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The small white dog was brought to Dr. Paul Orsini, a veterinary dental specialist, in early October. Orsini took one look in the poodle's mouth and saw disaster.
"It's teeth were all broken off," said Orsini, who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and works in private practice in Philadelphia and Delaware. "All four of its canine teeth, and all its incisors, were clean fractures; they'd probably been like that for a few months or a year."
Someone either broke the dog's teeth, or the dog — upset at being in a cage — snapped them off herself, chewing on the wire. Infection had moved to the dog's facial bones, said Orsini; in a surgery lasting more than three hours, he pulled them.
"It's such a sweet dog," he said of the animal, a poodle. "That's what's so upsetting about this."
Orsini was one of several vets that examined dogs that originated in Lancaster County but were sold in early October at an Ohio auction house, as local breeders prepared to downsize to comply with Pennsylvania's new dog laws. Twelve of the animals were purchased by Main Line Animal Rescue and the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; the SPCA has charged six local breeders with cruelty after veterinarians identified the animals as suffering from disease and neglect.
Two of the breeders charged, interviewed by the Sunday News, insist that their dogs were in good condition, and in fact had been examined by veterinarians prior to the sale. They see the charges as just another step in a campaign by animal-rights extremists to marginalize and criminalize breeders.
But Bill Smith, of Main Line Animal Rescue, who launched the dramatic, almost impromptu "rescue," said he felt as if he had no choice but to act.
"If [state officials] are not going to step up and do their jobs," he said, "I feel like we have to do it for them."
Tougher laws"It" was almost something out of a cable TV movie.
Pennsylvania's new dog laws, some of the toughest in the country, went into effect Oct. 9. Among the provisions are rules requiring breeders to increase cage sizes and provide an attached "run" so dogs can get exercise. Dogs must receive regular veterinary care and have access to water at all times. Cages can't be stacked, and dogs can't be kept on wire flooring. And any kennel housing 25 dogs during a year must be licensed and inspected.
"These are huge improvements," said Jessie L. Smith, special deputy secretary for the Pennsylvania Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement.
As a result, she said, many breeders are getting out of the business (see related story, this page). Many of those shutting down are in Lancaster County, the dog-breeding capital of the state; and 12 of those breeders decided to dispose of their surplus dogs by sending them to auction at Farmerstown Sale Barn in Baltic, Ohio, on Oct. 7 — two days before the new laws took effect.
Ella Mae Zimmerman was one of them. "I sold 27 dogs," said Zimmerman, owner of REZ Kennels in New Holland. "They were all pets, and it literally broke my heart to do it. I worked with them every day, they had all their vaccines."
Animal activists around the country knew the auction was coming up; information about it had been posted online weeks before it was scheduled. At a meeting in Harrisburg Sept. 30 with officials from the Bureau of Dog Law and shelters from across the state, Bill Smith demanded that Pennsylvania officials take action.
"But basically all [the state] did was push the safe harbor program," which allows breeders to surrender sick dogs without penalty. "We felt like that was a joke," Bill Smith said.
He said state officials also said they were going to meet with the breeders' lobbyist, and would call after the meeting took place. No call ever came, he said. "I was frustrated."
Jessie Smith, of the Bureau of Dog Law, remembers the meeting a little differently. It's not illegal, she noted, for breeders to ship dogs across state lines for sale. Instead, state officials contacted the 12 sellers on the list and asked if they would give the dogs they had listed for auction to a Pennsylvania shelter or rescue instead. Some of the breeders, she said, ultimately decided not to sell their dogs, though none surrendered them.
Had they, Jessie Smith maintains the "safe harbor" approach was imperative: "If you ask [a breeder] to give up a sick dog and they do, and then you charge them with cruelty, it ends the idea that anyone is going to voluntarily give their dog to shelters or a rescue," she said.
She also said everyone at the meeting agreed that "we didn't want to send anybody out to the auction to buy the dogs," because the more rescuers who show up at auction to buy dogs, the higher it sends the price of the animals.
