Tony Mangan: Comes a horseman

Go ahead.

Ask Tony Mangan what's on his mind. He'll tell you. You might not agree with him, but he'll still tell you. He may not be politically correct, either. No matter.

It's one of the reasons he's the president of Panhandle Equine Rescue.

"I'm not hesitant about voicing my opinion," the Brooklyn native says.

The sometimes gruff, usually friendly 71-year-old came on board to lead the nonprofit last year with the simple goal to "provide whatever little service I can."

But when it comes to horses and abuse, toss aside the pleasantries, because Tony Mangan loves horses and he hates abuse, and he wants Panhandle Equine Rescue at the forefront of the battle to stop it.

"In my own mind, I kept feeling like we can't just be a knee-jerk operation, putting Band-Aids on bullet holes. It's not going to change anything," he said.

He tells the story of PER receiving a call from a store clerk who said a customer came in to buy oatmeal. Lots and lots of oatmeal. When the clerk asked why, she said she planned to feed it to her horse because she couldn't afford hay.

Mangan offered to help.

"We took the horse for her. She wanted a home for it. She wanted it to be well, she wanted it to be safe," Mangan said. "That doesn't happen often enough, and we don't always get that opportunity."

Mangan and his wife, Cynthia, live on five acres near Spirit Lake with four horses. He came here to retire, but finds himself back in the saddle, overseeing a group of horse lovers trying to help horses "that were either being abused or had fallen into the care of folks who either could not afford them or simply did not know how to care for them. The members lent their talent, care and finances to assist whenever and wherever they could."

When he was "drafted" to be president - no pay, mind you. Everyone at PER is a volunteer - here's what he said to those who sought his services.

"I said, 'OK, folks, I will do this thing. I promise you I know nothing about nonprofit organizations. However, I will run this like a business. And when I say like a business, I'm not talking about making money. I'm talking about getting in order and doing things that I think we should be doing to change the dynamics of the way we behave."

How are things going for you?

You always meet resistance. As Machiavelli said, change is the most difficult thing to manage, and that's been one of the cases. However, the board of directors are really forward thinking folks. Some of the people who have been in place for some time kind of dropped out and decided there was too much ambition or too much change.

What does Panhandle Equine Rescue do?

First of all, we field a lot of phone calls from folks who see animals that seem to be abused, both through starvation or perhaps through physical abuse. They'll bring it to our attention, and we always recommend they call the sheriff's department. In the spirit of trying to cooperate with that department, we'll take a look at what the situation is. I would say 98 percent of the time, the information we receive is pretty accurate. There is a problem occurring. Occasionally, we'll run into somebody who didn't like their neighbor and wants to create a little problem for them. But by and large, the problems are real and they're serious. We will then call the sheriff's department and tell them we've been there, we looked, it is real, and then, we have to leave it to them, to a great extent. Even then, they have a limited ability to create a whole lot of change based on the laws that exist in Idaho.

What's wrong with our laws?

Our laws were designed for gentle folks, and some of the other states have seen the level of abuse that can occur and simply adopted greater laws.

I'll tell you a story about a guy here who tied his horses to the bumper of the truck and left them there, all day, in the heat of the day. When neighbors asked him why he didn't let them roam free in the pasture, his response was, they should mind their own business. He had moved here from Utah because he didn't want to be hassled and wasn't going to put up with it here. Where did he get the impression we didn't care?

Do we need to change the laws?

I wouldn't dare even say that Idahoans are not even interested in the welfare of animals. I think that what the situation is, the laws are a little archaic and were directed at a society who used their animals for lumber, farming, transportation. So those folks took good care of their animals. They made a living with them and their survival was based on the help of those animals.

In this more "me" age that we're in, everything is on whim. 'I got a horse because I wanted it for my little girl, now she doesn't care anymore, she's 14.' Now the poor bugger is starving in the backyard, or is never touched, never handled. Depending on who owns it, it could get physically abused as well.

So you want stricter laws on what people can do to their animals?

I think there's some sane center ground we need to get on, and be sure people who are abusive are not allowed to be and if they want to be, then don't be in our state. And don't try in Texas because they do everything but horsewhip you and hang you. Those folks are serious as a heart attack about that. And I think we need to be. I think it needs to happen here. Hopefully, I can be part of some kind of change. That's what I would like to see happen.

Have you seen some bad cases of horse abuse here?

There are some pretty horrible things that have happened.

We have horses, if I showed you pictures, you would get sick. Some of them had to be put down because of the neglect. A simple thing like calling a farrier and having them cut their feet can be the difference between the animal living and not being able to live.

Does it happen here often?

Yeah, it happens here, and way too much. Way more than we know. We have an element that doesn't care, and we have an element that cares and can't do anything. We hope to fill that void between who's noticing and who can do something about it.

Can change come quickly?

That doesn't happen overnight. It's months and months and months, and sometimes years.

Are some people mean or just don't know any better when it comes to horses?

I think more often than not, they really don't understand, they don't know what they're getting into when they buy a horse.

There are folks who believe you can beat an animal into submission. I don't know that that's true in any case, but I do know it's not true with horses. You'll either make them hostile and they will hurt you, or make them withdrawn and they will hate you. Either way, it's not a good situation.

What's the solution?

We do want to educate and we do want to assist those folks who have fallen on hard times, wherever we can, when we have extra feed, we give that to them. Those are the kinds of things now we need to be doing, and not just rushing forward and trying to do law enforcement's job. That's not what we're about.

What kind of budget do you operate on?

Pennies. Strictly on donations and the good will of members, who foster horses that we get.

Everything we do is for the animals, whether it's today's need or tomorrow's we know the more we stockpile, the more we do, the more we can do within the community.

How do you deal with the abuse you see?

It breaks your heart. I tend to go straight to somebody's door and say to them. 'Listen, I can't help noticing the condition of your horse in the pasture. Is there something we can do to help you? I will give them my card.

A common response to emancipated horses is 'Well, that horse is really old and that's why it's that way.' That's not true. There are other ways to care for the animals so they're not going through that.

What's down the road for you?

I'm going to try to create as much change as is possible in our organization. I'd like to see the laws in Idaho change. I don't think that that's totally out of reach. I think if we were to get a referendum on the ballot, I think most Idahoans would vote for it.

I just want folks to realize we do have a problem and it's not an insurmountable one, and that everyone can help without it being a burden on a single person.