when SPCA is the one accused of cruelty?

[philosoraptor]

Hi everyone,

Our local SPCA is being hit with allegations of abuse, cruelty, and other very bad things. Local residents and others are interested in how best to get this investigated fairly & quickly. This is my county's only formal shelter. I personally have been there to adopt animals.

I feel this is relevant on a horse forum because it's the SPCA which does Animal Control for this whole county including horses. If we rely on Animal Control to enforce animal cruelty laws, who do you call when the AC officer himself appears to be doing something cruel or inappropriate?

Here is where the story begins, posted on State Delegate Smigiel's web site:
http://smigiel.wordpress.com/2009/01...geous-conduct/
[ warning : some pics & descriptions are very sad ]

More info and updates appear on his blog. My local paper seems reluctant to cover it, but it was finally mentioned briefly in The Whig.


At this point a lot of it is allegations. Please remember: nobody is convicted of anything yet. What we want right now is the matter thoroughly investigated, and if any problems are found, they must be addressed.

Past complaints directly to the shelter have not resulted in changes. County Commissioners are the ones who almost completely fund this organization. Therefore we need the commissioners to really get serious about using their control of funding to encourage improvement.

I am posting this in hopes people might send (polite!) notes to the Commissioners requesting that they look into this important matter. Be sure to thank them for the attention they're giving to this issue. We also request they not do the closed-door meeting the shelter director wants; it's in everyone's best interest to address this openly. Email addresses are here:
http://www.ccgov.org/commissioners/

Local news media has been contacted. But I am looking for ideas on who else might pick up such a story?

We'd also like to politely ask the Maryland State Atty General's office to consider looking into any possible criminal cruelty violations:
http://www.oag.state.md.us/

If you live in this area, there will be a County Commissioner meeting on Tuesday at 7pm. The planned topic will be "the budget" but many people are turning out voice their concerns & to learn more. I am told some will be outside, holding a candlelight vigil in honor of the pets. Location is the County Courthouse in Elkton, MD. Please come!


If anyone has any suggestions on what else can be done to facilitate a prompt investigation, please let me know??? (If you don't see me on COTH a lot right now, if you need me, pls email me privately may@equihab.com.) Our goal is not to cause trouble but just to help the animals and correct any problems that might be occurring.

Thanks in advance for any ideas or support!

[equinelaw]

Errrr. . .umm. . . me? Can you makeup a 500 word synopsis of the matter and send it to my blog address? Including who to send it to and why and what you want? I can post a guest blog entry and I have lots of readers in MD.

This is just my kind of story. I am no fugly and have very few readers, but I have some and it is an animal law topic and a timely one.

[JSwan]

It's not uncommon. An unintended consequence of the unfunded mandate. I've fostered dogs that were rescued from SPCA's.

[equinelaw]

That woman is making almost $90k a year!!!!! Good freaking lord. The other $675K is a good start on funding. I am not saying it enough, but who knew that job payed that much

[Evalee Hunter]

This situation was covered in the Wilmington (Delaware) News Journal today. You can read the article here:

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/p...=2009301140004

[M.K.Smith]

Evalee... thanks for posting the News Journal article. One of my co-workers had read about it there.

Does anybody know if it has been on TV news? I usually don't get a chance to watch news during the week.

I think it is absolutely appalling what is alleged and so sad when innocent animals are the victims of cruelty.

If anybody is interested and on Facebook there is a group that you can join- Investigate cruelty @ SPCA Cecil Co Maryland http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/g...id=43562744845

[Lori B]

So this shelter manager clearly has some kind of long term cozy relationship w/ the County Govt.

This is a nightmare of a story. Good heavens. How does a resident of Balt. Co. help? Sounds like it needs to be on big city television.

That is a LOT of money to be getting that kind of 'care'. Both for salary and for operations.

[Lori B]

I read more of the state delegate's blog (good man), and it's worth noticing that this terrible director might most easily be gotten out of there (I know, investigation, no one guilty, blah blah blah, but seriously -- she sounds like a real thug) is by a financial audit of the shelter. A number of the bad acts she is accused of involve not wanting to spend the shelter's budget caring for the animals, and an audit would get the conversation away from deniable acts (she says, she says, she denies) to $$. And sadly, allegations of fraudulent money handling by government have a way of getting matters addressed more quickly than cruelty to animals.

Same way they got Al Capone.

[Susan P]

This is so typical, the Chester County SPCA is also a high kill rate shelter, oxy moron.

Delaware, the Stanton SPCA has supposedly become a no kill shelter and now have to refuse animals if they are full. Let's remember that owners are responsible for their pets. A guy walked up to me in a Pet Smart parking lot and said to me, do you want a dog. I said, "no" and then said let me see it. It was a Rottie mix pup in a little crate. I immediately said, "I'll take her." I think I was crazy, she just stood there wagging her tail. I put her and the crate in my truck and drove off wondering what the heck I'd do with her. But I called CompAnimals and Leslie said she had room so the next morning I took her there and someone walked in the door that had adopted before and asked about her. In less than 30 minutes she was taken as a foster dog later to be adopted. They love her. She was great with other dogs, kids, cats and playful. Her adoption went through Comp Animals and they got the fee too without a lot of expenses. I was thrilled, the pup was adorable. The owner was stupid. So in this case if he had taken her to the Delaware SPCA while they were still killing she might have been killed because she was an owner surrender. But because they refused her she ended up in a great home and CompAnimals benefited.

That's just one example, I'm sure there are plenty of nightmares too.