But Bill Smith had his own ideas.
About 48 hours before the auction was to take place, he called Harrise Yaron, a member of the board of directors of the Pennsylvania SPCA. "He said we've got to do something," Yaron said. Main Line Animal Rescue didn't have the legal authority to file cruelty charges; the SPCA does.
So Bill Smith, with the help of a Main Line Animal Rescue board member, got hold of a private jet to fly himself and a forensic veterinarian to Ohio; the SPCA "went out with our trucks, and drove all night to purchase the dogs in the morning," Yaron said.
Smith declined to elaborate on the condition of the dogs except to say that "they were in pretty bad shape. ... I can't tell you how horrendous conditions were [at the sale], crates stacked to the ceiling, and the dogs were terrified and filthy."
Smith said nearly 400 dogs were put up for sale; Main Line Animal Rescue and the SPCA bought 12. Jessie Smith disputed that figure, saying that after several local breeders pulled their dogs, at the state's behest, the number sold was closer to 287.
Bill Smith's vet examined some of the dogs; the SPCA brought others back to Pennsylvania, driving through the night and arriving in Philadelphia at 4 a.m. to have the dogs examined quickly — so cruelty charges could be filed as deemed necessary.
Orsini was one of the vets who examined the animals. In addition to the poodle, he saw a pug with two teeth so rotted "that there were canals going up into its nose, and every time he ate or drank, he'd get the food or water into his nose, and sneeze." Surgery was performed, and Orsini again saw the dog a week later: "He was so happy, because he'd probably had a constant headache for months, and now it was gone."
Other dogs weren't as bad, he said, but he said the poodle's and pug's conditions could not have developed over the course of a few days or weeks: "We're talking months or years," Orsini said.
The SPCA filed animal cruelty charges against Zimmerman, along with Nathan Myer, of Lititz; Loren Nolt, of East Earl; James Zimmerman, of Ephrata; Steve Stoltzfus, of Gap; and John S. Fisher, of Gordonville.
Attempts to contact some of the breeders for comment were unsuccessful. A woman answering the phone at the Nolt home said she would pass on the message, but the call was not returned; neither was a recorded message left at the Fisher residence.
There was no answer at phones listed to James Zimmerman and Stoltzfus.
But Myer and Ella Mae Zimmerman did talk, with both saying they feel they were unfairly targeted, and that the dogs they sold at auction were in good shape.
"They were seen by two vets before the auction," said Nathan Myer of his dogs. He's pleading not guilty to the charges, "and I am not guilty. There just doesn't seem to be any justice as far as I'm concerned."
"It upset me greatly," said Ella Mae Zimmerman of the charges filed against her. "This is not something I get rich in; I enjoy working with the puppies, and the dogs were in good condition."
She too is pleading not guilty. "Had I not been forced [by the new state laws] to do this, I would have kept them," she said.
If convicted, the kennel operators could have their licenses revoked for 10 years. But ironically, said Dog Law's Jessie Smith, four of the six cited — Myer, Stoltzfus, James Zimmerman and Fisher — "are actually closing; they've sent in their closing documents to us."
Jessie Smith said she didn't know Bill Smith and the SPCA had bought the dogs, and brought charges, until she read about it in the Philadelphia Inquirer Nov. 21. And she worries that in the long run, actions like this could do as much to harm dogs as help them.
"There are many rescues around the state that are working to take dogs from breeding kennels that are closing," she said. "This could be counterproductive."
But Bill Smith said he's grown tired of waiting. "If we had waited around, nothing would have happened. At least we saved 12 dogs."
Noting that 184 of nearly 300 commercial kennel operators have filed a request for waivers of up to three years on the new dog law, he asked: "What's the point of all our hard work? The governor ought to be ashamed. October 9 came and went, and at this point I'm a little disgusted."
And ready to do it again.
"We're going to have another private plane fly out there to buy their dogs" if there's another out-of-state auction for breeders, he said.
"And we're encouraging other people in other states to do the same thing."
Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. E-mail him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817.
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