06/23/08 Dead beat horse owners

How much longer can rescue groups care for all the unwanted horses? I'm Jeff Keane stay tuned to learn how a Senator from Carolina is introducing a bill that provides a desperately needed safety net for animal welfare organizations. A continual quandary horse shelters struggle with is finding funds to care for animals that can't be adopted until the owners have been legally convicted. Now given the back log in our court system that can often take years. Here is Susan Allen with one senator's solution . Heard of "dead beat" dad, Jeff, State Senator Joel Lourie of South Carolina is after "dead beat" horse owners. The scum whose animals are impounded and rehabilitated at our expense yet remain un adoptable because the owner hasn't gone to trial. While the dead beat owners get paltry fines, the rescue organization is left with thousands of dollars of feed and vet bills. Senator Lourie from South Carolina is proposing the "Cost of Care bill that requires owners of animals seized in abuse cases either pay for the animal's upkeep until the case is closed or immediately surrender their horses. The photos I saw of the starving 45 horses impounded in the Troxler case that prompted this legislation, were heart wrenching. And Susan, so is the fact that those horses have people willing to adopt them yet they remain a ward of the shelter until the case gets a court date. The Troxler case alone has cost the Humane Society forty- five thousand dollars, and while that sounds implausible it equates to around $200.00 a month per horse. A good reason the "Cost of Care Bill" should be national legislation.