UPDATE 4/13/08 on the 19 Seeley Collies Rescued in Upstate NY
Statement by AWCA President Jean Levitt
The Volunteers
Part 5
In our previous updates From March 13 - April 6, 2008 (see the Archives) we have introduced several volunteers and their stories. Now you will meet another volunteer who worked with the Seeley Collies and Dachshunds on Sunday, November 11, 2007 at the SPCA of Upstate New York located in Queensbury. This was the first time volunteers went in to work there. As always, her real name will not be used.
"Janine"
Janine has many years of not-for-profit rescue organization experience including chair person of the adoption committee for a local all breed rescue group, and she has fostered and placed many shelter dogs. Janine is a professional dog trainer. She trains her dogs and has earned titles in agility, obedience, tracking, herding and therapy dog. She works daily with twenty dogs in a local dog daycare and training center.
This is her story:
"My first bad feeling about this shelter came before I even entered the warehouse type building, sitting in the car watching adult dogs being led out and put into kennels--hound mixes, chow mixes, shepherd mixes--knowing this was a "no-kill" warehouse (shelter). I couldn't help wonder how many of them had been trucked up as pups and not adopted, doomed to live out their lives at this place.
"When we were given the OK to enter the building I almost threw up as the door was opened; the stench of feces and urine was over whelming. Then getting into the building was tricky, especially if a dog was being led out; the narrow hallway was lined with bags of cheap grocery store type dog foods. Mental note to myself: the place smells as bad as the crap-in-a-bag they are being fed.
"The first room I was allowed into (where the Triplets and a black tri Collie were kept) had several full kennels, but most alarming to me was the number of stacked filthy crates filled with crate-fighting dogs and pups. There was not one happy wagging tail; they were either fighting each other through the bars or sitting in a corner totally withdrawn. Mental note # 2: they probably don't allow potential adopters in here or not one dog would be adopted with the behaviors I am seeing. [Note: this is the main kennel room where the public looks at the dogs.]
"The place was very crowded with junk everywhere. We asked if there was a fire extinguisher; the woman in charge said yes..but she couldn't produce it. She made sure to tell us that they passed fire inspection. Mental note # 3: This place looks like a fire trap. I wonder who insures them?
"Upstairs was worse. The back room was filled with so much junk; I wondered how this place could have been properly inspected and passed. The 3 or 4 Collies kept in this room seemed calm enough and happy for the most part. There was no barking at all in here. I walked them and each one pooped at least two times outside during their walk; they were older and I figured that at one time, and maybe still, they were house broken.
"The pass-through hallway housed Dachshunds and a small aggressive hairy dog. Their crate charging moved the crates into your way so they had to be moved back each time you went through there. At least two of the Doxies were in the same crate.
"A cat room housed a sickly miserable-looking black tricolor Collie female.
"The room the rest of the Collies were in was also very cramped. The crates were filled with urine-soaked newspaper and feces. The most appalling thing was the lame old sable dog [the old gentleman] with sores on his legs that were covered in feces. As there was a bathtub available, we asked if we could bathe him--but were told the groomer was coming on Monday and would do it. This was Sunday morning and he had open sores which were covered with feces! So we gave him a sponge bath as best we could.
"At this point I personally felt these dogs were pulled out of the pan and tossed into the fire. Death by euthanasia would have been kinder than what they were being forced to live in.
"I felt all the volunteers' efforts were just enabling this torture to go on.
"I didn't go back again."
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Folks, we continue to be very concerned about the old gentleman, as well as the remaining Seeley Collies and Dachshunds held in crates at the SPCA of Upstate New York in Queensbury. We thank you for your continuing messages of concern for them all.
We receive other kinds of messages as well. People in the area have communicated with us over the past few months, after trying to adopt a Collie from the SPCA, to tell us about their experiences there. Others, also local people, have passed along various rumors.
While we cannot verify any of these messages, of course, we are left wondering, as well as worrying, about the remaining Collies and Dachshunds.
The area people who reported their adoption efforts--which were uniformly denied--said that they were told that there were no Collies there, or if they had gone in person and actually seen a Collie, they were told the Collies were unavailable for adoption, or else "already spoken for". They all were very puzzled and frustrated by their experience; that was why they contacted us.
Are there Collies and Dachshunds still there, but essentially hidden away, unavailable for adoption? Are they doomed to live out their lives there in crates as other animals seem to be doing? Rumors say that two, or none, or three Collies remain, and at least one Dachshund. If some were adopted, HOW were they adopted, when for months potential local adopters were rebuffed without even filling out an application or having an interview?
And where is the old gentleman? Rumors have him missing from the shelter--residing at a veterinary clinic, or kept in Executive Director Cathy Cloutier's home, or gone to a home found for him by a veterinarian, or even dead.
Are they still there? Are they even still alive? Has the old gentleman succumbed after all those months of crating?
The initial "rescue" was much publicized locally, with great fanfare praising the seizure of these dogs. Yet information as to their condition, their progress, their adoptive status, and even their number has since been strangely unavailable to the public, as they themselves have been. In the absence of ongoing legal proceedings requiring confidentiality, this is extremely unusual in our experience, and puzzling for a case of so much public interest and initial publicity.
Four days from now, Thursday April 17 marks the six month anniversary of the seizure of the Seeley Collies from their crates--and their move back into crates at the SPCA of Upstate New York. Of all the other Collie rescues with which we have been involved or of which we know, a number have been much larger than this and some were infinitely more complicated. Yet no more than a few days or weeks after release from judicial custody saw every dog placed in carefully screened adoptive or rehabilitative foster homes, loved and treated like family members, on their way to a normal Collie life.
Why is it taking so incredibly long here? The same resources have been offered freely as for previous Collie rescues nationwide. What is the fate of these Collies and Dachshunds, and why is it so secret, after 180 days?
Calmly,
Jean Levitt
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