Horse Dead After Attack

A 2-foot-tall miniature horse worth $10,000 to $15,000 was attacked by a neighbor’s Rottweiler on Sunday and had to be destroyed.

The dog was put to death Monday afternoon, according to animal control officials.

Vicki Katreeb, who with her sister owned the horse named Drifter, said she went to the horse’s stall Sunday morning to find his coat plastered with dried blood.

“I started looking at him and lifting his coat, and he had wounds all over--from head to toe and two gaping wounds in his rear end,” Katreeb said. “He wasn’t just bit and torn; [the dog] had basically started to eat him.”

The white stallion, who was trapped in his stall when he was attacked, was not just worth a substantial sum, she said, but also was valued as a pet. Drifter used to pull Katreeb’s disabled sister around the property in a small cart.

Bred in Argentina in the 1800s to work in coal mines, miniature horses in the United States often are used in parades or to pull carts for children. They live longer than standard-sized horses, often surviving into their early 40s, Katreeb said. Drifter was 6.

A neighbor, Donald Stout, kept three Rottweilers in a fenced area on his property. One or maybe two jumped a 3-foot fence and entered the stable late Saturday or early Sunday, Katreeb and animal control officials said. Only one attacked the horse, Katreeb said.

Suspecting that dogs had mauled Drifter, Katreeb checked the animals next door.

“One was clean, and the other was almost in the same shape as the horse--it was crusty and covered with blood and sweat and white hair,” she said.

It is believed that no one witnessed the attack, but Stout nonetheless turned over the dog, J.R., to Orange County Animal Control officials.

“I’m not 100% sure he did it, but under the circumstances the finger was pointed at the dog, and because the neighbors are in close proximity with us--we’re friends--if the dog did kill the horse, the right thing was to get rid of it,” he said.

The 4-year-old Rottweiler weighed about 140 pounds, Stout said, and would guard the property, where Stout has a business building communications towers. The dog had not been trained to attack, he said, and was friendly to people once they were admitted to the property.

“I’m sorry about the horse, and I’m sorry about the dog too,” Stout said. “It was an accident, an unfortunate accident.”

Given the severity of the bites to the 100-pound horse, officials probably would have impounded the dog had Stout not turned it over, said Lt. Gene Jalbert of Orange County Animal Control.

Stout has agreed to remove the other Rottweilers from his property, according to Katreeb.

Jalbert said he did not know how many dogs the county has had to destroy because of attacks on people or animals.

A five-year study by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta found that pit bulls, Rottweilers and German shepherds bite humans more than other breeds.

Katreeb said she is pleased the dog would no longer live next door.

“It was a major concern that this animal not be near us anymore,” she said. “Besides losing my horse, which was awful, I’ve got four children, and I know that if this dog did this to a horse of this size, he’d do it to them too.”