[Lori B]

I'm sorry, Susan, but did that have something to do w/ the Cecil Co. SPCA? If it did, I didn't follow you.

[spaghetti legs]

it's a bit more of a story than just being a kill shelter...


i.e. horiffic abuse going on in there among other things.

[Cherry]

Not Susan P, Lori B, but I think the point she's trying to make is there are other SPCAs that also euthanize animals as fast as they come in the door and that if that puppy she rescued had gone to one it could have ended up a statistic as well--instead of ending up in a good place.

[libgrrl]

OK -- I've looked at the list of allegations, and I agree that they look like a bunch of jerks. However, I have a few quibbles with some of their complaints.

Re: The "sickly cats" and ferals. As sad as it is, if they don't have enough space to properly house adoptable cats plus have provide enough space (if not "multiple spaces") for "quarantine facilities," those kitties sadly need to be PTS. The shelter I work with is small -- we desperately try to keep things clean and manage the populations as best we can -- but to really be safe, you need to keep all new surrenders separate during a quarantine period from the adoptables. If new intakes appear to be sick at all, they need to be held in a completely different space (if you have the luxury of having one). With an overpopulation of cats, it just isn't worth risking the lives of the healthy and friendly ones to try to save some that may always be wild/antisocial. We don't have the space to keep adult ferals -- they are sadly put to sleep. Feral kittens may be worked with, and we do try to treat some sick ones, but if the shelter is pretty full, they sadly need to go. If they look really sick, they are euthed immediately -- we just can't take that chance.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than losing the entire population of healthy and friendly cats because of a disease outbreak, and I've seen it happen more than once. Choices need to be made, sadly. In a perfect world, people would be a bit more attentive to the animals in their care and not leave it up to understaffed and underfunded shelters to take care of their problems.

[merrygoround]

When the director is being paid that sort of salary, I wouldn't consider them underfunded.

[Lori B]

EXACTLY, MGR.

They have a lot of funding. A lot. And a shelter director paid that much had better be an effing rock star of animal care, concern, and effort for placement. Instead, she sounds like a cracker Cruella DeVille. (flame away, you know it's true)

The point is NOT that they euthanize. Did you see the part where more than one ex-employee was told to LIE to the public when folks came looking for missing domestic pets? The part about never scanning for electronic tags? The part where the shelter director chose which cats to keep based on how much $$ she could get for attractive or exotic looking types? The part about the employee who was shooting feral cats behind the shelter for what appears to be recreation? I say that if this place were audited, there would probably be even more sketchiness, if not outright illegality.

Daylight is the best disinfectant. And now I'm going to call my friend who used to work for the Baltimore Sun to find out who to refer this story to. Let's get busy, animal-loving peeps.

[Lori B]

AND THIS, from a reply posted to Del. Smigiel's blog:

I was on the board of the Cecil County SPCA in 2003. Jeanne Deeming, the Director, and Nancy Schwerzler, President of the Board, controlled the operations of the organization in a very secretive manner. When I pushed for greater transparency particularly in the financial area, I was told the information I was asking about was none of my business. When I continued to push the issue, they arranged to have me removed from the board that year. I am not surprised at what is surfacing.

See? They need an audit, one conducted like the financial equivalent of a body cavity search.

[libgrrl]

I'm not disagreeing that it looks like this shelter has its share of problems, and that the animals and the area would be better served getting rid of the current manager. From the description, I don't disagree! I'm just playing devil's advocate, largely because I think people have no idea about animal shelters sometimes, and expect far more than can be delivered. I think people need a dose of reality sometimes -- the Animal Planet shows have raised expectations far beyond what 99% of shelters can provide.

That said, "Lying" to people about their pets (and not holding them for the requisite three days) is unconscionable. Do they really charge different amounts for different cats? That doesn't seem right.

However, I can also vouche for the "scanning" issue. Sometimes the blasted things just don't read due to where they are placed, or if their reader needs new batteries, etc.

In addition -- w/regard to complaints about dirty cages -- I like this site as a response:
http://www.petfinder.com/journal/index.cgi?article=600

[Lori B]

It's not that the scanners didn't work, it's that the shelter director was flat out refusing to do it, according to past employees. I think that what we are hearing is just the tip of the iceberg. I wouldn't waste my 'this isn't really so bad' energy on this place if I were you, libgrrl. The finances of the place alone make it worth investigating, and if 1/3 of what is being alleged is true, they should all be fired and tried, at the very least. The website for the place has, on its home page, a panicked sounding and so badly spelled as to be hard to read denial by the Board President that rings completely untrue to me.

http://www.cecilcountyspca.org/index.html

The reason this gets to me so badly is that it would be one thing if Cecil Co. MD's shelter was your typical desperately underfunded rural hellhole. But there is no excuse for this to go on in a state as rich and (on average) well-educated as MD. And just like Fugly has observed time and again, after things blow up, folks come out of the woodwork saying how bad they had heard things were there, and years go by without anyone saying boo officially.

[MVR]

I think that this needs to go beyond local government. Get the government & authorities at a state level involved.

[Lori B]

Sent the story to the Baltimore Sun tips address, and actually got an answer, and looks like it may get some play.

Any luck on other fronts?

May, can you possibly explain how it has come to be that the County Commissioners in Cecil County awarded this contract to the current local SPCA? And be so kind as to pass on anything you understand about where the $$ comes from? Is it all county $$, therefore property tax revenue, or does some come from the State of MD? I wonder if someone could in the meantime force the County Commissioners to re-compete the contract for shelter operations, so that getting these folks out of the business of running the shelter wouldn't be dependent on getting a court case through against the shelter director and her staff.