20/20 UNDERCOVER - SPCA STEALS ANIMALS

As John Stossel reports, the breeders were anything but show breeders but the 98 dogs confiscated from a one-woman, non-breeding rescue facility were healthy, wagging, and well socialized.  The Arabian horses were sleek and healthy except for one aged horse with eating problems.

Dateline 2005 Houston TX - In the televised "rescue" situation, SPCA workers picked up the dogs and held them close in their arms. As Stossel pointed out, there were no “urine soaked” or “feces covered” dogs as had been represented in order to persuade the judge to issue the warrants. What the report did not state was whether the same judge issued repeated warrants, and what recourse injured parties have, including the (possibly) judge. Will the judge take action against the SPCA director or is she complicit?

The Texas ringleader was clearly using the law to steal dogs from innocent owners and independent rescue people. The story really played the emotions, from sadness and sympathy for the owners, to outrage against the SPCA, and finally to fear in the minds of anyone who owns more than a couple of registered animals.

The Arabian horse owner went to court and was able to get back some of his valuable horses but most had been sold off, on the spot, the day the SPCA swooped down on him with buyers and a local TV crew. It was obviously an orchestrated raid. The horses had been numbered with prepared sales stickers According to the distraught owner, people took their pick (for a price) of his precious, high quality horses.

A big, smiling, soft-spoken director led the raid executed by his volunteers and uniformed animal control officers, pulling in with expensive, glitzy enclosed SPCA embossed trailers that proclaimed the “officialness” of his mission. His salary is $80,000 per year. We assume he is his own not-for-profit and therefore, raking in a lot of money through the sale of confiscated purebred animals and donations.

Says Stossel "I thought they were heroic animal rescuers, but some animal owners say they act like petty tyrants, confiscating animals that aren't in trouble. The SPCAs are not police agencies, but they are given the authority to act like it. Animal owners tell us SPCAs abuse their power to steal people's animals."

Hats Off to ABC for exposing a powerful money-making racket that is more common than anyone would have suspected. Stossel pointed out this was not the NY based ASPCA. Grateful Letters to ABC would do no harm!

Feb. 21, 2006 - HBO's Premier Show America Undercover revealed the horror of "dog bunchers" and USDA dealers who buy dogs from illegal sources and sell them to research labs - if they survive. What does this have to do with BBR? Because one of the most notorious Class B dealers--Martin Creek Kennels in Arkansas is shown buying and keeping dogs in excruciating violation of the USDA Animal Welfare Amendment regulations after he was under Federal investigation. So much for PAWS - an amendment to the AWA regulation - proven to be consistently and flagrantly unenforced! 

Dogs were video taped in the most inhumane conditions, starving, freezing, dying. Just one heart-wrenching example of why PAWS will not change anything except political futures and why the BREEDER BILL OF RIGHTS adamantly opposes PAWS and meaningless regulations that do nothing to protect the animals.

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