ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.

 

This site built and maintained by: GREANVILLE ASSOCIATESand CRESCENT COMMUNICATIONS •Rev. 12.1.05 Copyright ANIMAL PEOPLE, INC. 1992--2006

 

 

 

 

 
   

 
powered by FreeFind

ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: March 2008

"Right to rescue" cases in Michigan, Texas, and Ontario, Canada

The nationally publicized prosecution and sentencing of Dogs Deserve Better founder Tammy Grimes was only the most prominent of several similar cases attracting significant regional attention at almost the same time.

"Two dogs chained for five frigid weeks outside an abandoned home in Eaton County [Michigan] are now in compassionate hands at the Capital Area Humane Society," reported John Schneider of the Lansing State Journal on February 23, 2008. "After arguing with concerned neighbors for more than a month that he had no legal right to intervene, Eaton County Animal Control Director Larry Green seized the dogs Friday morning and delivered them to the humane society.

"Green had been telling residents urging him to act on behalf of the abandoned animals--and who, out of pity, had been giving them food and water--that as long as they were being fed and watered, Animal Control couldn't use 'neglect' as grounds for intervention," Schneider recounted.

The situation developed, Schneider explained on page one 24 hours earlier, when an elderly woman was removed from her condemned
and dilapidated home, which had no electricity and no running water. Alerted to the animals' plight by neighbor Tamara Curtis, Schneider wrote that "The dogs remained chained to posts in the backyard, where they stand in the snow and stare into space, like starving deer waiting to die. Frequently tangled chains make it impossible for the dogs to crawl into a makeshift shelter. The cats, looking more like roadkill than living creatures, roam the rural neighborhood, foraging in trash bins."

Summarized Schneider afterward, "Citizens outraged by the animal neglect launched a firestorm of protest, jamming the phones and e-mail boxes of the agencies involved, as well as the State Journal's." Said Green, "The prosecutor told me to remove them, and that he'd have the paperwork [for a warrant] done by the time I got back."

Other Michigan animal control and humane officers disagreed about the extent of their authority to impound animals in such situations. The Michigan Humane Society has impounded animals under similar circumstances for approximately 130 years.

Grace Saenz-Lopez, the ex-mayor of Alice, Texas, by all accounts did not bother with legalities in a case of alleged rescue theft for which she now faces felony charges of evidence tampering and concealing evidence. "I didn't steal the dog. I did not return him to save his life," Saenz-Lopez on Valentine's Day 2008 told the audience of NBC's Today show.

"The dispute began in July," summarized Associated Press,"when Rudy Gutierrez and Shelly Cavazos, asked Saenz-Lopez, their next door neighbor, to take care of their dog Puddles while they were on vacation. When they called to check on him, Saenz-Lopez told them Puddles had died and was buried in her yard. Three months later, a relative of the neighbors saw the pet at a dog groomer. When Saenz-Lopez refused to return the dog, the family filed a criminal complaint and a civil lawsuit against her.

"Saenz-Lopez later reported the dog missing, only to have Puddles turn up at the home of the mayor's twin sister. Saenz-Lopez resigned as mayor on February 1, 2008, after a recall petition was circulated in the South Texas town of fewer than 20,000 residents."

A pending Ontario case testing the limits of the ability of animal cruelty investigators' authority to seize animals appeared to turn in favor of Toronto Humane Society investigator Tre Smith in December 2007, after the Ontario SPCA allowed Smith to resume doing cruelty law enforcement.

Smith, 36, on July 31, 2007 broke the window of an SUV to rescue a Rottweiler he believed was in imminent danger from overheating. "As Smith tried to rehydrate the canine," recounted Toronto Star staff reporter Michele Henry, he was accosted by car owner Paul Soderholm. "While each tells a different versions of the events that ensued," Henry wrote, "it is indisputable that Smith handcuffed Soderholm to his vehicle," and called police to pick Soderholm up, before rushing the dog to a veterinary hospital."When Smith left," Henry added, "two bystanders beat up Soderholm."

Soderholm was charged with cruelty, and his assailants were charged with assault, reported Timothy Appleby of the Toronto Globe
& Mail.

Ontario SPCA chief inspector Hugh Coghill told Theresa Boyle of the Toronto Star that none of the other 170 humane agencies in the province allow their inspectors to use handcuffs.