Scott Bruun: A Happy Old Horse Versus Oregon Law

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Scott Bruun, GoLocalPDX MINDSETTER™

Half-Ear the Horse

Half-Ear had a good, long life. A good life, that is, right up until the time that a sheriff’s interpretation of Oregon law compelled Half-Ear’s “expedited disposition.”

Half-Ear was born a wild mustang. He earned his name because half his right ear was missing – collateral damage, it’s believed, following a youthful fight with another wild horse. He was adopted by my cousin Kurt in 1992 through a purchase program with the Bureau of Land Management. The BLM needed to “relocate” this particular mustang after he infiltrated a domestic herd of horses.

Turns out, Half-Ear was having a full-on fling with one of the younger mares. Got himself in a bit of trouble, as sometimes happens in these situations.

Half-Ear grew old over the years. The vets thought that he was born sometime around 1983 or 1984. For the last 16 years of his life, he lived in a little piece of horse heaven right here on earth. He had hundreds of acres of grasslands and gentle forestland to roam and graze. He had a never-ending supply of hay and access to several apple trees. He enjoyed ready sources of clean water. He had regular veterinary care. He had an insulated barn that he could enter or exit anytime he chose. And he even had three other horses to spend time with.

Because of Half-Ear’s age, Kurt stopped riding him years ago. Put him out to pasture, as they say. By every indication, Half-Ear was living out his sunset years as a happy, content horse.

Happy and content that is, until a meter-reader from Central Electric Cooperative telephoned a Central Oregon sheriff’s office earlier this year to make a report. Turns out meter-reader guy had been making his rounds and thought that one of the horses he saw, Half-Ear, was too thin. He called the sheriff and reported “animal neglect.”

The sheriff then called Kurt.

Kurt explained that the horse was and always had been well treated. Yes the horse was thin, but it was also very old. Half-Ear had access to all the food he could want, but sometimes reduced appetite and weight-loss are simply natural stages in the end-of-life process. Half-Ear likely would have died peacefully, of natural causes, within the next year.

The sheriff was sympathetic but not satisfied. Turns out Oregon law (ORS 167.325) says “A person commits the crime of animal neglect in the second degree if, except as otherwise authorized by law, the person intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence fails to provide minimum care for an animal in such person’s custody or control.”

Kurt asked the options. There were two: Try and build its weight back by having the horse fed artificially under the care of a professional. Or, have a professional put the horse down. “Expedited disposition” of a “suffering” animal, as it says in Oregon law.

Some choice.

Due to the inflexibility of Oregon law, a thirty-three year-old mustang, content and uninjured, must face tube feeding. That, or a coup de grace with sodium pentobarbital. Sure, the law might make sense for an animal that is 8 or 9 years old or abused. But a lovingly treated formerly-wild mustang in its fourth decade?

Not easily and not without deep remorse, Kurt was compelled to choose the state’s method of expedited disposition for Half-Ear.

Half-Ear’s is the story of unintended consequences. No reasonable person could possibly believe that Half-Ear was better-off dead then he was living out his remaining months in peace. Even the sheriff agreed that the situation was silly.

In the larger scheme of things, Half-Ear’s story is very small. He was, after all, just an old horse. Yet this horse’s story should serve as just one more example, albeit tiny, of the risks and responsibilities of making laws.

Lawmakers in Salem and elsewhere are quick to pass laws that seem perfect; that satisfy some perceived need, ideological bent or special interest. With good intentions, lawmakers regularly pass laws without deep consideration of unintended consequences.

But how about those consequences?

How about the unintended consequences of a state-run insurance exchange and mismanaged interstate bridge project, for example, that wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars? Or how about the unintended consequences of Oregon’s “progressive” tax, energy and regulatory policies? Policies that have resulted in stagnant wages, reduced job-opportunities, and a hamstrung middle-class.

And how about the unintended consequences of public education laws that put adults’ interests ahead of students’? Consequences which include the highest high school dropout rate and some of the lowest academic performance ratings in the country.

The moral of Half-Ear’s story is simply a warning against half-baked laws. The moral behind Oregon’s larger legacy of unintended consequences is that we citizens must do better. Better in who and how we elect our lawmakers and our leaders.

How about that?

Scott Bruun is a fifth-generation Oregonian and recovering politician. He lives with his family in the 'burbs', yet dutifully commutes to Portland every day where he earns his living in public affairs with Hubbell Communications.