By Kyra Gillespie
The owners of a newly-opened agistment have had the fright of their life after a recent scare with a deadly disease caused an assault on their property and the shooting of their son’s cat.
Ellett Park Agistment had only been open for a matter of weeks when a case of strangles plunged the property into voluntary lock down.
A pony was brought to the Pakenham South property from Kooweerup with deadly case of strangles.
Strangles is a highly contagious infectious disease among horses, ponies and donkeys which “spreads like wildfire” if remains undetected.
The disease can kill, and has put the local horse community into lockdown.
Upon discovering the disease, property manager Amanda Mason immediately went public about the case in an effort to prevent an outbreak.
In a post on Facebook, Ms Mason outlined how the sellers of the pony did not disclose how ill the pony was, and that they were now following all bio-security measures to disinfect the property.
“We are urging all agistment owners and horse buyers to be wary of the risk and to follow strict guidelines and get vet checks,” she wrote.
“The owners have unwillingly since taken back possession of this pony and we want to stop them from selling on this sick little mare to anyone else.
“Please be wary and quarantine so we can contain any outbreak in the south east.”
Ms Mason believed she was doing the right thing by the wider community by making the case known, even though it cost the business.
But just two days after a pile of rubbish containing dirt, timber, household junk and bull ants was dropped onto their driveway, destroying their front gate which was padlocked at the time.
And most sickeningly, her son’s cat was shot.
“How can someone in this community think that shooting an innocent animal as a form of revenge is okay?”
“What if a stray bullet was to hit one of my kids?”
The bullet shattered the cat’s femur, resulting in the amputation of the leg and a cost of thousands for the family of six.
Although Ms Mason is not certain the incidents are related, she says that it was enough to scare them.
“For a ten-year-old to try and understand why someone would shoot his cat is very hard.“There’s a chance it could have been unrelated, but the rubbish dumping was no accident.
“Someone was trying to send us a message.”
Amongst the rubbish is a South East Real Estate sign.
The Drouin-based business now operates under Ray White and the owner, Vince Di Grazia, says there’s no way of tracking where the sign came from.
“We’ve been Ray White for over a year now, so the sign is at least that old,” Mr Di Grazia said.
“We’d have no idea which property or street the sign came from. The whole thing is a mystery.”
The rubbish now has to stay there for three weeks because it could potentially be contaminated.
Ms Mason said the whole ordeal has rattled her, as she only undertook the steps that she did to protect the horsing community.
“I thought I was doing the right thing by going public. A lot of people would have swept it under the rug so it doesn’t become public knowledge because there’s a lot of stigma attached to strangles.
“It’s very hard to start up a business and instantly shut it down. We could have stayed open, we didn’t have to go into lock down, but morally it was the right thing to do.
“If means if even one horse has been protected I’m happy.
“We in the horse community need to stick together, not tear each other down.”
Since the incidents, the family have installed CCTV cameras around the property.
Pakenham Police are investigating.
