Dogfight Over Animal Rescues
Groups Disagree About Bringing Puppies North

September 5, 2003
By CAROLYN MOREAU, Courant Staff Writer

Arlene Trollop loves to save doomed pets. In four years, her animal
shelter has found homes in New England for more than 5,000 puppies
and kittens from the southern states and Puerto Rico that would have
been euthanized.

When she attended an animal rescue conference this summer, Trollop
expected to be cheered for her efforts.

She found otherwise.

"I thought three people at the table were going to beat me up," said
Trollop, a dog and cat adoption counselor at the Animal Shelter Inc.,
in Sterling, Mass.

A schism has developed within the world of animal rescuers over the
practice of bringing puppies north for adoption. Some rescuers are
sharply critical of what they call an unregulated puppy railroad that
brings tens of thousands of unwanted dogs from the South to New
England each year.

Dozens of shelters and rescue organizations in the Northeast,
including at least nine in Connecticut, are involved in the practice.
Public awareness increased last month when a Kentucky evangelist was
arrested in Stratford after 11 puppies in a shipment of 69 animals he
was bringing north died.

Although defenders say bringing them north gives doomed animals their
only chance for a new life, others criticize the practice, arguing
that it hurts adoption prospects for New England dogs.

"There are enough dogs and cats in this state. We don't need to go
anywhere else," said Judy Levy, a longtime animal activist who runs
the Animal Friends of Connecticut shelter in New Britain. "If they
want to help, they should set up a clinic and spay and neuter dogs
down South so there aren't so many puppies."

The conflict intensified a couple of weeks ago, when New England
Border Collie Rescue announced it would boycott a big gathering of
dog rescuers at the Pet Rock music festival in Worcester, Mass.,
Sunday because the Sterling shelter is among the organizers.

"This is a humongous controversy," said Leigh Grady, director of the
Sterling shelter. "It has split rescue groups down the middle. People
are very opinionated about this."

At the heart of New England Border Collie Rescue's objection is the
belief southern pups are filling the shelters, making it impossible
for down-on-their-luck Yankee dogs to get space or find adoptive
homes. As a result, adult dogs from New England are euthanized,
border collie rescuers say.

In an e-mail to more than 100 rescue groups and festival sponsors,
Carole Presberg, president of the border collie group, said "...
Wouldn't it be more ethical to be taking care of problems in our area
and to insist that the people from other areas take care of their own?

"Dogs are not a wholesale commodity to be shipped in bulk and sold to
the first person who comes along with money in hand. If this is what
shelters and rescue groups are doing, then how is this different from
puppy mills and pet stores?" Presberg wrote.

Directors of the Animal Shelter Inc. in Sterling were so enraged at
being compared to puppy mills and pet stores that they hired an
attorney to demand a retraction.

"I have had death threats because of my stand against puppy mills and
pet stores," Grady said. "We all do what we feel is right."

In Sterling's case, that means accepting about 40, 10-week-old
puppies every Monday from a shelter in Virginia. The animals are
spayed and neutered in a canine pediatric operating room, and
released to new homes as soon as four hours later for a 0 fee.
There is usually a line of would-be puppy owners waiting for the
shelter to open at 11 a.m.

"Thirty-six pups came in (one) Tuesday. By Wednesday there were seven
pups left," Trollop said. "What gets them to line up is if we have
anything that is yellow that looks like a golden retriever or a
yellow lab."

Prospective owners from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New
Jersey and New York want to adopt these dogs because rescuers say
there is a shortage of mixed-breed puppies and small dogs in the
Northeast. "There are no puppies in New England, unless it is
something like pit bulls, because everybody has been very good about
getting dogs spayed and neutered," Trollop said.

But since the southern puppy rescues began in the past few years, it
has become harder to find homes for older dogs in New England, other
rescuers say.

"Every time a dog from the South is saved by a shelter or rescue
organization in the North, a dog from the North must be denied a
place, and that dog will likely be put down," Presberg said in the e-
mail.

But for Sterling directors, that's just discrimination against dogs
from the South, which has so many homeless dogs that shelters record
the total weight rather than the number of animals euthanized each
week.

"Should the geographical location of a pet determine whether that
animal is to live or die?" asked Grady. "I am very hurt she is saying
we should leave them down there to die."

A video story is available on www.ctnow.com

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