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ForumsGerman Shepherd Dog > GSD breeder arrested in CT (119 replies)
by alboe2009 on 07 December 2011 - 15:47 |
| Blitzen, That's why I stated "It appears........ and I could be misreading though." I'm glad. |
alboe2009 by Blitzen on 07 December 2011 - 16:55 |
| Again, I agree with workingdogz. Today's breeders need to go above and beyond. The abuse case I have referred to here could have been stopped when there were "only" 100+ dogs involved. Other breeders visited this kennel, saw the abuse, turned a blind eye until it got so bad that the local AC could no longer ignore the complaints from local puppy buyers. IMO the worst affront is that he was reported to AKC, they inspected him 2 years ago and found nothing serious enough to prefer any charges. I can't get into details of what was going on with all these dogs, suffice to say most here would have been nauseated and in tears knowing what these dogs lived through for many years. Fortunately this is a very resilient breed; almost every dog is friendly and eligible for adoption assuming they gain a good state of health. GSD's by nature are very susceptable to abuse. I doubt many GSD's could have weathered that storm wihout become depressed for lack of human contact. My guess is, if these were GSD's, most of the 200 dogs would need to be destroyed due to broken spirits and broken hearts. GSD's should never be warehoused and deprived of human contact. They may survive, but they will not thrive. Do it right, keep your own counsel, try to help those who don't and if they refuse, do what you need to do to stop the abuse. Dont worry about what the enablers think of you. The animals have no voice. |
Blitzen by jc.carroll on 07 December 2011 - 17:27 |
| Regarding nails, it's pretty easy to see the difference between long nails that are in the process of being trimmed/ground down slowly to allow the quick to recede, and nails that are long and not maintained; especially on dogs that are kept on surfaces that do not allow their nails to wear down naturally. A glance at the dewclaw is an excellent indicator of whether these nails are being trimmed, or left alone. I would like to think animal control, or the inspecting agency, can tell the difference between nails in-progress, and nails neglected. |
jc.carroll by cphudson on 07 December 2011 - 18:48 |
| I've grown up in CT. I've volunteered at local animal shelters for many years & fosters dogs. The CT AC is not out to take people's / breeder's dogs away from them. Most shelters are over whelmed with lack of space / funding / staff / volunteers compare to the large demands. I don't know this breeder that was recently charged or the condition of her dogs. In 2008 another GSD breeder was charged with animal cruelty in CT. He also bred Lab's & various birds. I did know this breeder / people he sold puppies to & worked with the state to help against the breeder & find safety for the dogs. I took in many dogs until they were able to be adopted out, & provided other support. The AC did not do anything above the law, & remain professional at all times. AC & AKC were watching this person for many years. The AC received countless complaints on sick puppies purchased from him a year. Also complaints on the adult dogs conditions they seen. The dogs originally were kept in large kennel runs & were in good condition. But over the years the kennels got smaller as the numbers increased & the care went drastically down. This breeder had all paper work recorded, kept all licenses up to date, followed the minimum care guidelines for the sate. He had numerous inspections both surprised & scheduled by AC / AKC over many years. AC was quietly building their case through there years just waiting. Most of the local breeder all knew this breeder & considered him to be on puppy mill status. I tried helping the dogs & took a few for much needed medical care the breeder was not willing to provide. Those poor dogs ran into my car & were over joy when we pulled off the property. I'm still haunted by imagines of many of those dogs. This breeder did not get his dogs back. He was charged huge fines for each animal, plus the care given to each animal while the case was in trail was also fined. The CT AC contacted the IRS who also step in & put a lean / took on his home / property for years of unpaid tax $ from the sale of puppies. The IRS attached his pay checks to make sure the animal cruelty charges would be paid also. The judge ruled he may not own or have any animal on his property again for the duration of his & his wife's rest of life. If they are found with any animals they will be charge + fined & animal taken away. You can read more here http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/14990/CT/US/ |
cphudson by Blitzen on 07 December 2011 - 20:01 |
| I can only hope that the case I am following has a similar ending, Hudson. I wish it happened in CT. |
by cphudson on 07 December 2011 - 21:44 |
| Blitzen, I hope the case you are following works out for the best for the animals as well & the owner doesn't get the chance to have it happen again. Very sad always for the animals in the end. |
