Retail Rescue Fuels Deadly Diseases

Retail rescue is a multi-billion dollar phenomenon that most people are not aware of.  When people think if animal rescue, they think of a group of ladies just trying to save a dog or cat from a "high kill" shelter and they are anxious to help.  The problem comes in when tens of thousands of fake rescues form in America to take advantage of non-profit tax laws and turn themselves into pawn shops for pets.  Importers bring shipments of up to eighty puppies a month into states, charging up to $850 each in so called "adoption" fees for animals who have not been "saved" from anything.  Today, if you buy an animal from a shelter or rescue it is 100% buyer beware.  I guarantee that you will be lied to about the animals age, health, and history.  

If that wasn't bad enough, problems come when these flippers are so anxious to make a tax-free buck that they skimp on standards of care and shuffle animals through as quickly as possible.  Any "issues" the animal has will be blamed on whatever horrific sob story the rescue saddled the poor animal with. Shippers ship in dogs that are underage and not old enough to be separated from their mothers. The puppies are ripped away from their mothers too young, giving them lifelong behavior problems that can’t be cured.  Puppies as young as three to five weeks are routinely passed off as much older.  Outbreaks of deadly diseases are also rampant.

In the middle of August 2014, the shit hit the fan with multiple deadly outbreaks occurring simultaneously nationwide.  Shelters and rescues were shut down to multiple parvo, distemper, ringworm, and other serious disease outbreaks.   All of which they blamed on the public instead of themselves.  In the Washington, DC area, a Virginia shelter adopted out a rabid cat and sold off her rabies exposed kittens.  The Fairfax County Animal Shelter sold seven of the ten kittens, including one sold out of the area, before the foster caretaker of the mother cat was bitten. When rabies tests came back positive the shelter had to track down all the kittens it had sold while they downplayed the public risk in the media.  

At the same time, the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem, Massachusetts closed down to due a parvo outbreak. Even while they had puppies dying around them, they still found the time to post a brag that they had sold 17 puppies on August 9th alone.  No dog breeder ever sells 17 dogs in a single day.  Just where are these shelters getting all these dogs?  I'll tell you where they get them:  Northeast imports hundreds of dogs from Puerto Rico and almost a thousand more from southern states every year.  Why is Northeast importing and reselling hundreds of animals every month?  

Meanwhile, in Brunswick, Maine, the Coastal Humane Society had an outbreak of Ringworm that shut their shelter down.  Of course those dogs weren't from Maine anymore than Northeast's dogs were from Massachusetts, they were from Coastal's latest shipment from Alabama.  Coastal gets in regular shipments from Georgia and Alabama through the "Puppy Pipeline." What is this? The Puppy Pipeline is simply an animal shipment company that ships puppies for profit.  They tell the public that they have saved these animals from a "high kill southern shelter" and that "these dogs were scheduled to be euthanized" to ramp up the pathos and get you to open your wallet.   What they don't tell you is that the Georgia shelter they get their animals through imports them from the Bahamas. That dog you bought from Coastal to "save" it, was more than likely bred in the Bahamas, not the United States.  In the Bahamas and many other foreign countries, they are deliberately breeding dogs for the American "rescue" market.  That dog you bought wasn't saved from anything. Instead it was bred to be saved. 

Check out this statement from the animal transport company that named itself the cutesy name of "Puppy Pipeline."

"We are a "Shelter 2 Shelter full van load" canine rescue transport service. We specialize in "full loads" of dogs & puppies, we emphasize "numbers" rather than individual dogs. We employ a fleet of three vans, that crisscross the Northeast and Upper Midwest delivering 11th hour, doomed dogs & puppies to no kill shelters that will find them their loving forever homes."

Read between the lines.  They only ship "full loads" of dogs.  Their emphasize is on "numbers."  IE:  Their bottom line.  Full vans make them more money than empty vans.  Transport vans and trucks like Puppy Pipeline crisscross this nation shipping dogs and cats all over, frequently with no care given to the animals along the way.  They are simply cargo for profit.  The dogs get no rest breaks, no walks during multiple state journeys, none.  Anything that happens to the animal during the transport is simply added to the sob story you get told when you buy it. 

