SWEETHEART STABLES AND RESCUE
The one that we can mention is called "Sweetheart Stables and Rescue". It is "owned" by Barry and Mary (Mueller) Fettis. It is located at 705 Fezell Road in Freedom, PA, and on February 7, 2005 at District Court in Beaver, PA they were both convicted of two counts of cruelty to animals. Three horses were at the center of the case. One was emaciated and close to death. The second was a 2 on the Henneke scale, and the third was a low 3 on the scale. All three had rain rot, scratches and the emaciated horse had open wounds. None of these conditions had been treated.
Fortunately, all three of these horse were removed from their property and all recovered completely. Unfortunately, there were still seven horses on the property and due to Pennsylvania's lax laws regarding cruelty and negligence to animals, all they got was a record, and two fines of $217.50 each.
Word of mouth indicates that Mary Fettis has taken numerous horses to public auction in Hickory, PA. I know of one that she most certainly took to auction. I personally was contacted by C. Con... of Pennsylvania, in late summer/early fall 2005 about a horse she had donated to Sweetheart Stables and Rescue. The donation paperwork was an exact duplicate of ours, and it clearly stated that Sweetheart Stables and Rescue would either keep the horse, Kris Kringle, or find him a home through their "adoption process" (again duplicating our paperwork - so I know the terms of the contracts well).
C. Con... called me because she received a call from a woman named Sandy in Washington, PA a few days earlier. Sandy bought Kris at Public Auction! A man had purchased Kris at the Hickory Auction. Kris was underweight and lame, and so there was a good chance that when the man resold Kris, it would be for meat. It seems that Sandy and a group of her students were on their way home from a show, and were in multiple vehicles. Two of the students had pulled into the auction for some reason and found Kris still on the grounds after he had been sold to the dealer. They were riding him in the parking lot and called Sandy to come and see him, hoping that she'd buy him. She did. In the package of paperwork was C. Con.'s name. Sandy called C. to find out more about the horse she'd "just purchased"! C. was surprised and angry and contacted me to see what could be done. I told her the legal route we would need to take to get the horse back if she wanted him (which she unfortunately did not ). She also wanted to make sure Mary and Barry "were stopped" in her words. However, again when I told her what would need to be done, and that she would have to give her name and talk to the District Attorney, she backed down - afraid of what they'd do to her. I tried to reassure her that if I took them to court and got them convicted and they didn't retaliate against me, they wouldn't retaliate against her. I couldn't convince her, and she was our only hope of making a bigger case against the Fettis's for their actions.
C. Con... had also sent me photos she took at 705 Fezell Road On Sept. 5, 2005. On this day Mary and Barry Fettis were at Becky Cay's auction in Portersville, PA (they were seen there by several people). But sometime before they left they had saddled two horses to "break them" and left one in a stall unsupervised and the other in an open field with other horses, again unsupervised. Either of those horses could have had devastating accidents while this "family" was gone. I do not know if the horses did have any entanglement because of their negligence or not. I do have copies of the photos though.
My guess is that Mary still takes horses with the ruse of "finding them good homes" and later selling them, but as of now, I do not know that for fact. So, just please be careful when you choose an agency. Unfortunately, there are a few bad apples everywhere.