Good morning Plumbbob and thank you for being the voice of alarm. Something is very wrong. If PEARL were allowed to use the money saved by the donation of the land alone, just stick it in a earmarked fund, we could get the place the Sheriff needs built and have money left over to help them with the expenses.
JaneDoe makes a good point about animal ownership and the costs. Many people who can't afford them own them. The large animals have suffered badly as they are very susceptible to the drought and rise in feed costs, fertilizer etc. People that had horses and pastures now have starved horses and dirt.
Palmetto Native has an interesting idea - to get the county out of the animal business all together. Only law enforcement can enforce laws. I can't even come up with a five year plan for that idea because raising funds is unpredictable and time consuming.
There is another rescue organization of dedicated horse lovers who investigate abuse, take the pictures and information to the Magistrates, get a seizure warrant, execute the warrant, take the horses and sometimes fail to allow for due process. When some owners are finally found not negligent, the group hands the Court and owner a highly inflated bill that the owner can't pay and keep the horses. This doesn't seem right, so that's why PEARL works only with law enforcement, to let them do the legal part and insure the owners are treated fairly and according to the laws.
Sometimes the law chooses to turn their heads. Pure Thoughts Equine Rescue was turned in to the Abbeville several times for neglect and maltreatment. The Animal Control Officer never saw what he was looking at. It took an experienced horse shipper to get those horses the attention they needed. Oconee county was called about an old horse in a field with cancer. They told us the owners were having a "hard time putting him down". The horse was allowed to starve to death even though a vet had stated euthanasia was the only humane choice for the animal. The officers knew the family and didn't want to force them and, after all, "it's just a horse". Last week, the owner of the horses in Fair Play called me before we went out and said that Animal Control had been out "fifty million times, why was this any different?" One of the officers had been married into the family and admitted she tried to avoid this ugly situation. The owner works in the Healthcare industry. She knew she had starving animals as well, just didn't care. The neglect was willful but the officers chose not to charge her. I have to tell you that four of her horses were fed and well cared for so she knew how to feed a horse. I had never seen a starving pig before. People think they have a right to starve their animals, fight them or do as they please because "God gave man dominion over the animals". Well, that means morally and legally we have a responsibility to insure they are cared for and used humanely, not tortured, neglected and abused.
The Sheriff simply needs the means to do his job and in this case it's an affordable place to put these animals. I think Jane has a great point that it will bring people to the shelter and help raise awareness. I hadn't considered that in my reasoning to the people making decisions about the shelter, thanks Jane! Again, PEARL asked the county to build an intake facility for the Sheriff that cost less than 2.5% of the entire budget for the new cat and dog palace. That cost was less than the windfall from the donation of the land and they said, "if there is any money left over". Any other answers than "yes" is a "NO". How can that be justified? What the county is doing by refusing to build a place to put the animals would be the equivalent of saying, arrest criminal but we won't pay for a jail. How would that work?
Every time I get a call about a horse in Anderson I breathe a sigh of relief because I know the Sheriff will do what's right, ask for professional opinions, seize a horse or require the problem be corrected by the owner and go back to make sure they have complied. Other counties animals are not that fortunate. We are getting very good at finding solutions on a case by case basis but it is not the best answer for anyone working on these cases, costs additional time from the Sheriff's Office and places the entire burden on the people willing to make the effort. When our donations don't match what we need we either close down or spend our own money. Ask that from the county employees.
We are adopting a Marine Corps slogan, "improvise, adapt, and overcome".
