Amanda Braun and her family are still in shock after finding their 20-year-old horse shot dead in a pen behind their barn earlier in December. Braun explains she had seen the mare earlier in the day on December 12th, but it wasn’t until her husband went to do a night check on the animals that they realized something was wrong.
“He noticed one of the cows had blood on them, and he called me to the barn. We looked over the cow to find where the blood was coming from and couldn’t find the source, so we went to go check the other cows in the same pen and that is when we found her.”
Braun says there was a lot of blood when they found her in the field, but because it was dark they didn’t realize she was shot till the next morning when her husband and father-in-law went back to look at her. That is when they realized she had been shot and called RCMP to the property west of Teepee Creek.
“They came right away; they wanted to see. They took pictures, they made a report, and they said they would be back out the next day with Fish and Wildlife. They wanted to see if they could get the bullet out.”
Officials were hoping to recover the full bullet to match it to a gun. However, only a fragment was able to be recovered, but it was enough to confirm the horse had been shot.
Braun says the mare was her daughter’s horse and was a horse that, for a lack of a better word, could be described as “bomb-proof”. While she was an older horse, Braun’s children and family were looking forward to the few years of memories they had left with her.
“I know animals die, but for someone to purposefully kill an animal is not ok.”
Braun took to social media to advise others to keep an eye out for suspicious activity and says she has been amazed by the support she has received since.
The shooting and the horse’s death are still under investigation by RCMP. Anyone with information is asked to call the Grande Prairie detachment or Crime Stoppers.