The Nevada vet who went viral a few weeks ago for kicking a horse in the face on video has been found dead at a lake near Las Vegas.
We’re not going to share the footage on Sick Chirpse but you can get a pretty good idea of it from the still image below:
Dr. Shawn Frehner, 56, had been called to administer anesthetic shots for horses at a property in Nevada on April 3rd 2025. Shawna Gonzalez, the property owner, told 8 News Now following the incident: “I heard [my mother] yell, ‘Oh my God. He just kicked him.’ He wrapped the horse around his neck three times, and he kicked him in the head.”
The horse was treated for abrasions to the skull and other injuries, and the Nye County Sheriff’s Office opened an investigation into Frehner on animal cruelty charges.
Frehner had this excuse for his treatment of the animal when speaking to the Las Vegas-Review Journal: “I did not blatantly haul off and kick this horse as it appears in the video. That was not my intention at all. It was done simply to get the horse in a better position so that he could breathe and get up and move so I could again try to anesthetize.”
Of course, not many people online were buying that excuse, and as the footage went viral, Frehner received a load of abuse and death threats and the like.
On April 18th, authorities discovered the body of Dr. Shawn Frehner near the Boulder Islands at Lake Mead. No word on the cause of death yet, but he had been missing in the weeks between the video going viral and the day his body was found. The horse mafia, maybe?
On his death, Shawna Gonzalez said: “I had no idea this would happen. But I was not the one bullying. I am not sorry for standing up for my horse. I am their voice and will continue to be.”
As you might imagine, there don’t seem to be many tears shed for Frehner online. Even before the video of him kicking a horse in the head went viral, his Google reviews weren’t exactly inspiring much confidence. In fact, one even accused him of punching their horse in the face:
For the time a cowboy decided to bring a horse into a bar and caused all hell to break loose, click HERE. Very bad idea…
