Pet-Abuse.Com - Animal Abuse Case Details: Horse neglect

Horse neglect
Penn Valley, CA (US)

Incident Date: Monday, Oct 31, 2005
County: Nevada
Local Map: available
Disposition: Not Charged
Case Images: 7 files available

Person of Interest: Pamela Fyffe

Case Updates: 1 update(s) available

Case ID: 7206

Classification: Neglect / Abandonment

Animal: horse

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November, 2005 - Despite neighbor reports of animal abuse, Animal Control officials will not seize horses from a 45-acre ranch on the 12000 block of Spenceville Road due to a lack of evidence supporting those claims.

"The horses looked the way they did for justifiable physical reasons," said Nevada County Animal Control Sgt. Bruce Baggett on the evening of Feb 8, 2006.

Baggett said several foals on the ranch had not been weaned from their mothers as soon as they should have been, causing many of the mares to appear gaunt.

"The foals should have been weaned long ago," he said, "but there's nothing illegal about it."

He said neighbors hired by ranch owner Pam Fyffe to watch the horses over the past three months were inexperienced with the weaning process. New caretakers hired three weeks ago, he said, have made several improvements, including a better feeding regimen.

Animal Control investigators went to the property Feb 8 afternoon and interviewed the caretakers.

"The caretakers are credible, and they do know what they're doing," Baggett said. "I was impressed with them."

Baggett said it was neglectful of Fyffe to leave the care of her horses to neighbors for nearly three months prior to hiring the new caretakers.

"There was some neglect there, but I don't think we'd get a conviction," he said. "We'll waste a whole lot less taxpayer dollars this way."

Animal Control officers will continue to "keep tabs" on the ranch and the new caretakers to ensure the health of the horses, Baggett said. One of Fyffe's horses put down by a veterinarian on Saturday could not have been saved, he said, and Fyffe knew of its condition.

"It had chronic kidney failure and ulcers in its mouth," Baggett said. "Treatment had been planned."

He said the caretakers had already scheduled an appointment with a veterinarian and had a place for the horse in a barn on Fyffe's property when neighbors took the horse on the night of Feb 3, apparently led by a person with "some clout" in the neighborhood.

Up to 30 neighbors arrived at the ranch with a trailer to take the horse, Baggett said, causing a confrontation with a male caretaker.

"The caretaker backed down," he said.

Baggett said Fyffe is upset her neighbors called the media and took her horse, but she did not indicate she intends to press charges for theft. She does not live in the area but may move here within the next several months, Baggett said.

Neighbor Lynn Lise objects to Baggett's assertion that the caretakers are capable of caring for the approximately 40 horses on the ranch.

"We were really hoping the horses would be seized," Lise said. "We were hoping to teach (Fyffe) a lesson."

Case Updates

Pamela Fyffe says her neighbors overreacted when they stole her sick horse from her 45-acre ranch, then told Animal Control authorities she neglected the animal. "It's a situation that got out of hand," she said, sitting in her attorney's conference room on Litton Road in Grass Valley Thursday. "It was an emotionally charged event." Fyffe, a marketing consultant and entrepreneur from the Bay Area with another ranch near Napa Valley, says she visits her ranch on the 12000 block of Spenceville Road once a week and closely monitored the 40 horses she keeps there.

She was letting the 23-year-old Spanish Mustang live out its older years - as a favor to a good friend, she said - until she decided it was time to put it down. "I cared about that mare," she said, adding that she had ridden with its former owner since 1988. "It was losing weight, but it was not in pain." She said the old mare appeared fine on the morning of Feb. 3, 2006, the same day her neighbor Lynn Lise called Nevada County Animal Control at 5 p.m. Lise said the skinny horse was so weak it couldn't stand up, and it was laying in mud. "The horse lost its standing for the first time that day," Fyffe said.

Unfortunately, Fyffe said, the caretakers she hired in late December 2005 to watch the horses, Justin and Amee Ortega, were in El Dorado County for most of that day to visit Mr. Ortega's sick grandmother. Ortega, who sat next to Fyffe in the attorney's conference room on February 9, 2006, said he returned to the property that evening to find the horse in the mud and several neighbors, including Al and Lynn Lise and Bob and Sue Hoek, on Fyffe's property. "There was a ton of mixed emotions," Ortega said.
Ortega called Fyffe, who drove from the Bay Area to be with the horse. She said she left again at 2:30 a.m. Saturday. Several hours later, Ortega called Fyffe again to say the neighbors were taking the horse. "I did not give permission for that," Fyffe said, adding that she had a spot in a barn ready for the horse and had already called a veterinarian, but the neighbors refused to take the horse to the barn. Later in the afternoon, Fyffe said a neighbor called her to get her permission for a veterinarian to put the horse down, and Fyffe granted it. "I would have liked a call from them earlier," she said. "The neighbors were upset seeing an animal laying in a field and I can appreciate they were concerned, but I wish they could have called me sooner." She said she has not decided whether she will press charges for theft. "I'm not the sort of person who wants problems between neighbors," she said. "I would never steal anyone else's animal."

Nevada County Animal Control Sgt. Bruce Baggett, who was called to the scene by the neighbors, said he intended to seize several of the horses on Fyffe's property because they were underfed and in an "unacceptable" condition. He posted notice of a pre-seizure hearing on her front door. Fyffe said she never received the notice because she used the side door to her home when she visited.

Baggett interviewed Fyffe on February 8, 2006 and determined the horses appeared gaunt due to prolonged nursing of the mares by the foals, who were not weaned soon enough. On February 9, 2006, Baggett wrote in an e-mail that the investigation into Fyffe's horses continues. "We have done research on this breed of horse, Spanish Sulfur Mustangs, and learned that it is extremely common for foals to nurse on their mothers for way too long," he wrote. "It has something to do with comfort for the foals. I also spoke to an expert on this breed of horse who has had extensive dealings with them and said that the ones in the wild look really bad because there is nobody to wean them purposely, yet they do just fine. He said that sometimes, the foal will be as large as the mare they are nursing on."

Source: The Union News - February 10, 2006
Update posted on Mar 17, 2006 - 5:27PM

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References

	The Union - Feb 9, 2006
	The Union - Feb 8, 2006
	The Union - May 3, 2006

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Horse neglectPenn Valley, CA (US)

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Horse neglect
Penn Valley, CA (US)