Pet Abuse web site
Pet-Abuse.Com is a non-profit organization that provides FREE online
resources to empower animal welfare organizations and rescues to make
informed decisions about adoption applicants by performing criminal
background searches on potential volunteer and adoption candidates.
You may have followed the movements of Shon Rahrig, convicted animal
abuser. Rahrig started in Ohio where he adopted several cats from a
local shelter and then brutally tortured them by cutting their paws
off and poking their eyes out with sticks. Rahrig was later sighted
in Southern California at an adoption event, and is now known to have
relocated to Fort Myers, Florida. Rahrig has been able to slip under
the radar of the shelters in the towns he has lived in because there
was no way to track abusers from state to state.
Another example is animal abuser Stephen Barry King, who started his
legacy of abuse in Portland, Oregon and has gone as far as relocating
to London, England - where he was convicted of animal abuse crimes.
Other abusers have attempted to adopt from shelters in their own areas
using slightly altered spellings of their name to avoid being
identified as a convicted animal abuser. Pet-Abuse.Com is working
towards providing your organization with tools to prevent repeat
abusers from being able to adopt from you.
What We Do
Our organization tracks, documents and reports criminal animal abuse
and abusers. We provide this information in a searchable online
database. We currently have over 1000 criminal cases documented in
our database within the United States alone, and over 900 abusers.
There is absolutely no charge for shelters and rescue groups to use
this resource - and there never will be. Your animal welfare
organization works hard for every penny you bring in to fund your own
projects to benefit animals in need, so we find alternate ways to
fund our project in order to ensure that cost will be never be a
prohibiting factor.
Our database covers ALL criminal animal abuse (including wildlife,
farmed animals and companion animals) because as they say - its not
the species, but rather the nature of the crimes.
Our website allows you to:
* Perform phonetic searches on potential adoption applicant's names to
check for a criminal history of animal abuse.
* Access real-time statistical graphs that display important
information about patterns regarding age, gender, and the clearly
established connection between animal abuse and violence towards
humans.
* Follow the progress of specific cases through our CaseWatch feature.
When we post an update (such as a conviction, sentencing, trial date,
etc)to a case that you have selected to be notified about, you will
be emailed letting you know that we have added an update to the case.
* Enhance your own website with our Dot Org Workshop website tools,
including a Euthanasia Counter, a live animal abuse case news feed
that displays the most recent animal abuse cases in your region on
your website, a Responsible Pet Owners Test and more.
* Speak to us directly online using our one-on-one Live Support chat.
We are available almost 24/7 to answer your questions or help you
find the information you are seeking.
We are funded solely by donations from the public and from our own
pockets. We will never charge any fee for animal welfare
organizations to have access to the information we provide. The fact
is - our resources are useless unless shelters and rescues are
actively using it.
How to Get Started
Getting started is easy - there is no software to install, and no
special access codes to use - simply log on to our website at www.pet-
abuse.com. The animal abuse database can be accessed by clicking on
the "Abuse Database" option in the navigation bar.
What We Ask In Return
The only things we ask in return for the information we provide are:
* Spread the word! Share this resource with your other local animal
welfare organizations. The more this database is used, the more
effective it will be at preventing abusers from having easy access to
adopting or "rescuing" animals. The backbone of this project is
forged from animal welfare organizations and concerned citizens
working together to put an end to animal abuse.
* Share your local case information with us! If you work directly (or
indirectly for that matter) with a humane law enforcement
organization or animal control department, encourage them to contact
us and share their cases so that everyone can share this information.
If you hear of new criminal animal abuse cases (or updates to cases
already listed in the database) in your area, let us know. The more
case information we have, the better this resource will be.
You can find out more about the information we require in order to
submit a case to the animal abuse here:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/database/caseinfo.php
We hope that you will take advantage of the free services and
resources we offer. Please feel free to call (858-792-7813) or email
us with any questions. (Note: Because of the volatile nature of our
website content, we do not provide our phone number on the website.)
If you choose not to use our resources, but feel that our cause is
worthwhile, we hope that you encourage people to consider donating to
our organization so that we may continue to provide resources to the
animal welfare and rescue community.
If you are already using the Pet-Abuse.Com database, please forgive
this intrusion. This is a one-time mailing being sent out simply to
spread the word about the abuse database project, and you will not be
emailed again unless you sign up for our newsletter. The more
organizations that are using this system, the more effective it will
be. If your organization doesn't feel that our services are a good
match, please feel free to forward this on to any other rescue,
shelter, or humane law enforcement organizations that you feel may
want to participate. We had considered sending this announcement out
via postal mail, but would rather use the money spent on printing and
postage towards furthering the technology and features offered by our
organization.
Thank you for all of the wonderful humane work that you do! If there
is ever anything we can do to assist you, please let us know! Be sure
to add your organization's website link to our resource directory as
well - you can find that here: http://www.pet-abuse.com/resources/
- Alison L. Gianotto, Director
agianotto@pet-abuse.com
www.pet-abuse.com
Jeanne Knudson
http://crest-care.com/
Treasurer
Coordinator, District 2
Posted on SHARE Yahoo group Apr 11, 2003