by Abby Normal on 07 December 2011 - 21:53 |
| I have read this thread through, and something which strikes me as a little unnerving is the stance and apparent 'resistance' of some posters to what I would consider basic fundamental *rights* of all animals, for example as in this excerpt, where a particular poster seemed almost offended by these requirements: "caging" requirements are amazing! Small excerpts: If caged (crated) for transport etc, the dog must be permitted to exercise no less than twice daily, for a minimum of 30 minutes! "Outdoor" housing ie kennel run: A small sample: Single dog over 50lbs shall be kept in a pen no less than 8'x10'--not including shelter. Other various snippets: "animals shall have at least 10 hours of light per day" "animals shall be brought indoors to shelter when temp is below 10F (real and effective temp)" (Apologies in advance if I misinterpreted the meaning of the poster quoted above) I would be horrified if the above wasn't routinely provided as the barest minimum for an animal. Like some others I have an ethical distaste for excessive crating, and stacking crated GSDs is worthy of a charge of animal abuse IMO except in an extreme crisis situation and then on a very temporary basis. I have always disliked crates for the very reason that eventually a large number of people begin to abuse them. I doubt that is the initial intent, but it does happen, and those people learn to rationalise it. I hate the concept of dogs *living* in crates, which so many seem to do now. I would just say that I am in the UK, and our equivalent of 'animal control' laws are of course a little different, but set out to prevent cruelty to animals and establish and implement animal welfare practises in the same way. |
Abby Normal by workingdogz on 07 December 2011 - 22:22 |
| Abby Normal Oh, I am not at all opposed to the bare minimal requirements, just sad to think we even need to have a law that outlines them! My point in quoting some of them was show how minimal they were, and yet some people could not even provide THAT to a dog. Some of the rules/regs from the city where I live that I quoted, are less than a bare minimum in my mind, and actually, common sense alone should kick in and people should not need to have rules like the above to follow, but sad to say, we do. The regulations of our city are not the best, but at least it's a start! And I will say, our AC officers are pretty level headed but do NOT take crap from people. Our POS neighbor had rabbits one year, he left them out in severe weather (blizzard) and they did not have adequate food, shelter nor water. I knocked on his door and asked him to please take them in after finding out at 10PM they were out in that crap, it was too extreme for them to be out, he told me to FO and get off his doorstep. I called AC, reported it, not anonymously either, and AC came at 1130PM and beat the crap out of his doors, he would not answer, so they started catching rabbits, after taking pics etc. He finally came outside and asked what they were doing, they gave him the option of bringing them in, or they would seize them. He said he would bring them in right away, he had to go put warm clothes on..they told him NO, NOW> the rabbits are out in it freezing, you will be too. He brought them in and we could hear him screaming around 2AM when he found all the tickets they wrote him on his door  The rabbits were gone a couple weeks later, he got tired of AC coming and checking on him. It is simply embarassing that laws on providing the barest of care need to be written, but without those, animals are really out of luck. |
by Blitzen on 07 December 2011 - 22:50 |
| Thanks, Hudson!! Can you imagine - almost 200 dogs involved. That number is overwhelming. |
by K-9mom on 08 December 2011 - 05:13 |
| CT § 53-247. Cruelty to animals. Animals engaged in exhibition of fighting. Intentional injury or killing of police animals or dogs in volunteer canine search and rescue teams
(a) Any person who overdrives, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, deprives of necessary sustenance, mutilates or cruelly beats or kills or unjustifiably injures any animal, or who, having impounded or confined any animal, fails to give such animal proper care or neglects to cage or restrain any such animal from doing injury to itself or to another animal or fails to supply any such animal with wholesome air, food and water, or unjustifiably administers any poisonous or noxious drug or substance to any domestic animal or unjustifiably exposes any such drug or substance, with intent that the same shall be taken by an animal, or causes it to be done, or, having charge or custody of any animal, inflicts cruelty upon it or fails to provide it with proper food, drink or protection from the weather or abandons it or carries it or causes it to be carried in a cruel manner, or fights with or baits, harasses or worries any animal for the purpose of making it perform for amusement, diversion or exhibition, shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than one year or both.
