Thomaston

This is the case that stirred such a feeling in so many people in our area that we could not ignore the public outcry for action. This case is what prompted us to form C.A.P., for the sake of the horses.

Four horses were found starved to death in a locked barn in Thomaston in January of 1989. They were found lying in two-foot deep piles of manure, their stomaches full of manure they had eaten in final efforts to survive. At least two other horses had died in the barn as remains of one was found in the manure that was cleaned out of the barn.

It started in late 1987 with complaints made to the Connecticut Humane Society (CHS) by at least 5 different parties. In January 1988, CHS cited the owner for not feeding his horses. They then dropped the case in June 1988 after being assured he would take proper care of them. "The [Humane Society] said they watned to give [owner] enough rope to hang himself [before taking the animals away], but they gave him enough rope to kill five animals." said McGrath who found the decompossed carcasses (the fifth was a dead foal found in the barn a year before).

The owner had big dreams of breeding "million dollar horses". But these dreams never developed into anything more than a very tragic situation. Even his barn help stated that they stopped working for him the previous winter after they buried one of the six that died - the horse "had been dead for awhile".

This case caused great concern about how the Connecticut Humane Society was handling complaints of inhumane treatment and whether they were devoting enough resources to the protection of animals and whether the complaints were being pursued aggresivley enough. Board member Richard Johnston, a former state senator, acknowledged that mistakes had been made in the case. Johnston said, "I suspect we should have followed up more, and that will be investigated." C.A.P. called for an investigation of CHS and how their money was being spent. The State's Attorney General office investigated whether CHS was deceiving its donors by telling them it relies solely on donations to fund its operations but not disclosing it has more than $16 million in an endowment fund, some of which is invested in companies that test products on animals.