Category: Cruelty to horses

Downfall of the Alternate Animal Sanctuary

It’s time to regulate private animal rescue sanctuaries.

The events surrounding the demise of the Alternate Animal Sanctuary in Lincolnshire demonstrates the urgent need to regulate such enterprises and shows there are instances when animals need protection from their saviours. The situation began with a lady who found she “could not say no” – a common weakness with some animal rescuers, and ended with three police raids over a period of eight months and hundreds of animals removed for their own safety and well being. And this at a great cost of time and money to the Police, other animal charities and local authorities. This kind of scenario is being played out commonly in the UK and around the world.

The sanctuary owner was in self denial and unable to understand that she was doing anything wrong and maintained she was not to blame. In many respects this was very true. Much of the blame rests with the animal owners who dumped the animals on this obviously vulnerable lady and those who helped and encouraged her to turn her collection into a registered charity which she was clearly unable to manage.

It also pinpoints what happens to many unwanted animals that have been refused under selective intake policies by other major charities because of their age, illness and behavioural problems. More on selective intake policies.

And most of all, it highlights the lack of powers the local authorities, the police and the Charity Commission have in the UK to regulate or close down such mismanaged premises when it all goes wrong.

Police and animal charity vehicles outside the Alternate Animal Sanctuary.
When mismanaged rescue charities fail, the costs to the police, local authorities and other animal charities which must step in to take the animals is enormous. Photo: Anna Draper

The Alternate Animal Sanctuary was visited, or raided as the media like to call it, on three occasions between May 2019 and January 2020 and hundreds of animals removed including dogs, cats, horses and pigs. Three dead cats and a half cremated dog were found. The owner’s comments to the media regarding the dead cats and dog regrettably demonstrates the misguided nature and the state of mind of the sanctuary owner.

“I knew some cats had died but couldn’t find them due to the large size of the enclosure and I wanted help to “catch-up” on the cleaning. I did look, but I clearly didn’t look hard enough. The RSPCA did find three cats and that clearly does not look good, but it was an exceptional case, not run of the mill.”

“Because I don’t get any help, when one of the big dogs died, I didn’t have anybody to help me lift her in the car so all I could do was try to incinerate her, I wasn’t very happy about and it made me feel quite sick, but it seemed the better of two things to do. But obviously I hadn’t made a very good job of it”.

“I don’t go looking for the animals people come to me as a last resort.”

The sanctuary appears to have been operated by just one woman, with little or no help, “caring” for an alleged 400 animals and had a certain notoriety in the local area being well known as a dumping ground for unwanted animals “that no one else was prepared to take” and “I could never refuse to take”.

It had come to the attention of the media before any raids took place, but they were more interested in making the owner a celebrity with the Sun newspaper declaring her a pet lover for having 106 dogs in her house. A TV channel 5 documentary “The Woman With 106 Dogs” included a piece on her and other animal obsessives, but the media seemed to be celebrating their eccentricity rather than the harm they were doing to the animals.

Charity Commission steps in.

The charity was registered in 2013 and due to mismanagement the charity’s auditors were unable to properly audit and provide the Commission with the legally required annual financial records. Incredibly what charity accounts there were, indicated that over £1 million was being raised annually through a third party fundraising agency, but little of the money was being received by the sanctuary and it was in debt. The agency was taking 70% of the donations for fund raising initiatives.

The Charity Commission belatedly began investigating the charity for financial irregularities in November 2016 with a Statutory Inquiry beginning in March 2017, and interim managers were appointed by the Commission in 2019. Meanwhile the sanctuary continued operating with the owner taking in more animals to fill the places of those taken away.

The Commission stated that they had: “serious concerns about the charity’s apparent over-reliance on the agency and the rate of return to the charity.

The Commission is concerned that the public is unaware of the proportion of donations that is consumed by the costs and fees associated with the agreement against what is used on caring for abandoned and neglected animals”.

England & Wales Charity Commission

Word was also going out on some social media sites from concerned animal lovers and potential donors who were receiving “begging letters” from the fundraising agency seeking money on behalf of the sanctuary. They began to question what was happening to the donated money.

Sleeping dogs at Alternate Animal sanctuary.
Some of the 106 dogs sleeping in the owner’s house. Photo Sanctuary Facebook page.

Losing their rationale.

The sad fact is that the owner’s rescue efforts were probably well intentioned at first and she may have genuinely believed she had the first interests of the animals at heart, but had become totally out of her depth and blinkered to the state they were being kept in.

Operating sanctuaries where animals are kept for life without the chance of rehoming need a firm hand at the helm and there is a fine line between true altruism and hoarding. There has to be limit for the sake of the animals involved in order to prevent the saviour from causing the suffering everyone is attempting to avoid. Many animal lovers unfortunately lose their rationale along the way through pressure and anxiety and it can all end in tears for the saviour as well as the saved.

But the stress and anguish to the animals when they must be removed for their own safety is the most tragic consequence of it all. This needs to change – and soon.

