county did is reprehensible! We have now heard of others who have suffered the abuse of this county’s animal control. Please help us stop these types of assaults against good, honest people. Donate anything you can, be it $10 or more–it will all go for our defense. If you know anyone that can help, please forward this link to them.