The Dogs vs. Junior Horton

PLEASE CROSS POST!!

Junior Horton will be tried on Friday, 5/16/08, at 1pm in Carroll County.

If there ever was a day to speak out for the animals, this is it.

We need you to come to the trial.

This is where it all starts – with the Mr. Hortons of Carroll County, Virginia, and in places like his puppymill there.

Now it is time to say to every citizen of Virginia and every elected official in Virginia that you will not tolerate animal cruelty and flagrant violation of the law.

If you aren’t angry about what this man has done, let this refresh your memory:

Background:

On 11/1/07, Carroll County Animal Control authorities were contacted by Virginia Partnership for Animal Welfare and Support (VA PAWS) concerning a puppymill located in the Town of Hillsville. A team of animal control professionals along with a veterinarian visited the property and found 1,080 small breed dogs of various ages in several locations on the property, including buildings and cages. The owner/operator of the puppy mill, Lanzie Horton, Jr., had a license to keep 500 dogs. He consented to the surrender of 980+ dogs on that date. Source: Carroll County Animal Control Press Release

There was an outpouring of assistance from a network of shelters to aid in this rescue operation. Volunteers from the Washington region joined others from Florida and New York who streamed to the rural town of Hillsville. “It’s been incredible,” Carroll County Administrator Gary Larrowe said. Larrowe had declared a state of emergency after hundreds of dogs were found living in filthy cages. Officials said they think it is the largest suspected puppy mill ever found in the state. Source: Petloverstips.com, 11/11/07; Houston Chronicle, 11/11/07; inRich.com, 11/11/07.

Horton surrendered to authorities on 1/31/08 and was released on $5,000 bond. Source: WHSV, Harrisonburg, VA News. He was charged on 1/31/08 with 14 counts of animal cruelty (punishable by fine of $2,500 and 1 year in jail on each charge), 25 counts of animal neglect (punishable by fine of not more than $500 each count) and one count of failing to obtain a license tax for 125 unlicensed adult dogs (punishable by fine of $250). The charges accuse Horton of depriving dogs of necessary food, drink, shelter or emergency veterinary treatment, and of failing to adequately house, feed, water, exercise or care for animals in his possession. Source: The Roanoke Times, 2/2/08.

What can happen:

Mr. Horton is charged with 14 counts of animal cruelty, and each count is punishable by a fine of $2,500 and a year in jail. If found guilty of all 14 counts, that certainly should get the attention of Mr. Horton and all the other Horton Wannabees in Virginia.

And do you know what has happened since?

Mr. Horton surrendered over 980 dogs, letting others pick up the tab for his flagrant violation of the law as they fed, cared for, and provided veterinary care for that incredible number of dogs.

And are you ready for this?

Mr. Horton is still in business, still selling dogs.

This case broke in November and here we are, 6 months later, still waiting for justice to be meted out on behalf of the dogs.

And after many shelters and rescues in Virginia and beyond spent over a quarter of a million dollars providing medical care and shelter to dogs from the Horton puppymill.

There is information on the case on the Carroll County website giving much information:  http://gov.carrollcountyva.org/animalcontrol/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=3&MMN_position=8:8

Remember this and the Bland County fire (the Schmucker case) are the reasons you all worked so hard and were successful in passing HB 538 – Del. Orrock’s puppymill bill. Now we need to you come to the trial. We want a crowd – a large crowd!!

Please don’t say it’s too far, or you have to work. Many of you can make the drive, and many of you can take a day away to do this. It is that important.

We know about the cost of gas, and if any of you can’t attend because of gas cost, let us know and a gas fund will be established, or just call it the tax deduction to VAW (Virginians for Animal Welfare) that it is.

Under any circumstances, get your email machine out and start sending to as many as you can, and tell others, in Carroll County or elsewhere, to do the same. This isn’t a Carroll County problem. It’s a Virginia problem. No, it’s an American problem.

And this is hardly the way Carroll County wants Virginia and the rest of the country to think of it.

Let Carroll County officials know the animal welfare community across the US is watching, and Carroll County is on the radar screen whether it wants to be or not.

Let the people who run Carroll County know that you want Mr. Horton convicted and sentenced to the max – no token fines, no little slaps on the wrist, no more continuances – just do it and convict him, put him out of business, and prevent him from having any further commercial involvement with dogs. He deserves no less.

Visit Virginia Voters for Animal Welfare here:

http://www.virginiavotersforanimalwelfare.com/2008Alerts.htm

That would provide a very valuable service to the community.

Dan

But it does not appear in the news section devoted to just Wytheville:
http://www.swvatoday.com/section_front/category/sve_news/

I usually frequent the latter, because I’m primarily interested only in the local news, so I did not see the story about the accident (and thus posted my own entry in the forums).

I think this is either a software bug or user error, because the story was flagged “Wythe County” like all other stories in the Wytheville section, and yet it did not appear.

Dan

All this information is from monitoring scanner traffic, and I don’t have any verification.

Dan

If you are using the Firefox browser (which I strongly recommend - it is free, has more features and is more secure than Internet Explorer), then you can simply right-click on the picture and select “View Image”.

If you are using Internet Explorer it takes a little more work.  Right-click on the picture and select “Properties”.  Take your mouse and select all of the text to the right of “Address (URL)”, then right-click on the selected text and choose “Copy”.  Close that window, right-click on the Address bar and select Paste.  Click on Go and the full size version will appear.

To see an example, look at the Police investigating armed robbery, then take a look at the full sized picture.

As a feature request, it would be handy if the site did this automatically, and simply wrapped the image in an anchor linking to the full-sized version.