#horses - #Someone called the police on me for leaving my horses outdoors

Someone called the police on me for leaving my horses outdoors

TL;DR - someone called the police citing "animal abuse" because my horses were standing out in the rain today.

Apologies for the length and lack of formatting but I'm still reeling from this and needed a place to vent. I rent a house on a working farm that has a public footpath running along the 5 acre field that I keep my two horses in. My horses live out year round. In summer they have fly sheets in winter I let their winter fur grow fully in and only blanket them when it's very wet or windy or freezing or all of the above.

The field has no manmade shelter but it does have one large tree, a slope, and a line of tall bushes which provide shelter and windbreaks to a decent extent. Additionally, I have two stables by the house that I bring them into daily to check them over before exercising or turning them back out. When the weather is truly horrific, i.e. the ground is frozen and they're just slipping around, or the field is soup, I'll bring them in and keep them in until the weather improves.

I grew up with horses as my Mom rehabilitated racehorses and she had a "live out" philosophy and luckily we had the land for it. I saw horses come and go from being sickly sad animals to being happy healthy animals just from living out and having the freedom of movement that improves digestion, circulation, and spirit.

My two are very happy to live out. One is a heavier, Belgian, breed and gets very antsy when stabled too long, the other is a trotter and race course reject and while she'd happily live in, she also has no problem living out, and is so much healthier now than she was when I got her. She had been 100% stabled before and had all sorts of skin ailments and was riddled with worms. Her legs also swell a lot when she's standing in stables and her pee runs orange.

I currently live in Northern Europe and weather has been horrible lately with temperatures around freezing with wind and rain. I've actually had them living in the stable since Saturday but this morning it was dry and a bit warmer for once and so I put them back out for the day even though the field was a wreck, just so they could get a good stretch and fresh air. I put them out WITH BLANKETS on as I knew it would be raining later in the day. Temperatures for the day were around 5-7 degrees Celsius.

This evening I came back from work and brought them into the stables for the night mainly to give the field a break. Neither were shivering, neither had cold ears, neither looked miserable. As I was taking their blankets off my landlady comes over and tells me the police had been around. Apparently some walker had called them citing "animal abuse" because the horses were out in the rain "without shelter" (despite the fact they had blankets on, a tree, and had been in for the earlier part of the week when the weather was really bad).

The landlady sorted it out, showed the police my stables, nice and clean bedding, stacks of hay, feed, veterinary supplies etc, as well as the blanketed happy looking horses themselves. The police nodded and acknowledged the complaint had no merit and left.

That should be enough but having just found out it, I still feel sick about it. I've been called many things in my life but "animal abuser" is definitely not one of them. I have always had and loved animals, have rehabilitated many horses and had the pleasure of seeing them go from angry/agressive/sad/sick to happy, healthy, and sociable. I've seen horses who have truly been abused and it really cuts to the core thinking some stranger thinks I'm an abuser.

I intend to keep putting my horses out, even if it's raining, because I know in my heart they're happier and healthier that way. But I'm unsettled and even scared now that this (at best) massively misguided person will take it upon themselves to do more. Calling the police was a big deal. What could they do next? Try to "free" my horses?!

Sorry for the length of this rant but I really needed to vent my feelings on this and was hoping the pleasant folk here could help re-ground me!

Submitted December 13, 2017 at 12:36PM by princess_o_darkness
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Horses/comments/7jlpn6/someone_called_the_police_on_me_for_leaving_my/?utm_source=ifttt