Category: Grrr

If Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle Cares About Animals, He Should Resign

FEB. 2, 2018 UPDATE: Wayne Pacelle did the right thing — today he announced his resignation as CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

I’m a longtime supporter of the Humane Society of the United States, which has done an exceptional job in helping to eliminate puppy mills, cracking down on dog-fighting operations and assisting pets affected by natural disasters.

At the same time, I’m not a fan of its CEO, Wayne Pacelle. Why not? Because back in 2007, when more than 50 pit bulls were rescued from Michael Vick’s dog-fighting operation, Pacelle said they could not be rehabilitated and wanted them all to be euthanized.

Fortunately, the wiser and more compassionate officials at animal welfare organizations like Best Friends Animal Society and BAD RAP knew better, took in the dogs, and soon proved Pacelle to be dead wrong. Many of those survivors, known as the “Vicktory Dogs,” became certified therapy dogs, including Jonny Justice, who was awarded the ASPCA — not HSUS — Dog of the Year honor in 2014.

Nearly 11 years later, there’s even more reason to dislike Pacelle, as well as many members of the HSUS board of directors.

Sexual Harassment and a Toxic Work Environment for Women

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that an internal investigation of the HSUS identified three complaints of sexual harassment by Pacelle. Senior female leaders warned Pacelle that his history of sexual relations with subordinates, as well as with donors and volunteers, could hurt the nonprofit. When they complained about Pacelle’s behavior, it fell on deaf ears.

The HSUS offered settlements to three employees who said they were either demoted or fired after reporting the harassment. That settlement money came from donations intended to help animals, not the CEO.

Pacelle claims it’s all a lie. “This is a coordinated attempt to attack me and the organization,” he told the Washington Post. “And I absolutely deny any suggestion that I did anything untoward.”

Some HSUS employees agreed with Pacelle, saying all of those relationships were “consensual.” But others said he created a toxic work environment in which female employees believed they had to have sex with him to further their careers.

Seven HSUS Board Members Resign in Protest

Today the majority of the 32-member HSUS board voted to let Pacelle keep his job. Seven board members immediately did the right thing and resigned in protest. News of the board’s decision is already resulting in the loss of essential contributions from major donors, the Washington Post reports.

“I think Wayne Pacelle should do the right thing and resign,” Rachel Perman, director of charitable giving at Tofurky, told the Post. “I absolutely will not donate to HSUS if Wayne Pacelle is employed.” In November, Perman sent an email to all HSUS board members, urging them to investigate Pacelle after several employees told her they’d been mistreated by him. She only heard back from one board member, interior designer Erika Brunson, who asked Perman if she was out of her mind.

I believe all those women. By not ousting Pacelle, Brunson and the other board members are basically indicating it’s acceptable for the CEO to use his power to screw people — and with the loss of donations, they’re screwing animals as well. Pacelle and those board members should be ashamed of themselves.

Photo: Slowking4

Texas Church Shooter Devin Kelley Previously Charged with Beating His Puppy

Like many mass murderers, Devin Kelley, who killed 26 innocent churchgoers in Sutherland Springs, Texas, yesterday, was an animal abuser.

It’s a known fact — and a great argument for tougher animal cruelty laws — that there’s an established link between violence against humans and cruelty to animals. Many serial killers, including Robert Durst, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, started out by harming dogs and cats. Of the seven school shootings in the U.S. between 1997 and 2001, all the shooters had previously committed acts of animal cruelty, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

So it should probably come as no surprise that in 2014, Kelley was arrested in Colorado Springs for animal cruelty. Three neighbors in the trailer park where he lived at the time saw him jump on his Husky puppy and then punch the defenseless dog in the head and neck several times, Denver7 reports. The witnesses said the puppy was yelping and crying.

“She stated she witnessed four to five punches and then the male suspect grabbed the dog by the neck and drug him away,” according to the police report from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.

When deputies arrived at Kelley’s camper, he refused to come out or show them his puppy. When he finally did, one of the deputies said the puppy appeared to be underweight. (A former neighbor at the trailer park told the New York Times yesterday the puppy was a Pit Bull, and Kelley left it “tied up in the sun all day outside of his RV.”)