READ MORE – Alarmingly and amazingly, anyone can set up an animal rescue charity regardless of experience or ability.

Watch the Channel 5 documentary “The Woman with 106 Dogs” on iPlayer MY5 for more information on animal obsessives.

Remembering the war horses & the men who cared for them.

They fought together, rested and ate together and ultimately died together.

It is that time of year when we remember the fallen in wars, particularly those in the Great War. Last year, being the 100th. anniversary of the armistice, I was prompted to try and discover more about the role one of my grandfathers played in the war. His name was Edwin Clark and I was only four years old when he died so knew little about him. I soon discovered that he had a full on war in the Canadian Field Artillery and it came as a pleasant surprise to find that he had the dangerous job of a “driver” looking after and riding the war horses that pulled the guns.

I gathered so much information that I decided to write a book about his eventful personal war. But during my research I was so intrigued with the men’s obvious emotional relationship with their horses, the story became as much about the heroics and deprivations of the horses as the men.

The men spent most of their waking hours caring for them often under almost impossible conditions. They fought together, rested and ate together, often slept together and ultimately died together. There is no getting away from the fact that their lives were unforgiving and unremitting, but at the same time the men responsible for them lavished as much care as they could to alleviate their suffering and formed incredible bonds with them.

war horses of world war one
She is very stupid but I love her – a soldier wrote this on the back of the photograph. Credit: National Museum of Scotland.

The men were devoted to the war horses.

The horses and mules became friends, confidants, fellow comrades and pseudo counsellors with who the men could air their grievances, discuss their suffering and help alleviate their depression and melancholy. Without their companionship the physical and mental well-being of the men would have been worse than it was. The relationship is probably one of the ultimate examples of man’s dependence on animals for solace.

Their devotion to the horses is evident by how an officer responsible for censoring their letters home to mothers, wives and girlfriends stated:

“Drivers almost wept as they wrote of their faithful friends – the horses – wishing so much that they could be given more feed and better shelter. Such care and attention they gave these dumb animals. When nothing else was available an old sock was used to rub them down or to bandage a cracked heel while breast collar and girth were eased by wrapping light articles around the harness to keep it from rubbing the sore spot”.

Legitimate targets

The horses and mules were viewed as legitimate targets by both sides. They faced being shelled, bombed, gassed, sometimes shot and suffered horrific shrapnel injuries. Many suffered shell shock and remarkably others learned to lie down and take cover when under fire.  Like most of the human recruits, the horses had never experienced such noise, chaos, smells, violence and hardships and they did not have the capacity to realise what was happening to them or likely to happen to them. So everything occurring around them was terrifying until they became accustomed to it.

There are no exact statistics on the average lifespan of a World War One horse arriving at the front, but for most of them it was very short. They died in large numbers daily and were replaced by new recruits. Very few managed to survive the whole war. The few that did manage to see it through to the end were shown no compassion and were just slaughtered for meat or sold to work on farms, being logistically too difficult and expensive to repatriate. Their suffering was immense and unlike the men, none of them returned home.

I find it rather poignant that when Edwin, my grandfather was severely wounded for the third time and invalided from the war, just four weeks before it ended, he was tending to the horses. He was giving them their nightly feed, water and grooming a mile behind the front line when an enemy plane flew over and dropped a bombs in the midst of them killing and wounding many drivers and horses. Edwin did thankfully make it back, but after three years continuous action in most of the major battles on the western front he returned both physically and mentally scarred. We owe them all so much.

Suitable for horse lovers and military hist0rians of all ages
War horses. There From the Start book cover
ISBN: 978-1094956763 RRP £9.99 150 pages

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Extract From Book

They docked at the port of Le Havre at dawn and disembarked in a heavy drizzle. Edwin and the other drivers were ordered to remove the horses from their cramped stalls. Unloading restless and frightened horses was a long, tedious and dangerous operation and once on dry land they had to be fed and watered. Then Edwin and his comrades had their breakfast. Edwin had arrived in France, safe and sound, four months after arriving in England, fully trained to meet the enemy at the western front. And meeting the enemy was going to come sooner than probably any of them expected as they were ordered to head straight for Belgium and the bitter fighting in the trenches.

They hooked up their teams and were given the order to “walk march” through the streets of Le Havre to a huge rest camp on the outskirts consisting of rows of huts and tents and field kitchens. It was noted in the WD that a very unlucky Sergeant Gailer was killed during the train journey when he fell out of an open door of a carriage – their first casualty of their war in France. They had lunch, groomed the horses and cleaned the harnesses, but had little chance to rest as they were on the move again and ordered to march to Le Havre railway station. Horses, guns, forage and equipment had to be loaded again with eight horses per freight car – 4 horses at each end with heads facing the centre and the men lounging between them. The guns were roped down and transported on flat carriages. They were on their way to the front in a hurry and I can only imagine how nervous Edwin must have been. They were to face an arduous train journey and long marches over several days to reach their destination in Belgium.

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A tribute to the faithful war horses and their human comrades.
It is time to take Police horses off front-line duties.