This is a long, long story of our plite. If you don't want to read it then be forwarned and go to the next problem on the forum. If you don't mind reading a little bit then please be our guest. Jurisdiction is Wisconsin.
Here is our problem......
We own ten horses in. We keep them on approximately 20 acres of rented land that includes a barn with stalls and a storage barn. One of our horses became unhealthy due to, making a very long story short, a dispute with our landlord. The rest of our horses are
very beautiful and somewhat overweight. We had a visit from our county sheriff. He said that several people called to complain about our horse. My son caught our neighbors, from down the road, trespassing and going through our barn about 3 days before. They mean well, I guess. The sheriff gave us a list of demands and if they were not met then he will seize all of our horses (one horse was the issue, not all of them). He told us that he did not know very much about horses. We complied with his every wish. Three days later
we are visiting my brother-n-law in a hospital 100 miles away. He was in hospice and only expected to live about 3 days. I get a call on our cell phone from the sheriff himself. He told us that we were not taking care of our horses (again only one was in question) and
if we did not come down to our house he was going to get a court order to seize all of our horses. I percieved that as a threat. He said he was getting more calls about our horse and that we were not taking care of them. This was untrue because we made sure that there was one person in our family at home at all times so the horses would be and was cared for. He did not believe me. So I left my brother-n-laws death bed and came home to do what my daughter was doing, taking care of the horses. He showed up with the local
humane society representative. I showed him that we had hay, feed, water, shelter, and we had a veteranarian to check on our horse. We had complied with all of his wishes. I told him that, because of his unwarranted threats, I missed my brother-n-laws passing by
30 minutes and that I was very upset. He said that this issue is not closed and we need to take care of our horses (again, only one was in poor health). He said he will visit again in about 3 weeks and we had better have at least 100 square bales of hay in our barn.
He says that he is still getting calls that we are not taking care of our horses. I told him that we are and I do not know why he is being a bully. During one visit the sheriff was standing by our horses water trough (which was 3/4 full of fresh water) and asked my daughter if we were watering our horses. My daughter was dumfounded. She said that yes of course we are watering them, look down at your feet. The other day one of our horses (not the one in question) got loose. The sheriff was called before we could do anything. He said we are going to get a ticket for our loose horse (on a farm road in rural America) and that he is still getting complaints. He was very angry and said the reason why this horse was loose was because we were not feeding him (as previously mentioned he is slightly overweight). I could not convince him otherwise that we were feeding him. He is a young colt that has learned to escape the fence. As we left for home, the caring neighbors of ours were sitting in front of their house window waving and smiling and laughing. I told the sheriff that he was getting involved with some very, very nosey neighbors. We are logging in everything that we do for our horse that was in poor
health. Our neighbors always sits in front of their window gauking at us everytime we go over to maintain our horses. They even drive very slowly by the horse pasture about 4-5 times a day. The sheriff has also threatened that if he gets one more call about our
horses (again why all of our horses) he will take them all away. I told him that I was not responsible for bored neighbors that have nothing to do but make other peoples lives miserable.
Our horse that was in question is now in very good health and in very good spirits. We love all of our horses very much.
My question is what can we do? We want to be very much left alone and to maintain our horses as we see fit. What can we do about the bully sheriff who keeps harassing / threatening us? Will we make him angrier and suffer retribution? What can we do about our neighbors? I don't know why they enjoy causing us problems. We have done absolutely nothing to them.
Can anyone help us or give us some information
Thank you for reading our long story (trust me this is the shorter version)
Signed "Victim of Circumstance"

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