Kelley told the deputies he chased his puppy when it wouldn’t obey his command to stay. He claimed he jumped on top of the puppy because it was acting aggressively toward another dog. He said he didn’t beat or drag the puppy.

The puppy was taken to an animal hospital for veterinary care. Kelley was charged with animal cruelty and neglect, for which he received a pathetic sentence of 18 months of unsupervised probation. When he completed the probation period, the case was dismissed, a Colorado court spokesperson told Denver7.

Two years prior to that incident, Kelley, who served in the Logistics Readiness division of the U.S. Air Force, was court-martialed for two counts of assault on his wife and 11-month-old stepson — whose skull he said he had intentionally fractured. He was sentenced to 12 months of confinement and a rank reduction.

Kelley’s wife divorced him later that year. Her grandmother, Lula White — whom Kelley had reportedly threatened before — was a member of the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. She was among the 26 people Kelley killed.

Despite his violent criminal past, Kelley was still able to purchase automatic weapons and blow away more than two dozen people, ranging in age from 18 months to 77 years. “This isn’t a guns situation,” Donald Trump said today. “This is a mental health problem at the highest level.”

But this is indeed a guns situation — and the fact that it’s so easy for people with criminal backgrounds and mental health problems at the highest level to obtain them. Did Trump forget that in February he revoked a law that blocked people with severe mental issues from purchasing guns?

Instead of offering their thoughts and prayers, Trump and members of Congress could actually take action to save lives by banning assault rifles and by once again blocking anyone with a “mental health problem at the highest level” from purchasing guns.

Photo via CBS News/YouTube

Monster Who Threw Dog Over L.A. Cliff 2 Times Gets Pathetic 2-Year Jail Sentence

In a video from a security camera that went viral in September 2016, a Pit Bull mix can be seen jumping through the passenger window into a car parked on a street in City Terrace, near Los Angeles.

A man gets out of the car, carrying the dog, and flings it over a cliff. The obese, bespectacled loser looks around as he walks back to his car, checking to see if anyone is watching.

The dog survived, but two days later the creep returned to the same spot, and again threw her over the cliff.

Fortunately, someone living across the street witnessed this heinous act and immediately began searching for the dog. “I came out here with my flashlight looking around, I was making some noise trying to get her attention and sure enough I saw her behind a bush off the cliff,” the unidentified good Samaritan told FOX 11.

Amazingly, once again the poor dog survived the fall — which prosecutors later said was about 145 feet — without any injuries. A bush stopped her from falling farther.

“She’s a very nice dog and very kind,” another nearby resident, Ruben Roque, told FOX 11. “I don’t know how somebody can do that to this dog.”

After the dog, who he named Hera Grrl, was temporarily taken by the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control as evidence in its animal cruelty investigation, Roque, a combat veteran, officially adopted her and has been showing her just what a loving home is like.

In February, the monster who threw Hera Grrl over the cliff twice was found and arrested. Andres Spancky Raya, 21, pleaded no contest to one felony count of animal cruelty.

The loser was already on probation for one felony count each of hit-and-run driving resulting in injury to another person, and grand theft auto, according to the Los Angeles Times. At the time, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Raya could face up to three years and eight months in jail.

Raya was finally sentenced yesterday. He must serve five years in state prison — but only two of those years are for the felony animal cruelty count. The other three years are for an unrelated first-degree residential burglary charge.

Doesn’t it seem like it should be the other way around, and he should serve much longer than two or three years for the cruel way he tried to kill his dog?

Dog with 300 Tumors Wanders into Hospital Chapel

Suffering what must have been unbearable, excruciating pain, an 11-year-old Boston Terrier named Pasha still had the ability and good sense to walk into Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, Calif. She was discovered in a corner of the hospital’s chapel.

Pasha’s little body was covered with 300 tumors. One of her eyes was severely ulcerated. Someone had wrapped a rubber band around one of the tumors, and it had become embedded in her skin.

It’s not known how Pasha ended up at the hospital, but her owner, Mary Sodaro, who lives about 90 miles away in Victorville, Calif., was arrested after she called Newport Beach animal control officers and asked about the dog, the Los Angeles Times reports. She’s been charged with a felony count of animal cruelty,  along with the misdemeanors of failing to care for an animal and allowing an animal to roam freely on a public street.

