Animals’ Angels Executive Director Sonja Meadows requested a meeting with the Lancaster County Humane League to follow up on the status for the complaint about the condition of four horses at Mel Hoover’s auction in March 2011. Animals’ Angels attended the auction and found 1 horse with a severe cancer eye, one horse BCS 1, one horse with an abscess so bad that it had created a hole in the horses’ face and one horse with a significantly enlarged leg in the outside pens. Despite the fact that some of these conditions are extremely painful, Hoover kept the horses for over a week without providing any veterinary care. For more information, please read the report about the auction here…{article Mel Hoover Horse Sale, New Holland, PA 5/7/11}{text}{/article}
Animals’ Angels contacted humane officer Keith Mohler immediately to file a complaint. While Officer Mohler responded to the complaint right away and was initially in complete agreement about filing cruelty charges, he then ceased all contact with Animals’ Angels and did not respond to phone calls.
At the meeting, Humane Officer Mohler and Director of Operations Danielle Ball were present. Animals’ Angels was informed that the Humane League decided against filing cruelty charges against Hoover. Officer Mohler stated that “keeping a horse in this condition for over a week without providing veterinary care is not enough to file cruelty charges” and that he did not respond to phone calls because he knew “we would not like this decision”. We were also informed that Hoover indicated to Mohler that he proceeded to ship the horses to the Bravo Packing slaughter plant in New Jersey. Animals’ Angels is deeply disappointed about this decision and is currently exploring other venues to pursue this matter.