12/25/10 REPLY BY HSUS AL STATE DIRECTOR
[Below the dashed line is the text of a 12/25/10 reply by Mindy Gilbert (Alabama State Director of the Humane Society of the United States) to an email I had forwarded to make sure she was aware of the Sandra Nathan article in the Examiner.com (Mobile, (12/24/10): "HSUS sends Alabama dogs to NC gassing facility, Lincoln County Animal Services" >>> .
-- Stan Spangler, ed.]
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Here is a response I sent out yesterday-
Hello Wendy,
I am happy to give you a bit of accurate information about the Marshall County Dogs. An individual in Georgia asked for any assistance that I might give as the result of a hoarding situation in Alabama. The hoarder was his sister, who was living with her elderly mother and aunt. At his request I traveled to their home and met with them. The 44 chow x retriever dogs in the back yard were unsocial, inbred, unvetted, unaltered and although were being provided with food and water to the best of the owner abilities, were in fact injuring and killing each other. They were loose in a large fenced area and had developed true pack behavior. The owner insisted that the only reason she had them was because the rednecks in Alabama didn’t know how to care for animals properly (her words). There is not an animal shelter in Marshall County. The reality is that all of the dogs were basically offspring of a few dogs that she originally owned. The dogs were surrendered and we had them heartworm checked, vaccinated, wormed, frontlined and health certificates issued for them to be transported to adoption programs.
Some of the dogs went to a humane society and to a rescue group in Nashville, some went to a rescue group in Georgia and 10 went to the shelter in NC. The NC shelter is large, clean and has a large volunteer base. They have worked closely in the past with our NC State Director. The dogs are walked every day by volunteers. Since we knew that these dogs needed a lot of socialization, we appreciated their offer to help. They also placed slightly over 1,000 animals last year through their rescue contacts. It is my understanding that one of the dogs bit a caregiver and one shut down and was not responding to care. Since there have now been allegations of wrongdoing at the shelter, the dogs have been moved. We cannot substantiate any of the allegations, however.
We did not do any local media on this case in order to protect the elderly family members, for whom the hoarder is the primary caregiver. I hope that you will respect that .
I am happy that HSUS was able to assist animals in need in an underserved county in Alabama. We placed the dogs with adoption partners that were willing to give this difficult population of dogs a chance at being adopted.
You are welcome to contact me at any time with any questions you may have,
Happy Holidays,
Mindy Gilbert
Sandra never contacted me to ask about this situation. I have spoken to Rhonda Parker about it, but I fear the damage is done. I will spend today trying to answer some of the most hateful e mails I have ever received. Unfortunately the results of this kind of thing are twofold: people won’t want to adopt from shelters and partner shelters won’t want to help needy animals.
Thanks Stan-
Happy Howlidays
Mindy Gilbert
Her contact information:
mgilbert@humanesociety.org
t 205-471-5541