Anatomy of a puppy mill raid
True Story. The name of the owner has been changed.
He is hungry in the weeks before the rescue–always hungry. The food they bring is never enough. Not for him and the other dog in the small chain-link kennel. Day by day, he grows weaker, thinner, though a thick coat of matted fur hides the way his ribs stick through his skin. Day by day he waits, nearly forgotten, in the warren of miserable pens and cages that fill the back of Sarah’s yard in NC. The “Labradoodle” is way too old to sell. He isn’t that valuable a breeder. His condition might raise suspicions if he is passed on to a rescue. So he wastes away.
When rain falls, the kennel’s dirt floor turns to mud. When sun shines, the dirt turns to dust. For relief from the heat, the dog digs into the dirt. But the fleas bite him; there is no escape. Sometimes Sarah or a helper brings fresh water. Sometimes not. Then the liquid left in the sawed-off barrel that is their bowl turns green with algae. He is thirsty, but he cannot drink it.
All around him, as September opens, other dogs suffer. Sarah’s website gives it a pretty name and a nice story. “I have been a dog lover basically since birth . . . my focus is on matching wonderful pets with loving homes.”
From the fence by the road, all you can see are trees, Sarah’s double-wide trailer, and further back more fences. Behind the façade, though, lies a puppy mill with more than 200 dogs: mothers and puppies kept in rabbit hutches, females bearing litter after litter until their health fails. A shelter would need four to five people working full time, seven days a week, to care for these dogs (never mind the nine horses and 48 chickens and other birds also on the property). Sarah is trying to do it largely by herself.
At one time, Sarah, 54, had been an animal control officer. She had been married to a veterinarian. She should know the care dogs need. But she can’t or won’t provide it.
To save money, Sarah supplements the dog food she buys with deer scraps from a local processing plant. She does her own veterinary work, though she is not a vet(her ex-husband provides the supplies, prescriptions). Perhaps she takes puppies she plans to sell for the required shots, but she fails to treat most of the dogs for fleas or heartworm. Actually she is having a hard time just taking care of herself. Her home is filthy and packed with clutter, her yard strewn with junk.
Sometimes dogs die on their own. Sometimes they are put down. Sarah burns the bodies in a small pit steps from her door. When there are a lot of dead dogs, she buries them toward the edge of her property in a hold dug with a backhoe.
Neighbors complain about barking and foul odors and fleas. Later they’ll say they smelled burning flesh. In 2009 an animal control officer visits, but the dogs he sees appear to have food and water. None are dead or dying, and he doesn’t have the means to rescue that many animals, so he goes away.
Designer dogs she calls them–a mishmash of all the different breeds imprisoned on her property. She photographs puppies using a makeshift studio in her home and brightly colored cloths as backdrops. She invites people to visit her farm. In reality the dogs are driven or flown to customers. The only people who get passed the no trespassing signs that ring her property are her ex-husband, her current husband and a hired helper and a local woman that she met at an auction where she brings puppies to sell. Sarah has been passing the woman older dogs she no longer wants—females who have failed to breed or are unable care for previous litters.
After a year, Sarah lets the woman into her yard. The woman tells a local rescuer about the conditions. The rescuer calls the HSUS puppy mill tip line. Investigating officer has the woman take seven small dogs from Sarah’s to a vet. The animals have matted fur, rotting teeth, fleas and ears filled with dark fluid. This is the evidence The HSUS needs.
On a morning a sheriffs car leads a convoy to the property. Inside ride members of the HSUS Animal Rescue Team. Anxiously, the week before someone from the sheriffs office while trying to reassure a woman who had called about the condition of a dog she purchased from Sarah’s farm, mistakenly told the woman that a raid was going to happen on that property. Had word reached Sarah?
When deputies arrive at the property if she has tried to cleanup, it’s not apparent. They serve a search and seizure warrant as she steps out of the double-wide with a cup of coffee. Before the convoy has even parked, deputies arrest her and take her to the county jail. For the starving Labradoodle and others it will soon be over.
Continued next week