A Harrisburg-area man forced to leave his dog behind in Tennessee earlier this year after suffering a stroke was reunited with his beloved companion on Friday thanks to the joint effort of two mid-state rescue groups.

Neal Brooks of Steelton contacted the Central Pennsylvania Animal Alliance after learning that his dog Buster, whom he had left with a relative because of his health problems, had been tied outside without food, water or shelter. Brooks is wheelchair-bound and unable to drive, so he had no way to get his dog back.

CPAA contacted Dogs Deserve Better, an Altoona-based organization dedicated to ending the chaining of dogs, and founder Tamira Ci Thayne hit the road to get Buster.

Thayne said when she got to the house in Tennessee she found Buster, a Cocker Spaniel-mix dog, was 15 pounds underweight. The Hawkins County Sheriff¹s Department was notified about the dog's condition and is pursuing cruelty charges against Brooks' relative.

Meanwhile, Brooks and his best friend celebrated with a happy reunion captured on videotape.

The operator of the now-defunct Almost Heaven kennel in Lehigh County - the subject of multiple raids and seizures of hundreds of dogs over the past year - withdrew his guilty plea to animal cruelty charges today.

Derbe "Skip" Eckhart - whose kennel license was revoked in June - was to be sentenced today on cruelty charges in Lehigh County Court, but instead withdrew his plea offered in Sept., saying he was pressured into the plea deal by prosecutors.

Instead, Eckhart, 42, of Emmaus, will go to trial on on Dec. 23 on 23 counts of animal cruelty and as many as 216 counts of violations to the state dog law, said Jay Jenkins, Lehigh County chief deputy district attorney.

"All the charges that were withdrawn as a result of negotiations have been reinstated," said Jenkins. Eckhart could face up to six years in prison on the six misdemeanor animal cruelty charges, Jenkins said.

As a result of prior cruelty convictions and his history of  "thumbing his nose at the courts," Judge Robert Steinberg today increased Eckhart's bail from $2,000 to $25,000. He also forbid Eckhart - who had taken a job as a dog groomer - from working around animals.

The Morning Call of Allentown has more.

Main Line Animal Rescue is making good on its promise to donate "sacks for Vick" to a shelter in every city where the Eagles play a road game. This time the beneficiary is the Helen Woodward Animal Center in San Diego. 

The Chester Springs rescue placed an ad in the San Diego Union Tribune last week announcing it would donate five bags of food every time Michael Vick is sacked in today's game against the Chargers.

Of course, the fact Vick has spent more time on the bench then on the field isn't stopping the donation challenge. Founder Bill Smith says so far one ton of food has been donated for the Woodward Center, a favorite of actress Diane Keeton who has adopted dogs from them.

The donated chow will go toward the shelter's "Ani-meals" program that delivers pet food to the homebound who are unable to shop for their pets.

Last month, the shelter rounded up four tons of food and delivered it to the Washington (D.C.) Humane Society (and proved they could not only schlep pallets of dog food, they could parallel park a moving van on the crowded streets of Georgetown).

Two animal-rights groups filed a federal lawsuit today to stop a plan to shoot more than 80 percent of the deer at Valley Forge national park, calling it "extreme and shortsighted." The suit also charges that administering birth control to female deer is environmentally unsound, and shooting the deer endangers public safety.Valley Forge officials say the herd has grown too large and destructive, consuming many plants and saplings that the forest cannot regenerate.

Here's more from my Inquirer colleague Jeff Gammage:

The plan to deploy sharpshooters in winter, the season when George Washington's troops suffered at Valley Forge, "is not only an appalling twist on the park's history" but "another sign that the National Park Service has abandoned its century-old mission to strive for parks in which conservation of nature is paramount," the suit said.

The filing by Friends of Animals, a national advocacy group, and Compassion for Animals, Respect the Environment, a West Chester organization known as CARE, was lodged against park Superintendent Michael Caldwell, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, the National Park Service as an agency and other NPS officials.

Park officials intend to reduce the herd by 86 percent, from an estimated 1,277 deer to between 165 and 185, during the next four years. Federal employees or contractors are to fire silencer-equipped rifles, mostly at night, at deer lured to areas baited with apples and grain.

Animal rescue groups removed 115 purebred cats from a Montgomery County home on Wednesday in what officials call a rescue gone awry.

Rescuers were alerted to conditions inside a house in the 2000 block of Berkly Road in Audubon in August and found scores of emacatiated cats, infested with fleas and parasites. Because the rescue groups had no place to put the cats - among them Himalyans, Persians, Ragdolls, Maine Coon and Siamese - they left them in the home and arranged to supervise the care of the cats.

But conditions did not improve and with the help of the Pennsylvania SPCA, rescuers went back in and removed the cats.

"They were in really bad shape," said Pat Maloney of Pet Adoption and Lifecare Society, which led the rescue.

