We love and care for our horses and are shocked and saddened when we hear of incidents in which horses have suffered. Animal cruelty is when abuse or neglect is happening at the hands of a human caretaker or others. A person commits an offense of cruelty to animals when their actions cause death, physical pain or horrible suffering to any animal. Such actions can be either deliberate abuse, the failure to take care of an animal due to a lack of knowledge or willful neglect, which means the intentional withholding of basic necessities like food and water that leads to the starvation or dehydration of an animal.
Unfortunately, incidents of cruelty may go unreported because of a lack of understanding of what constitutes animal cruelty, different interpretations of what is considered abuse or neglect and confusion about which agency should be notified when welfare abuses are witnessed. If we are the ones discovering or suspecting such situations, how can we be sure that avoidable suffering is occurring, and what should we do to stop it?
Intentional abuse is often easier to detect and can involve things such as untreated wounds or lameness, physical harm such as beating or kicking the animal or starvation. However, there can be grey areas. Is the wound untreated or just unbandaged, and how recent is the injury? Is the animal being “beaten” or given a whip strike for “disobedience?” Is the horse thin due to an illness that is being treated unbeknownst to us or is it being starved?