Greater Androscoggin Humane Society also had an outbreak of parvo that shut down their dog park. Coming as no surprise, Greater Androscoggin is a massive animal trafficker.  Androscoggin regularly sells dozens of dogs and cats in a single day.  Just a few weeks ago they boasted that on June 15th, they sold 23 dogs and puppies, and on June 17th, they sold 34 animals in a single day.  How on earth does this shelter manage to get its hands on so much product for resale?  Androscoggin uses an animal transport company called "Road Trip Home Animal Rescue" that ships bulk loads of puppies and kittens from Georgia north every single week to Androscoggin.  Where are all these puppies and kittens coming from?  They are more than likely being deliberately bred for the rescue trade.  Locals in the south report that their shelters are empty or full of pitbulls, not puppies and kittens.

The Humane Society of Northwest Louisiana published a sob story that they may have to close their doors unless the public gives them more money after they cared for 17 dogs with parvo. Give us money, they bang their drums.  The Fayette SPCA in Pennsylvania had 10 dogs drop dead in less than two weeks and by August 8th, the state had put the shelter under quarantine. The shelter of course blamed the public for their problems and said it was only "kennel cough."  The PA Department of Agriculture pointed out that the shelter was filthy and had just been issued a bad inspection on July 16th.  The inspectors found that shelter workers could not be bothered to separate deadly ill dogs from healthy dogs, and one dog enclosure was so small that a dog could not stand in a normal position.  The food they were feeding the animals was moldy and exposed to chemicals, and the entire facility was infested with insects.  If you read the comments on this article, apparently deadly parvo outbreaks passed off as "kennel cough" are common and complaints have been made about this shelter for up to two decades.

The animals could have canine parvovirus, intestinal parasites 

or canine infectious respiratory disease complex, 

said Samantha Elliott Krepps, department spokeswoman.

The Amarillo-Panhandle Humane Society in Texas had to give refunds to 20 people after dogs they bought from the Humane Society died of distemper. At the same time, a dog purchased from the Amarillo Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, also died of distemper. Meanwhile, two dogs died of distemper that were purchased from the Miami, Florida area Animal Welfare Society.  Florida and Texas rescues and shelters also import dogs.

The Little Orphan Animal Rescue of Wisconsin reported that they had six puppies with parvo, one of which had already died. Funny enough, while they admitted they imported the animals from Ohio, they asked the public for "help" in paying for all their medical bills and of course they promoted that the main message of this incident is more "adopting" of animals in need. Really? How about helping animals in Wisconsin instead of shipping in sick animals from out of state? Why should the public bail out this rescue for its own irresponsible behavior?  They deliberately brought in dogs that they thought would sell better and make them more money than helping dogs in Wisconsin, (and made up a sad sob story about them being abandoned and on death row) and in doing so, they imported disease into the state.  Why should anyone give them money?  To add to the pathos, in this sob story, the rescue claims their president put her own home on the line to pay for these puppies.  Tough!  You get caught importing animals into the state to inflate your numbers and give yourself more product to sell off, then you pay the price.  The cost of their medical care is your own responsibility, not the publics!

Meanwhile in Connecticut, importers brought in at least 14,138 animals that state officials know of, that came from 30 different states with dozens of documented diseases.

"It was kind of a free for all. Anybody could come in adopt animals and go. 

They would set up in a parking lot anywhere in the state on a Saturday and 

put a sign out and say we have dogs for adoption. People would pay [cash]

 for the dogs and the people were gone,” said Connors, 

“That’s no more than dog trafficking at that point is what I feel."

 Connecticut Department of Agriculture spokesman Ray Connors.

The 14 thousand are only those that Connecticut knows about. These animal traffickers are hard to catch because they are shipping animals over the borders of states by every route possible, with animals hidden in private vehicles, and using one of dozens of new transport companies that have sprung up.  What many of these stories of horrific disease outbreaks have in common is animal trafficking for profit.  These stories are only a small recap of what has happened in America in the last three weeks.  Imagine what is happening in this country yearly.  When these retail rescue outfits traffic animals for profit, they put the health of the rest of our animals at risk.