The owner of the property - who has not at this point been charged with animal cruelty - operated as a rescue, taking in cats that were scheduled to be euthanized at area shelters, said Maloney.

The only problem was "they forgot the adoption part," and it became a hoarding situation, she said.

Officials with the PSPCA said they are awaiting medical reports before determining whether charges will be filed against the owner.

The cats were taken to an undisclosed facility to receive vet care. Four cats were in critical condition with various illnesses yesterday. Maloney said they want to keep the location secret for fear of people dumping cats there.

Anyone interested in adopting the cats or donating money or supplies for their care should check out the PALS Website or call 610-299-1860
 

A few weeks ago, just after the new state dog law went into effect, Pennsylvania dog breeder Marcus Lantz made what he said was a simple business decision.

He could not meet the larger cage-size requirements under the law, so he called his veterinarian and asked him to come to his farm west of Harrisburg to euthanize nine dogs. One was a nine-year-old St. Bernard and the rest were 4-to-6-year-old “lap dog” breeds among them, Bichons and Coton de Tulear – whose puppies bring top dollar at pet stores.

“Today eight retired breeders are scheduled to die because my cages are now too small,” Lantz wrote in a letter to the state Independent Regulatory Review Board, which is considering additional standards of care for commercial kennels.
“How do I answer my small children’s questions when they see the dead dogs?” he continued. “Example, Sherry and Charlotte don’t have enough room anymore, so Charlotte must die so Sherry can have more room.”

The words were chilling. Why did Lantz destroy his dogs rather than comply with the law designed to improve conditions in commercial breeding facilities, otherwise known as “puppy mills?”

The primary provisions of the law require commercial breeders (defined as those selling 60 or more dogs a year or anyone selling a single dog to a pet store) to double the cage size and eliminate wire flooring and cage stacking. The law – which went into effect on Oct. 9 - also requires regular veterinary care for breeding dogs and outdoor exercise.

In addition, breeders are no longer allowed to shoot their dogs. (That measure was inserted in the bill after the August 2008 incident where a Berks County breeder slaughtered 80 dogs rather than treat them for flea infestation.)

For years breeders and their representatives have vehemently opposed all attempts to enact tougher kennel standards, arguing that most Pennsylvania kennels are clean and that a “few bad apples” have brought on this undeserved reputation. Inspection reports, court dockets and the rising number of kennel revocations would suggest there are more than a few bad apples.

The Professional Dog Breeders Association and the American Canine Association – the primary breed registry for commercial kennels - have refused multiple requests over the past three years to take this reporter to a commercial breeding facility.

Lantz said he would show me his kennel as long as I didn’t take pictures. I agreed and he took me inside the two small cinder block buildings. It was stark but clean. Wire cages lined each side, containing his remaining 31 breeding dogs – Bichons, Coton de Tulear, Yorkshire Terriers, Daschunds. Puppies are born and spend the first weeks of their lives in barren wood boxes attached to a small wire enclosure. Three females and their puppies were housed in those whelping, or birthing boxes, in the center of the back room.

One box was so small that a Jack Russell/beagle-mix female had only a few inches of head room. Lantz said he realized it was too small and that he planned to build larger boxes after determining with dog wardens what was required under the new law.

The space was illuminated by a large, high-tech skylight. The dogs’ waste passes through the wire in the bottom of the cages into a trough that Lantz hoses out with water and bleach. A large fan set at the rear of the rectangular building pushes air through the center of the kennel. Water is delivered through an over head drip system and feed bowls were scrubbed.

Space heaters and lights are powered by propane. Lantz is Amish and uses no electricity in his house.

Lantz said he spent more than $10,000 to modernize his kennel and now the state is ordering him to remove cages put in new flooring (the wire is illegal) and expand his kennel again to accommodate outdoor exercise. He showed me the dismantled chain link pens where his three St. Bernard dogs had lived.

“There wasn’t going to be enough room,” he said.

The dogs were clipped and appeared to have no visible health problems or injuries. But they are rarely handled and most never experience life outside the kennel. One Coton – a small, white, fluffy dog - cowered in corner of her cage. Others frantically jumped against the sides of their cages. There was no bedding. No toys. No view to the outside. Their world is contained within the cinder block walls.

Asked whether his dogs ever get outdoor exercise, Lantz said some of the favored dogs were, on occasion, taken outside by his children.

“They’re not treated as pets,” he said.

The Independent Regulatory Review Board is currently considering the new requirements on commercial kennels proposed by the Canine Health Board – a nine-member body made up of veterinarians appointed by the four legislative caucuses, the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association (PVMA) and University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School.

The board was charged under the dog law with establishing adequate flooring, lighting and ventilation requirements for large kennels.

Now those proposals are facing widespread opposition from the same groups who fought the dog law last year: the PVMA, the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, which represents pet stores, the Sportsmen’s Alliance, Republican members of the House Agriculture Committee and Sen. Michael Brubaker – chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee - whose committee created the board to appease the aforementioned groups in 2008.

