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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: January/February 2008

Dogs Deserve Better founder to be sentenced after Have A Heart for Chained Dogs Week

 

HOLIDAYSBURG, Pa. -- Tammy Grimes, 43, who founded the anti-chaining organization Dogs Deserve Better in 2002, will celebrate Valentine's Day 2008 by coordinating her 6th annual "Have A Heart for Chained Dogs Week," which annually delivers valentines and treats to as many as 8,000 dogs who live their lives on chains.

Grimes will then be sentenced on February 22 for theft and receiving stolen property.

Grimes on September 11, 2006 removed an elderly and apparently painfully dying dog from the yard of Steve and Lori Arnold of East Freedom, Pennsylvania, after the Central Pennsylvania SPCA failed to respond to repeated calls about the dog from neighbor Kim Eichner. Grimes took the dog to the office of Altoona veterinarian Noureldin Hassane, who testified that he found the dog was in extremis. Later Grimes took the dog from the clinic and placed him in a foster home for the remainder of his life. He died on March 1, 2007.

Central Pennsylvania SPCA officer Paul Gutshall testified that he warned Grimes to leave the dog with Hassane, for return to the Arnolds. Gutshall and the Arnolds contended that that dog, though kept on a chain outside, was not criminally neglected. Grimes contended that she should be found innocent because removing the dog was a "crime of necessity," committed to prevent a greater harm. Grimes' case was handicapped when Blair County Judge Elizabeth Doyle refused to allow her to show video of the dog's condition when taken.

Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio asserted on the first day of the trial that, "We are here because of vigilantism. Grimes set herself up as judge, jury, and executioner."

Wrote Phil Ray of the Altoona Mirror, "The prosecution claimed that Grimes may have had an ulterior motive. Altoona Detective Scott Koehle testified that Grimes was linked to at least three web sites and was selling an artistic creation depicting a concerned Grimes peering at two superimposed photos of the dog hooked to his chain in the Arnolds' yard. Koehle said Grimes also was linked to a site selling pictures of the dog on T-shirts, sweat shirts and men's underwear."

While Grimes and Dogs Deserve Better enjoyed a burst of publicity from the case, Grimes was at the time receiving only a part-time wage from Dogs Deserve Better, and was making ends meet as a part-time assistant web site developer for ANIMAL PEOPLE. She left her ANIMAL PEOPLE position to work fulltime for Dogs Deserve Better at the end of 2007.

Grimes was convicted on December 14, 2007 after a three-day jury trial.