Horse neglect, dog running at large
Blissfield, MI (US)Incident Date: Thursday, Feb 8, 2007
County: Lenawee
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Edward Dean Wegner
A Blissfield man turned himself in March 1 on 15 misdemeanor counts related to horses being underweight and the horses and a dog running loose.
A Lenawee County Sheriff's Department report released on March 2 said an animal control officer was sent on Feb. 8 to Edward Dean Wegner's Forche Road residence to investigate a neglect complaint. That morning she found six horses and a terrier mix dog running loose on the property and in the roadway. She described the horses as thin and eating snow. She found baled hay in a metal barn and water tanks that only had debris in them. In another barn she found the remains of a horse.
The only fencing appeared to be a hot wire strung on 2-foot stakes, police said, and the dog did not have a dog license or rabies tag. The temperature that morning was 1 degree with a minus 14 degree windchill.
Wegner, 85, returned home while the officer was there, and he used an all-terrain vehicle to round up the horses and put them in the barn with the hay, police said. He told the officer the three mares were thin because they are nursing foals. There were two colts and a filly there. He first told the officer the dog just showed up, but when she said she would take it to a shelter, he said he would get a license for it. He said the dead horse died three or four months ago during labor.
Wegner was charged with six counts each of animal cruelty and letting animals run loose and one count each of failure to bury an animal, having an unlicensed dog and failure to vaccinate the dog. He was released on a personal recognizance bond. References« MI State Animal Cruelty Map
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