According to the Orange County district attorney’s office, Sodaro said she’d taken Pasha to a veterinarian recently, but would not allow her dog to be treated. Because of Pasha’s “irremediable pain and suffering,” the vet had offered to euthanize her free of charge, but Sodaro refused the offer.

She admitted she had wrapped the rubber band around a golf-ball-sized tumor on Pasha’s jaw because she thought it would cut off blood circulation and the tumor would fall off. But the rubber band became embedded in the tumor, resulting in a skin infection and even more pain for the already suffering dog.

“The fact that the tumor was rubber banded and continued to grow is disturbing,” Orange County Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Malone told the Orange County Register. “The tumor had grown to such a size it affected Pasha’s ability to breathe. We have never seen neglect like this.”

The bittersweet news is that poor little Pasha is no longer in pain. A few days after she was found in the hospital chapel, a veterinarian humanely euthanized her.

Here’s the mug shot of the woman who intentionally let her dog suffer with hundreds of tumors. Sodaro listed her occupation as “Comedian” in the Orange County Jail booking log. How I wish it was a joke that the maximum sentence this monster will get is only three years and a half years in state prison.

SEPT. 6, 2017 UPDATE: Sodaro, who had been immediately sentenced to 26 days in jail, has pleaded guilty to the three misdemeanor charges and will not serve any additional jail time (!). She was placed on three years’ informal probation and ordered to undergo mental health counseling. The good news is that she is not allowed to own, possess, care for or live with a pet.

Photo via Hoag/Facebook

GRRR: Jury Finds PetSmart Groomer Not Guilty in 2016 Death of Dachshund

Henry was only supposed to get his nails trimmed in May 2016 at a PetSmart store in San Mateo, Calif. But after spending just three minutes alone with groomer Juan Zarate in a back room, the Dachshund ended up with a punctured lung and two broken ribs. As little Henry bled from his mouth and struggled to breathe, an on-site veterinarian tried to save his life — to no avail.

“We know that the dog was brought there with no injuries or no known illnesses of any kind and we do believe that actions taken by the groomer, during the grooming session, is what caused the dog to die,” San Mateo Police Department Sgt. Rick Decker told ABC7 News at the time.

Zarate was arrested at the store and charged with one count of felony animal cruelty, which has a maximum penalty of three years in prison. He was placed on suspension by PetSmart, which issued a statement saying, “Any incident of animal cruelty goes against everything we believe as a company and as individual pet parents.”

A necropsy performed on Henry showed he had died due to strangulation — “thoracic compression leading to asphyxia.”

Thirteen months later, after a four-day trial, a jury has shockingly found Zarate not guilty of the animal cruelty charge.

That’s right, the jury somehow could not be convinced, despite expert testimony, that Henry’s death was intentional.

“We presented the evidence of an expert veterinarian who testified that this was not an accident,” San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe told the Mercury News, “but obviously, the jury did not find her persuasive. I accept that.”

No further information is currently available about the trial, but unlike Wagstaffe, I’m having extreme difficulty accepting the jury’s decision. My heart goes out to Henry’s owners, Terrie Peacock and Stefan Zier.

Groomers Not Required to Be Licensed

Henry is not the only dog that has been killed or injured by a groomer at PetSmart (or Petco, or other pet stores). After Henry’s death, his owners filed a lawsuit alleging that although several customers had complained about pet injuries during PetSmart grooming sessions, the company had taken no action to resolve these issues.

You may be surprised to know that pet groomers are not required to be licensed or certified in any U.S. state. They are regulated in New York City and Miami-Dade County, Fla., but not statewide.

New Jersey could become the first state to require licenses for groomers. The proposed Pet Grooming Licensed Act NJ was originally named “Bijou’s Bill” in memory of a 6-year-old Shih Tzu who died during a routine grooming session — at, yes, a PetSmart store.

Until statewide laws are passed, to prevent a tragedy from happening to your own dog, it could be a life-or-death matter to ask the groomer some important questions, especially at PetSmart and Petco stores, where many of the incidents have occurred.

“It would behoove you to find out who your groomer is, how long they’ve been grooming, what kind of track record they have — you need to do this kind of work,” Bijou’s dog mom, Rosemary Marchetto, told CBS New York.

Photo via Twitter

Exit mobile version