Hungry, Ill Horses Taken From Farm

For three solid days, animal cruelty investigator Pat Paytas quietly built her case. She slipped through the fence of a little-used farm in Calvert County, examining a team of skin-and-bones horses. She snapped pictures. She wrote notes. She documented cases of rain rot, an ailment on the horses.

Then, at 10:30 yesterday morning, having executed the equivalent of a barnyard evidence raid with armed sheriff's deputies, Paytas lowered the boom.

"Okay, Mr. Hughes," she said, "this is what we've found."

Russell Hughes, the farm's 75-year-old owner, had just arrived from Washington, where he lives and works. He sat on a chair, near a turned-over barbecue grill, accused of neglecting 18 horses to the point that 14 suffered from malnutrition.

In one case, a horse that should have weighed more than 600 pounds weighed about 300. That horse also had sores on a front leg and its back.

And as Hughes could see, his land was crawling with volunteer horse rescuers. They had backed up their trailers near the barn.

Speaking for all of them, Paytas gave Hughes a choice: Sign over the horses, or face animal cruelty charges. "I'm just asking you if you can do this the easy way," she said.

Hughes agreed, marking a major turn in an investigation that Paytas said was the worst horse case she had seen of the 20 she has dealt with in and around Calvert over the past 18 years.

By 12:30 p.m., the band of volunteers had loaded up all 18 horses and hauled them to three farms. From there, the volunteers will feed the horses, try to nurse them back to health and attempt to adopt them out.

Hughes still owns the land in question. The land just doesn't have any horses left.

"You can't leave a couple?" he asked Paytas at one point.

He was told she couldn't.

In Washington, Hughes and his son run a business called General Trash. They haul away large debris, often created when houses are demolished. In recent years, Hughes said, he decided to get into the horse business on land he owned -- in Lusby, 55 miles southeast of Washington.

Hughes said he paid $11,000 for the horses. Recently, he said, he hadn't gotten down to the property to feed them as often as recommended. He said he'd also bought a batch of bad hay. And he thinks worm medicine might have contributed to their condition.

On Monday, a Calvert animal control officer left a message with Hughes, recommending that he come to his land Tuesday morning. He would come to learn the broad outlines of the case against him. Specifically, it went like this:

Paytas, a Maryland humane officer affiliated with the Chesapeake SPCA, or Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, received an e-mail Friday morning -- with pictures of Hughes's horses.

She checked it out that night. Then, on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, she went to Hughes's property, logging notes for her review. (By law, Paytas said, she can go onto private land.) That led to yesterday morning's rescue.

Hughes took in the scene with what appeared to be a combination of sadness, resignation and friendliness. He told the volunteers that the horses are good about following humans around. And he said he hardly blamed them for bringing armed deputies. "As crazy as people are now," he said in an interview, "you don't know what might happen."

As the volunteers struggled to get the horses into their trailers, he asked, "You want me to help walk them in there?"

No, he was told. The volunteers thought their methods would work better. And some were worried that Hughes might get kicked.

But as they struggled for more than a half-hour to get one horse in the trailer, it was clear they could have used help. They tried everything: leading it in with food, talking sweetly to it, pushing its backside, hitting it lightly with a stick, lifting it. At one point, they blindfolded it with a bra.

No good.

Finally, they were able to force it in using a piece of a gate.

By that time, Hughes was headed back to Washington in his pickup. Before he left, he said of horses, "I don't think I'll mess with them anymore."