Post by Whitewolf821 on Mar 29, 2009 15:03:23 GMT -5
This is causing quite the stir over here in my neck of the woods.
www.cdapress.com/articles/2009/03/29/news/news01.txt
By TOM HASSLINGER
Staff writer
After being saddled with abuse crimes she didn't commit, Athol woman fights back
COEUR d'ALENE -- They came and took her horses, the horses she was trying to save.
Now, Blair Dunham has to rebuild her reputation.
"It's a small community, a small town," the 24-year-old Athol woman said. "Once people get word, it spreads."
Word has spread around Rathdrum, where Dunham keeps her studs, and Athol, where she keeps her mares. Dunham's a horse breeder, trainer, buyer, seller and rescuer.
But some people think she's an abuser.
They don't see her out on her spread off Highway 54 in Athol, feeding her mares beneath the cover of pines. But they know animal control officers came out to her property in Rathdrum last May and confiscated three sickly, starved, emaciated-looking horses.
And they saw her name in the newspaper after she had been charged with three counts of animal cruelty and three counts of animal neglect by the state of Idaho.
For the horses she was trying to save, she said.
She has the last of the horses back now -- 4-year-old Lilly, who has put on weight over the year, a pouch on her sides where her rib bones used to stretch her skin. The other two were picked up by their new owners.
Dunham was acquitted on all charges in February and has filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department and its animal control division seeking $2 million in restitution for civil rights violations.
Neither Kootenai County Sheriff Rocky Watson or Karen Williams, animal control officer, could comment on the case.
"To have your name run through the mud," Dunham said. "I was trying to do the right thing."
It started last year, when Dunham saw an ad for nine horses near Rathdrum. When she showed up to inquire, she saw a half a bale of cow hay and nine horses "starved down to nothing."
The seller told Dunham she wanted $150-$200 for each one.
"I tell you what," Dunham told her. "I'll give you $1,000 for all of them."
"If you go down to the store an buy me a bottle of vodka," the woman said.
"I bought her two," Dunham remembered. Her life devoted to horses has taken her across Montana, Idaho and Washington buying and rescuing them, sometimes picking up old race horses days before they're to be slaughtered.
"The most important thing is getting the horses out of there," she said, having saved more than 60 since she was a teenager. "And sometimes that's going over there and forking out whatever you have to."
She soon found homes for the healthier ones, but when a neighbor spied the remaining three at her Rathdrum property, animal control was notified.
Williams, the animal control officer, talked to Dunham, then later re-entered her property and confiscated the horses while Dunham was gone, she said -- an action she called an abuse of power.
Then came the charges, the newspaper report and the rumors.
Her lawyer, Larry Purviance, said her business, Winfield Farms, has taken a severe hit since the charges were filed.
Dunham said she just wants her name cleared.
And last week was the first step, when animal control returned Lilly, the last of the original nine horses.
"She's not going anywhere for a while," Dunham said, petting her. "She still has some weight to gain."
The horse does not stomp, it does not screech, it does not neigh.
It eats; out in Athol, beneath the pines where nobody sees, chomping straws of green hay like a child with a mouthful of cereal.
www.cdapress.com/articles/2009/03/29/news/news01.txt
By TOM HASSLINGER
Staff writer
After being saddled with abuse crimes she didn't commit, Athol woman fights back
COEUR d'ALENE -- They came and took her horses, the horses she was trying to save.
Now, Blair Dunham has to rebuild her reputation.
"It's a small community, a small town," the 24-year-old Athol woman said. "Once people get word, it spreads."
Word has spread around Rathdrum, where Dunham keeps her studs, and Athol, where she keeps her mares. Dunham's a horse breeder, trainer, buyer, seller and rescuer.
But some people think she's an abuser.
They don't see her out on her spread off Highway 54 in Athol, feeding her mares beneath the cover of pines. But they know animal control officers came out to her property in Rathdrum last May and confiscated three sickly, starved, emaciated-looking horses.
And they saw her name in the newspaper after she had been charged with three counts of animal cruelty and three counts of animal neglect by the state of Idaho.
For the horses she was trying to save, she said.
She has the last of the horses back now -- 4-year-old Lilly, who has put on weight over the year, a pouch on her sides where her rib bones used to stretch her skin. The other two were picked up by their new owners.
Dunham was acquitted on all charges in February and has filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department and its animal control division seeking $2 million in restitution for civil rights violations.
Neither Kootenai County Sheriff Rocky Watson or Karen Williams, animal control officer, could comment on the case.
"To have your name run through the mud," Dunham said. "I was trying to do the right thing."
It started last year, when Dunham saw an ad for nine horses near Rathdrum. When she showed up to inquire, she saw a half a bale of cow hay and nine horses "starved down to nothing."
The seller told Dunham she wanted $150-$200 for each one.
"I tell you what," Dunham told her. "I'll give you $1,000 for all of them."
"If you go down to the store an buy me a bottle of vodka," the woman said.
"I bought her two," Dunham remembered. Her life devoted to horses has taken her across Montana, Idaho and Washington buying and rescuing them, sometimes picking up old race horses days before they're to be slaughtered.
"The most important thing is getting the horses out of there," she said, having saved more than 60 since she was a teenager. "And sometimes that's going over there and forking out whatever you have to."
She soon found homes for the healthier ones, but when a neighbor spied the remaining three at her Rathdrum property, animal control was notified.
Williams, the animal control officer, talked to Dunham, then later re-entered her property and confiscated the horses while Dunham was gone, she said -- an action she called an abuse of power.
Then came the charges, the newspaper report and the rumors.
Her lawyer, Larry Purviance, said her business, Winfield Farms, has taken a severe hit since the charges were filed.
Dunham said she just wants her name cleared.
And last week was the first step, when animal control returned Lilly, the last of the original nine horses.
"She's not going anywhere for a while," Dunham said, petting her. "She still has some weight to gain."
The horse does not stomp, it does not screech, it does not neigh.
It eats; out in Athol, beneath the pines where nobody sees, chomping straws of green hay like a child with a mouthful of cereal.
