No horsing around Maine society brings in neglected, abused animals and finds them new homes

loading...

Marilyn Goodreau carried a cardboard box into the dining room and began piling photographs of animals on the table. There were hundreds of them – before-and-after shots of horses, dogs, ponies, foxes. These are the rescued, the saved.

In her 30 years as the director of the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals in Windham, Goodreau personally has overseen – and sometimes been the cause of – the rescue of thousands of abused and neglected animals, mostly horses.

The photographs tell the grisly and inhumane story of the dark side of human behavior. The before pictures are horrific. Ribs protrude. Hips jut into the air. Hooves are left untrimmed so long they curl abnormally upward.

There is Christopher, a Standardbred, brought in with more than 25 bite wounds. There is Beauty, a Shetland pony who is pictured dragging a 10-foot tail. There is Miss Charlie, a cocker spaniel puppy who urinated on the floor at 5 weeks old and its owner kicked it into a cast iron radiator, splitting its kidney and shattering its hip.

But these also are success stories – turn the before picture over and there is the “after” view, showing a radiant coat, muscles returned to fullness, bright eyes.

“Sometimes it takes a year for them to recover,” Goodreau said earlier this month. “I’m not proud when I look at these ‘after’ pictures. I just keep thinking there are so many more out there we can’t get to.”

The society’s farm is a stunning complex of paddocks, barns and fields on rolling hills in Windham. The nonprofit organization was founded in 1872 to protect the horses pulling the streetcars in Portland. Today the facility is the largest equine rescue and rehabilitation facility in New England.

The MSSPA receives no federal or state funds. It is entirely supported by membership fees from 22,000 members, bequests and donations.

“It would take the state of Maine $500,000 a year to replace the services this facility provides,” Harold Pachios, a Portland attorney and a MSSPA board member, said earlier this month.

“It is unbelievable what people do to their animals,” Pachios said. “But it is equally unbelievable what we do here. We are here for every large animal in the state of Maine, and it doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime.”

On a crisp spring morning recently, 67 horses, two goats, and a donkey were all being rehabilitated at MSSPA. A walk through the two immaculate barns showed horses in various stages of recovery.

One horse didn’t even wait for Goodreau to approach. The horse’s dark brown head was hanging out the door, the animal watching for her.

It was hard to look at this horse, a recent acquisition.

Her ribs pushed through her spotty, unhealthy coat, and her hips jutted through thin skin. Her eyes were infected. But it was the deep and still-healing scars around her neck that were most vicious. The horse’s head had been tied just feet from a wall by its owner, and its bridle – including a metal buckle – had grown into her head. It had to be removed surgically.

Outside at a paddock, Goodreau said the recovering animals come from all over the state.

“That one came from Newport,” she said, pointing at a thin quarter horse. “That one from Fayette. And that one from Corinna.”

Most of the animals at MSSPA are seized by law enforcement agents. Some walk into the facility; others are carried. One horse was so malnourished it was unconscious.

The animals are then represented by MSSPA’s attorneys in court.

In 30 years, Goodreau has never lost a case.

A single instance of animal abuse documentation can easily fill a 2-inch thick binder.

“She does her homework,” Nancy Proctor, MSSPA vice president, said.

“These are the most defenseless, helpless animals,” Goodreau said. “If you don’t start with these, where do you? This type of abuse is unacceptable. There can be no excuse for it.”

She said many animal owners look at their pets as “their possession. They feel they can do what they want to with it. Just this morning we got a call about a herd of starving cows. We domesticate these animals, and yet we don’t follow through to make sure they are taken care of.”

She called it the two-year syndrome. “They just lose interest or get bored or they get too many [animals]. Some are cases of poverty. Sometimes they just don’t have the ability to care for them.”

Goodreau said she handles at least a dozen calls of abuse or neglect daily. “I turn hundreds and hundreds of complaints over to the state Animal Welfare Department every year,” she said.

Complaints begin to escalate in March and April, Goodreau said. “This time of year there is plenty of green grass,” she said. “In November, the horses are put in the barn and the door is shut, so when they are turned out for the first time in late spring, somebody notices how thin or starved the horse may be.”

Abused horses, however, have been found under barns, locked in garages and living in homes. They often arrive at the facility 100 to 250 pounds underweight, and rehabilitation can take a year or more. A foal that Goodreau called “death-struck,” only one day old and close to dying, needed to have round-the-clock care, and Goodreau slept in its stall for more than a month.

When the system moves too slowly for her, Goodreau often takes charge. Learning of a starving palomino stallion, she drove her trailer to the farm and confronted the owner.

“You have two choices,” she told him. “Either give me that horse now or I’ll sue you.”

The horse recovered at the MSSPA farm.

Goodreau admitted that when she’s caring for the abused, she can’t think of the abusers. “I just have to focus on the animal,” she said.

She was quick to point to her volunteers and staff, not wanting credit for herself. “No one person can do this,” she said.

The facility now has 17 full- and part-time workers.

“Every week we turn away someone wanting to place their own horse,” Goodreau said. “We need the space for the abused.”

There also is a waiting list for adopting the recovered animals. Once rehabilitated, each animal can reach its full potential.

“I will never give up,” Goodreau admitted. “I’ll fight for that animal to the end.”

Looking out over the paddocks full of horses, Goodreau also admitted that her fondest wish is “that we didn’t have to exist at all.”

The Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals is located on River Road in South Windham. Goodreau can be reached at 892-4000.