SPCA raids lead to bizarre confrontations on a Cambridge farm
A dog’s disputed death, a physical altercation, a mare that had to be put down, off-duty OPP officers allegations against a vet – all are part of a series of run-ins between the SPCA and horse farmer Ron Jordan that ended with charges being dropped

by DON STONEMAN

Retired school teacher and horse farm operator Ron Jordan says he was at a loss for words when local SPCA agents came to his equine centre near Cambridge to check out a farm dog in January, 2005.

Things escalated into a physical altercation and Jordan soon learned that the SPCA had more trouble in store for him. But two Ontario Provincial Police officers, on the scene during a later raid, have sprung to his defense.

Ron Jordan, his son Jason and their pit bull Tonka, (previously rescued from a Hamilton apartment) had been the subjects of a disputed Hamilton-Burlington SPCA investigation and seizure in late fall and an SPCA order remained in place giving the agents legal authority to enter the property and examine the dog and other animals.

In the meantime, Jordan explains, the disputed dog slipped on ice, fell under the wheels of a tractor and was killed while Jordan was spreading manure in January and the body was cremated at the back of the farm.

SPCA documents confirm Jordan’s story that an investigator attended the Jordan farm on Nov. 30 in response to an anonymous complaint about a horse on the farm. Jordan says the investigator accepted his explanation that he was treating the four-year old thoroughbred-European Warmblood cross named Pizazz, for contracted tendons, a genetic condition caused when bones grow faster than the tendons. But the investigator rejected Jordan’s assertion that he was capable of treating a pit bull that had deep cuts on its leg after a fight with another dog over a food bowl, and issued an order to take the dog to a vet.

The duty notes of SPCA officer Amanda Barrett state: “I plan to return with a warrant and police, as I feel as though the lack of respect for authority and enforcement there is the need for police as peace officers when I return.” Barrett and fellow agent Sarah Mombourquette returned the next day with a warrant and Hamilton police officers to seize the dog.

Jordan and his son Jason, along with reports written by SPCA agents and police, tell a bizarre tale of a confrontation on the farm. The police report says that Ron Jordan “contested” their authority to take the dog, repeating that “no animal will be leaving this property.”

Ron Jordan describes how a police officer’s feet “left the ground” as he tackled the 30-year-old Jason while he was crouched beside the dog Tonka, who was on a chain.

Hamilton Police Service Constable Ian McKellar’s report says he believed that Jason was about to release the dog so that it could either escape or attack the officers. In the ensuing scuffle, the officers used pepper-spray twice on the farmers and the SPCA spirited the dog away.

Ron Jordan says he was angry because he expected to receive a telephone call from an SPCA supervisor rather than a warrant handed to him with police assistance. He had previously complained about the agent’s “unprofessional” attitude.

In spite of the physical nature of the fracas (Ron Jordan admits that he “threw” a police the officer off of his son), no assault charges were laid against the farmers. Jason retrieved the dog from the SPCA two days later after paying a $306 “cost of removal” bill that included inspectors’ time at $30 an hour.

Ron and Jason Jordan were charged with causing unnecessary pain and failing to provide shelter for the dog and also neglecting a cat. Jason Jordan was issued with an order to build an insulated doghouse. A report from Barrett and a veterinarian said “food was visible but the dog was grossly emaciated,” while the Jordans maintain Tonka was a “working dog” that got a lot of exercise.

Ron Jordan asserts that the SPCA’s vet “didn’t medicate (Tonka) any differently than we do here.” The dog had been tied up temporarily, he says, to keep it from following Jason while he rode a horse. Jordan argues that his farm dogs are “livestock” and he treats them as such. The dogs protect chickens against opossums, raccoons and brush wolves. “I write them off on my income tax,” he says.

‘The door burst open’

After Tonka was released by the SPCA into the care of its owner, the order to treat it remained in effect, giving an SPCA officer the legal authority to return to the farm and examine the dog. In early February, an SPCA officer came looking for Tonka. Jordan says he was embarrassed to tell the SPCA officer that the dog had been killed and refused her request to produce the dog, citing a new privacy law that came into effect Jan. 1.
On Feb. 4, approximately three weeks after Jordan says Tonka died under the tractor wheels, the farmer was giving riding lessons in the arena about 7 pm when “the door burst open and there stood two uniformed officers, two female SPCA agents, and two males in plain clothes,” relates riding student Linzie Edwards, an off-duty OPP constable with more than 15 years experience. Fellow riding student Patricia Schneider, also an OPP constable, tells Better Farming the SPCA officers said they were there with a search warrant to examine and seize the dog Tonka. Accompanying them was Hamilton veterinarian Dr. Mike Mogavero. Schneider did not determine the identity of the other man in plain clothes.

Livestock owners are proud of their animals. That’s one reason emotions are aroused when authorities arrive to deal with animal welfare allegations and it’s sometimes difficult, even for experienced judges, to sort out differing accounts of what took place.
Linzie Edwards says she advised Jordan to explain to the officers and the veterinarian that the dog was dead. Mogavero told Better Farming that he found Jordan’s story that the dog had been cremated incredible. He says he visited the cremation pit at the back of the farm in the dark that night and found only old bones.

Edwards says that she was “disgusted” when Mogavero hit the horse in the face with a towel repeatedly.

Mogavero denies that he abused the animal. “I am a veterinarian. I was a horse trainer and a groom. To make a horse stand up, you get them to throw their head back and they stand up. If you aren’t in the horse business, you don’t’ know that… If I did that in front of a horse person, they wouldn’t think anything of it.”

Mogavero’s conclusion: “I was trying to assess the status of the horse, but I couldn’t get it up.”
Edwards
says Mogavero “made it so known that he was going to get Mr. Jordan. As soon as he looked over the half door (into the stall), he had made up his mind. He said ‘that horse needs to be destroyed.’”

Mogavero replies that he was upset by the condition of the horse, but denies that he was “unprofessional.”

There was hay in front of all the horses, Mogavero says, and the others “were as fat as seals.” The mare Pizazz had hay as well, but was emaciated. He concluded that “she couldn’t get up and eat.”

Edwards and Schneider then left and Jordan says he was told to euthanize the horse or be charged with cruelty. Mogavero says he wasn’t equipped to euthanize the horse himself. Jordan could have called another vet “who might have said that the horse could be treated.” Jordan “chose to euthanise the horse,” Mogavero says, and killed the horse with a single shot from his .22-calibre rifle.

A source who took part in the raid but declined to be quoted told Better Farming it had earlier been delayed by 45 minutes while a police officer authorized to use a stun gun arrived at the scene because of fears arising from the earlier altercation that Jordan might be violent.

Off-duty OPP officer Edwards, who describes herself as “a vegetarian and a vegan,” says she was unaware of the earlier altercation. A first-time horse owner, she boarded her animal at the Jordan farm and took lessons there for six months until she sold the horse.
On Aug 25 Jordan’s lawyer, Hamilton criminal defense attorney Beth Bromberg, sent a copy of the Cindy Pauliuk judgment to the crown attorney’s office with a letter stating that “charges should be withdrawn against Ron and Jason Jordan because there is no reasonable prospect of conviction and because there is no public interest in wasting three days of court time to proceed with this prosecution.” The crown then dropped the charges against Jordan.

“I feel violated,” Jordan says.

For his part, veterinarian Mogavero says the dead mare Pizazz “is in a better place.”BF