"Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it."

~Anna Sewell

Saturday, May 22, 2010

I really wish I'd taken my camera.

My mom has been wanting a mini donkey for a while and a friend told her about this lady that breeds them. We went to go check it out, and it was a dump. Let's see if I can even count all the things that were wrong.

1. The place was run by some lady and her mother. They were both chain smokers. Each one of them lit up at least three or four times in the half hour or so that we were there.

2. There were ten bazillion matted cats running around and the lady said she bred them and had more in her basement. *cough*hoarder*cough* She said she used the money she made selling kittens to have her other cats spayed and neutered. *gonk*

3. She had ten dogs. Yes, ten.

4. She had an Appaloosa filly in a teeny-tiny little dirt lot barely big enough for a goat.

5. She had at least eight mini donkeys that I could see, and none of them looked healthy. They were dirty and hadn't been brushed in a very long time.

6. She was breeding a foundered jenny that had pretty severe slipper foot.

7. She was trying to breed her yearling stud donkey.

8. She proudly proclaimed that she sold several jennies that might have been pregnant, then ended up having to buy them back because the buyers didn't want babies.

9. There was not one safe paddock on the whole property, especially for baby horses and donkeys. Everything was falling apart, whether is was rusty pipe fencing or loose wooden boards with nails sticking out everywhere.

10. She had three mini horses. One was a stud colt that she said was bombproof and kid safe, but the son of a bitch spooked three times during the two minutes that I watched him. Another was a pregnant mare who was thin and had clumps of fur falling out, and was kept alone in a tiny dirt paddock with a rusty little shed for shelter. The last one was the worst. It was a skinny, sick-looking mare that had trouble chewing and was really stiff. The lady called her their "geriatric" horse and said they could never keep weight on her. I almost died when she told us the mare was only 18 years old.

11. She and her mother bragged on and on about their donkeys' phenomenal bloodlines. The poor critters all looked diseased.

I don't know if this is unusual since I know nothing about donkeys, but the lady said she had her donkeys' feet trimmed twice a year. Is that normal? Because that seems outrageous to me. Their feet didn't look long, but a few of them were crooked. O.o

It's easier to just say that there was NOTHING right with that place. We ran for the hills.

I felt terrible for the animals. They all needed to be upgraded, but I refuse to give that woman money and enable her to keep doing what she's doing. She puts every dime she has into acquiring more animals. Her priorities are seriously screwed up. Why doesn't she put some money into fixing fences and buying some beet pulp for her poor old mini mare? *sigh*

Nothing shocks me anymore. But I never cease to be disgusted with people. If you're sitting at home right now, go give your animals lots of hugs and kisses and tell them how lucky they are to have a good home. ;)