I have listed section a only as it would be the only portion that would pertain to this case. |
K-9mom by RCale on 08 December 2011 - 05:41 |
I first joined this forum years ago to ask about a puppy I was considering buying. It was sired by the stolen dog and the breeder blatently lied to me and was offering fraudulent papers for the puppy or was going to stiff me on papers. The thread is here: http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/bulletins.read?mnr=216314 As written on that thread, at the time of speaking with this breeder over months she made mention numerous times she was having many troubles and of those were also neighbor complaints and issues having enough time to properly care for her dogs. It is not hard for me to believe dogs needed saving from her and it boggles my mind the support she is getting from other breeders until I read they do business with her. R Cale |
by Abby Normal on 08 December 2011 - 14:09 |
| Workingdogz Sorry (but glad) that I had misunderstood the underlying meaning of your post. Yes I'm with you 100%, it is frightening that such basic things should have to be defined, yet without them - well it doesn't bear thinking about. What truly offends me is that some of the time this applies to what I consider to be *dog* people - that really gets to me, and these I think are the people that gradually learn to rationalise what I personally would consider less than adequate living conditions whether it may be housing/feeding/general comfort and/or attention/affection/companionship for their animals. This whole thing is very sad. |
by autobahn on 08 December 2011 - 18:32 |
| lol. You are all outraged about the way these 13 dogs were treated? There are breeders out there (that you all support and defend when anything negative is said about them!) that have over 100 dogs at any one time. How well do you think those dogs are treated? |
by Slamdunc on 08 December 2011 - 18:38 |
| autobahn, I do not know of any breeders that have 100 + dogs. I am curious though, send me a PM if you do not mind. Jim |
Slamdunc by brynjulf on 08 December 2011 - 19:22 |
| I think the biggest problem is that everyone has a different standard of care. You have two ( probably more) camps of dog owners. People who treat dogs as family members and little humans and the other side of the scale that treat dogs as livestock. The two camps will never agree on what a dogs basic requirements are. While most dog owners are somewhere between the two camps, the persons on either end of the scale will never see eye to eye. |
by Abby Normal on 09 December 2011 - 00:21 |
| Brynjulf There are I am sure many people who treat their dogs as family members but NOT as *little humans*. The two do not necessarily go hand in hand. My dogs are part of my family, but are treated as dogs and I never confuse them with (nor would I want them to be) little humans. I want them to be well balanced, and well cared for, but above all I want them to be dogs. Since as you say, there seem to be such different views on what the standard of care should be then that is why there is an obvious need for AC laws, so that those who cannot grasp what standard of care is acceptable have to have it laid out and legislated for. Sad but true. |
by Judy P on 09 December 2011 - 00:37 |
| Abby I have to agree with you, my dogs are part of our family but are not little people. I see far to many dogs in rescue because they have behaviorial problems due to being treated as people not dogs. My main concern right now is the dogs, are they safe and will they be placed for adoption or rescue if they are taken from the breeder? |
Judy P by Brandoggy on 09 December 2011 - 01:03 |
| Jusst because there are other dogs that are treated worse does not make it ok for DawnMarie to do this to her dogs. R Cale, I remember your story--you are lucky to have gotten away from her. I won't even go in to what she has personally done to me--I am just glad they got to the dogs. Maybe this time WDA will wise up and revoke her membership and AKC will not let her breed anymore, not that that matters to her, she will just make up some papers.... |
by Mystere on 09 December 2011 - 01:43 |
| BeeTree, DM has been around a Loooong time, and essentially just shows. The club ( a WDA club, so one that is not ever required to actually put on any trials) does show her with a dog that has aB and an AD. These are not schutzhund titles. Being essentially a show person, DM in all liklihood ships her "prime" dogs out to be titled in a some 'Midnight Trial" somewhere. Neither the dog, nor DM, ever actually sees a trial field. Many schutzhund clubs have "show folks" as members--they only show up to get their dogs ready for the performance phase of the NASS or the USCA Sieger show. Then, they disappear for several more months, unless they need to prepare a dog for a breed survey. In other words, nothing about that site would leead me to believe that DM actually trains.  Workingdogz-- BINGO!! Some of us are less impartial than others, but tend to say so up front. Autobahn: I honestly don't know of any schutzhund folks, or SV-style show folks with 100+ dogs--not even the major show breeder in your neck of the Canadian(?) woods. FWIW: I live in an area where one must obtain a "hobby kennel" license to maintain more than 3 dogs. The county stopped granting non-hobby kennel licenses eons ago. |
Mystere by barkroz on 10 December 2011 - 14:41 |
| I am quite impressed by the consideration to the big picture addressed by some of the posts, workingdogz and Blitzen in particular. This is exactly what our community needs. From the single dog home to the large breeding enterprise, we each need to consider whether or not we are doing the dogs justice by our actions (or lack thereof). I could digress into a whole new topic on whether or not the particular "breeds" are being benefited by "breeder" actions, but I won't do that here...I do think we need to consistantly "call out" neglect and abuse when we see it and to be redundant, create a new culture of what is acceptable because some of the situations out there, situations that the owner or breeder really feels IS acceptable, for example the situation referred to by the original article....is simply NOT acceptable. Follow your ordinances, give appropriate care and attention, medical, nutritional, social and otherwise, to your animals...most importantly, have NO MORE than you have the resources to care for. For some individuals this may well mean NOT having a dog, so be it!! And I do think, being a nurse myself, if "you are properly trained", saving valuable resources by administering your own distemper combo shots is certainly appropriate-as is treating minor cuts and scrapes-within major limits!!!!. Having 20 dogs, however, if you know you don't even know if the rent is paid for next month, that is dangerous, that is negligent...that is disaster...Being gone at your job with 12 dogs sitting stacked for 14hrs, you can certainly spray the feces out of the crates, but what you are doing to the animal, remains pretty dirty. Once again, it is going to be our responsibility as a community-in presence or in lack- that will either invite outside agencies into our homes or keep them out... |
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