May 2016
The Snowball of April is now the Ollie of May. In other words, Snowball moved to SeaTac to live with Erin and Tom, who named him Ollie. Sometimes dogs are meant to be part of a family, and it happened with lucky Ollie. He came back to us for two weeks so his new sister Abby could recover from knee surgery; when they left him, he had lived there for less than a week, but his eyes were on them as they left. When they came back for him, we thought he might turn inside out with happiness. Dogs have a way of telling us when things are what they want. Ollie is a very fortunate dog to have everything in his life he could ask for.
Early this month many Samoyed Rescue groups around the country heard from a small shelter in Wisconsin. They were about to visit a breeder and seize a large number of Samoyeds and they didn’t have the resources to handle them. Northwest Samoyed Rescue formed a quick alliance with three other groups, Playing Again Sams of Wisconsin, Denver Samoyed Rescue, and MidAtlantic Samoyed Rescue (the latter being the group that took three dozen Sammies in late 2011). We have all worked together before in different ways, and we made an offer to the shelter to help pay for boarding for all the dogs. They are a poor county and their animal control doesn’t have much budget.
It was done with a lot of secrecy. Things like this have a way of finding drama, and then swarms of good Samaritans who call the shelter, and then confusion, and finally things fall apart because shelter staff don’t have time (years ago a shelter put down a dog because they didn’t have time to talk to all the people who called, and we don’t want that to ever happen again). The day before they were scheduled to visit, the very large Wisconsin Humane Society stepped in and agreed to house all the dogs. The shelter agreed.
On the day of the visit, WI Humane came along. The breeder, who had first been visited two months ago and given time to correct bad conditions, had made most of those corrections. New kennels, cleaning, and better facilities meant no citations. She agreed to surrender a dozen dogs we were told were “unlicensed,” and the press release said she did it willingly because she was overwhelmed.
From the time we were contacted until the morning after the visit to the breeder, we understood we would be paying the boarding and would be able to place the dogs. We were looking for options to transport the dogs west (wherever we could get a driver or a cooperating airline). We spent several days trying to make contacts. At the very least we expected to send people who were waiting for dogs to Milwaukee. Maria, from the Wisconsin rescue group, tried to warn us about the HS, saying they don’t work well with rescues. And she was right. When they took the dogs, their intent was always to adopt them themselves, and to the first people who showed up with money. Their rates are far higher than any rescue would ever charge. No doubt it’s the reason they have assets of 22 million dollars.
For us, and the other rescues, it’s disappointing we aren’t able to help our applicants find dogs. It’s frustrating we can’t ensure these beautiful dogs are treated like the unique breed they are. Although our lives got easier, someone said something that made us stop and think. They compared some large Humane Societies to backyard breeders. They both profess love for dogs, but then sell to whomever shows up with the money. They don’t qualify buyers, they give only routine medical care, and they don’t know the breed. Playing Again Sams, the long-time and well-respected Samoyed Rescue group in Wisconsin, is almost certainly going to see some of these dogs again someday because they will be badly placed. And the bottom line is that we can’t do a thing about it.
None of us in rescue have mentioned the breeder’s name, and you won’t see it here. It was a hoarding situation, caused as most are by things that just got out of control. Hoarding is a mental illness and we hope she gets help for it. We’re going to try to stay in contact with the shelter we heard from first, and in the future we will help only under very controlled conditions.
It’s been an adventure this month.