Pet Sounds: The Pony Woman Speaks

By Anne La Jeunesse

Saturday, May 22 --A Lancaster woman arrested on Mother's Day on suspicion of animal neglect after two trailers full of her goats, sheep and ponies were found parked on Ocean Park Boulevard, says she is more like St. Francis of Assisi than an animal abuser.

Kathleen Marie Stone, 43, who operates Prancing Ponies -- a business providing pony rides and petting zoos for parties, functions and charity events -- said that all the animals she owns (including two ponies with poor eyesight), she has rescued from slaughter houses.

"The alternative for these ponies is either being cat food or human consumption food or standing in stocks for the rest of their lives as opposed to working a couple of days a week for a few hours, which, to me, is better," Stone said.

Stone said her arrest after conducting her pony rides at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market, as she does each Sunday, resulted from huge misunderstandings about the animals and their treatment.

Police, who found 43 animals decimated and standing in feces, said they were alerted to the trailers by people who called to report they heard moaning inside.

According to Stone, however, the animals were not moaning in pain. Instead the goats call out when they sense people passing by because they are accustomed to being petted.

"The goats in the petting zoo, if you put them in an pen and you walk past the pen and ignore them, they'll call out, it's like 'Hey, Hey, yo - Adrian, come over here!'" Stone said.

Stone acknowledged that some of the animals "didn't look too terribly healthy," but that those were animals she acquired the previous night at an event in San Diego county. A man she met in La Mesa sold her the animals because he needed to get rid of them. The man did not give her a receipt for the sale, Stone said.

"I'm a sucker, so I said yes," she said.

Stone said she sent one of her trailers containing her own animals ahead to Del Mar, picked up the new critters and joined the first trailer. The animals were fed and given water in Del Mar, and those that appeared ill were separated from the healthy ones, she said.

Stone and her trailers then trekked to Santa Monica for her usual day of pony rides at the farmer's market, she said. The animals had no food because they are fed twice daily and had already had their morning meal.

Police maintain that the animals were emaciated, and say that one goat was found dead inside a trailer. Stone believes the dead goat was one that she picked up in La Mesa.

The ponies may have appeared thin, she said, because eating food other than hay makes them sick.

Stone also defended herself against allegations the animals were standing in feces.

The animals urinate and defecate "all the time," Stone said, but she does not keep sawdust or straw in the trailers because the animals will eat it and become ill. She said the trailers are hosed out after returning to Lancaster.

Medical and dental records Stone will bring to court will prove that the animals she owns are properly cared for, she said. Stone added that she regularly has the horses' teeth and hooves cared for and the animals are all up to date on their shots, except for the ones she had just acquired in La Mesa.

Police said that some of the sheep are in poor condition from not having been sheared, but Stone counters that it was still quite cold where they live and it was not time yet to shear the animals.

When told that one of the goats had given birth in the Santa Monica Humane Department shelter, Stone exclaimed "Oh, she popped!"

Several of the does were pregnant, she said, but Stone believes the first to have given birth was named Monica Lewinsky. The father, Stone says, is named Bill Clinton, AKA "Billy Goat," and the other two pregnant does are named Geniffer Flowers and Kathleen Willey.

Some of her animals have appeared in films and music videos, including a Mariah Carrey video.

"Mariah Carrey wouldn't appear with a sick animal, would she?" Stone asks.

Stone said that the arrest and confiscation of her animals, including a German shepherd rescued from the Lancaster dog pound, has damaged, but not sunk, her business, in which she employs four formerly homeless people.