Lantz said he has applied for a waiver that would give him up to three more years to make the required upgrades to his kennel, but he has not yet received a response from the Department of Agriculture. (A spokesman said today that 48 waiver applications are pending.) Lantz said he wants to comply with the new law, but needs more time because he has not paid off loan for the improvements two years ago.

“It’s politics,” said Lantz of the proposed regulations and the stepped up enforcement of the dog law. “They want to get rid of dog breeders; they don’t care about the welfare of dogs.”

So, why did Lantz feel he had no choice but to destroy Charlotte and the other dogs in his kennel?

In his letter to the state regulatory board, Lantz wrote that although he was urged by dog wardens to surrender his unwanted dogs to a humane society, he said he didn’t want people to “teach tricks on them” or “housetrain them.”

Lantz elaborated during my visit, telling me that he’d heard humane societies were overcrowded and that he was concerned his dogs would be adopted to people who would keep them on “four-foot chains.”

“I’d rather see them euthanized,” he said. “I couldn’t bring myself to adopt them out.”

When a litter of endangered African painted dogs born at the Pittsburgh Zoo lost their mother shortly after birth the staff turned to a city shelter for help.

Honey, a Labrador-mix dog, had given birth to her own pups six weeks ago. Last week she took on a new role, acting as a surrogate mother for nine wild dogs.

It's the first time a domestic surrogate has been used to mother and feed newborn wild painted dogs. The pups' natural mother, 10-year-old Vega, died of a ruptured uterus last Wednesday at the zoo.

The zoo found Honey, who was the right size and coloration, at the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society. Her own pups were in the process of being weaned but she was still able to nurse.

"She's just been perfect, an absolutely fabulous mom," Zoo president Dr. Barbara Baker told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "All of the pups are gaining weight."

They were born weighing a little more than 12 ounces and now weigh 19 ounces.

The mortality rate for painted pups is 50 percent, even when born in the wild to a healthy mother. Zoo officials hope to wean the pups in about two weeks.

The African painted dog, Lycaon pictus, named for its tri-colored coat, also is commonly called the painted hunting dog. It has become endangered because of human population growth, habitat loss and hunting.

There were once roughly 500,000 African painted dogs in 39 countries. Now there are only about 3,000 to 5,000 in fewer than 25 countries.

Attorney General Tom Corbett is suing a Philadelphia pet supply store operator for making false claims about charitable contributions and failing to provide refunds to consumers who returned items.

Corbett said Joseph P. White, the owner of Furlong’s Pet Supply, an Internet-based business, claimed a percentage of every sale would be donated to an animal welfare charity when no such charity existed.

White also operated Tapping Paw, a pet sitting and dog walking service, though the name is not properly registered in Pennsylvania. The Attorney General's office said consumers told them that White also once operated a storefront in Manayunk.

According to the lawsuit, White’s pet supply website advertised that ten percent of the proceeds from every sale would be donated to a charity called the Adopted Dog Training Association. That “charity” allegedly provided obedience training for people who adopted dogs from Philadelphia area animal shelters.

“In reality, this dog training ‘charity’ was little more than a sham, created by Mr. White, to lure sympathetic consumers into making purchases from his online business,” Corbett said. “The organization was never registered as a charity in Pennsylvania and no money was ever donated to it.”

Corbett said White is also accused of not honoring his return policy and not providing refunds to consumers who returned items within the specified 21-day return period.

The lawsuit seeks restitution for consumers who paid for products they did not receive along with refunds for items that consumers had properly returned. Additionally, the lawsuit seeks penalties of up to $3,000 for each violation of Pennsylvania’s Consumer Protection Law.

Corbett urged consumers with problems involving White or his businesses – Furlong’s Pet Supply, Tapping Paw or the Adopted Dog Training Association – to file formal complaints by calling the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Hotline at 1-800-441-2555 or by completing an online complaint form at www.attorneygeneral.gov.

(Highlight the “Complaints” button at the top left corner of the website and select “Consumer Complaints” from the menu that appears).

Corbett encouraged consumers to research online sellers, especially if they have never dealt with a particular business before – and ensure they understand all aspects of the transaction, including delivery times; shipping fees; return policies and guidelines for refunds.

In addition, consumers should carefully review the business’s privacy policy to verify that customer information will not be sold or shared without your knowledge.

Corbett also urged consumers to investigate charitable programs before agreeing to make a contribution. All charities operating in Pennsylvania are required to register with the PA Department of State. Information is available on the Department of State website (www.dos.state.pa.us) indicating how donations are used, including the amount spent on charitable activities as opposed to administrative and fund-raising expenses.

Pennsylvania residents with questions or concerns related to online businesses, charitable contributions or other consumer protection issues to contact the attorney general's by phone or through its Web site.

To read the lawsuit click here.