Once the sheriff’s deputies were within 100 feet of the May Creek home near Gold Bar in which they’d been told was a puppy mill, they could smell a strong, pungent odor. Inside, the smell was nearly too much to bear.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Inside, more than 150 dogs were caged in very bad conditions, police and animal control officers said, forced to breed repeatedly for the price the puppies would bring. All were filthy. Some were found with serious birth defects such as missing ear canals, perhaps due to overbreeding. Many had been “de-barked,” their vocal cords clipped to keep them quieter. Other dogs were found in the freezer, where the owners put them to silently kill them.
Now the survivors, mostly small breeds, are at the Everett Animal Shelter, where director George “Bud” Wessman is trying to deal with the logistics of housing and feeding 155 (and growing) very needy dogs.
Rehab
When the dogs arrived at the shelter Friday, Jan. 16, Wessman was there, and he was appalled. “The smell was overwhelming,” he said. “You couldn’t believe how bad it was.”
The dogs had been housed in tiny crates and cages, sometimes in an inch or more of urine and feces. Their fur was filthy and matted, their skin was sometimes ulcerous, some were sick.
And there was another condition affecting many of the dogs; 75% were female, and most of those were pregnant.
Wessman knuckled down for the biggest job he’d faced in his five years as a shelter director. “We’ve never had anything thing this big or this bad since I’ve been here,” he said.
So he and volunteers put the dogs four or five to a large kennel of 32 square feet, by far the most spacious digs the dogs had ever had. Then they made room in the banks of cat cages at the shelter, perfectly sized for a miniature dog of the kind the puppy mill on May Creek Road bred. And they filled an isolation room with the pregnant dogs.
The second day the dogs were there, a terrier gave birth. Two days later, a little Cairn terrier had puppies. Four more litters are due this week.
Throughout last week, dog groomers came in to shear the matted fur from the dogs and give them basic grooming. Most dogs will struggle against grooming, but not these ones, said Wessman.
“Eighty percent of them will just sit there,” he said, saying they seem to be glad to be rid of the tangled, malodorous fur.
Puppy Mills
As horrific as the condition was in which the dogs were kept, that’s a way of doing business for puppy mills, said Wessman.
The primary goal of a puppy mill is to sell as many expensive puppies as possible.
Dogs of the kind found in the May Creek house, mostly miniature breeds such as terriers and “min-pins,” or miniature Doberman pinschers, sell for up to $2,000 each. So the owners packed as many in the house as they could, cramming three or four each into transport cages, according to Wessman.
The females were kept pregnant as much as their bodies would bear. In order to escape detection, the dogs had their vocal cords clipped to prevent them from barking. Puppies born with defects or for other reasons unsalable were killed silently by being placed in the freezer. Some were born with ear canals or had missing limbs.
Deformed females are sometimes kept for breeding in mills such as these, said Wessman. Males are more often destroyed.
Yet the buyers of puppies from mills usually never have any idea of the conditions under which the puppies were born. “The puppies will get moved to a nice house, a beautiful home, they’ll clean them up, perfume them,” said Wessman.
AKC papers are no guarantee a puppy is from a healthy, safe home, he added. “Papers just mean they went down and filed some papers,” he said.
In fact, merely having a puppy mill isn’t a crime, noted Jenny Fraley, operations manager at Pasado’s Safe Haven, a Sultan shelter whose owners have worked to secure legislation against animal cruelty. And so far the owners of the house haven’t been arrested. But animal cruelty is a felony, thanks in part to efforts of Pasado’s Safe Haven owners.
Investigations are ongoing; last two more houses were searched in Snohomish in connection with the case. No further dogs have been seized, although one home contained 39 dogs.
Public response
In the wake of the raid, public response has been enormous, said Wessman. “The public has been fantastic,” he said. People donated so much food they had to find extra storage to hold it all.
And already there is a waiting list of people wishing to adopt the dogs, once police release them.
But adoptions will at times be tricky, said Wessman. “A lot of them can’t be around children,” he said. “And some, like the hairless Chinese crested dogs, have far more unique needs than most families can handle.”
Those interested in making donations of food or finances, or who wish to adopt a dog, may contact the Everett Animal Shelter at (425) 257-6000.
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