Howllo Fellow Basset Hound and wanting the latest news lovers….
UPDATE 1-15-09 THIS IS A PICTURE JUST IN OF ONE OF THE MURDER HOLLOW BASSET HOUNDS. IT IS HARD TO LOOK AT.
This is what the defense was begging for. 10K a month to fight for Wendy to get her hounds back. This is what the BHCA was supporting! Despicable. Go ahead, if you can and click on the picture. See the ticks all over the face? See the floor where this hound was forced to sleep?
Do not, under any circumstances contact the owner of this pack. The judge has ordered the PSPCA to handle this. I will keep everyone posted. I have a more detailed account of all of this on my forum.
I have been following this case for months on my forum so I was sitting down to report the latest news and a google alert came across from a blogger and hunter in PA about case. His Blog is called Terrierman’s Daily Dose.
His summary and update say it all. I even had a few good laughs so I am going to bring it over here for my readers. I am also going to link to his blog so you can read and leave comments if you wish:
Murder Hollow Bassets Fail Court Inspection
Murder Hollow Bassets Fail Court Inspection
Some months back, a handful of knee-jerk reactionaries went off half-cocked and contrived a manufactured crisis. It seems the “Animal Rights” folks in Pennsylvania had “raided” Wendy Willard “without warning” and seized her legally kenneled pack of Basset Hounds.
Eh? And what was the supposed reason for all this? Ostensibly it was because the “Animal Rights” loons hated hunting.
Eh?
Something was clearly wrong with this story, and from the get-go I urged caution and a go-slow-and-get-the-facts approach.
For one, Basset Hounds are generally not used for hunting in this country. The activities of a Basset Club are mostly comprised of overweight and aged matrons playing dress-up as they walk around a hay field with their dogs ambling around in front of them. After an hour or so, there is a break for lunch and tea. No one has a gun, and “no animals are killed in the making of this movie.”
The second issue is that all this was supposed to be happening in Pennsylvania, were hunting deer, duck, rabbit, geese, turkey, elk, fox, raccoon, bear, and coyote are wildly popular, entirely legal, and heavily promoted activities. If you were to wage a war on hunting or hunting dogs, Pennsylvania is NOT where you would want to start that fight.
The third issue is that it was not PETA doing the “raid” on this kennel; it was the Pennsylvania SPCA. These folks have a regular television show on national TV where they rescue animals from cruelty and abuse, and they are funded by the state of Pennsylvania to act as Animal Control officers.
But never mind. The pack mentality of the paranoid took over and all kinds of nonsense made its way onto the Internet thanks to the breathlessly inflated right-wing nuttery of a blogger by the name of David Zincavage, who describes himself as a “right-wing web aggregator and purveyor of unpopular opinions.”
In fact, he is simply a man who has a very casual relationship with the truth, and it soon tumbled out that almost everything he claimed and said about the Murder Hollow Basset pack on his blog was demonstrably wrong.
For example, Mr. Zincavage said Wendy Willard’s dogs were seized without notice. Not quite. In fact, the PSPCA had stopped by and given Wendy written notice that she needed to contact them, and she ignored that notice. Then, when the PSPCA stopped by again, Ms. Willard went “Mad Woman of Shiloh” and started throwing rocks at the officers and screaming at them. Needless to say, those officers came back very quickly with police officers in tow, and what they found at the kennel was shocking enough that they seized the dogs, took pictures, and filed criminal animal cruelty charges.
Zincavage said Willard’s kennel had always been in compliance until a recently passed law that was passed in the dead of night changing all the rules. In fact, there was no new law, Willard’s kennel has been wildly out of compliance for a very long time, and Philadelphia’s dog laws are some of the most permissive in the nation, as I pointed out by actually doing the research.
So what’s the update?
The short story is that Wendy Willard and the PSPCA went to court yesterday, and Ms. Willard lost after a judge looked at the pictures and heard the evidence.
Ten of the 11 seized dogs are to be permanently rehomed by the PSPCA. The PSPCA may consider rehoming suggestions made by Ms Willard, but they do not have to follow her suggestions; the PSPCA has the final say. Ms. Willard will be allowed to have one dog back — the dog she said she kept in her house.
The criminal animal cruelty charges are still pending against Ms,. her, but provided she cleans up her Kennel, fixes the roof, installs a watering system, and allows unfettered inspection by the PSPCA, those charges will be dropped in six months.
This is the kind of sentence a judge will impose on someone caught drunk driving or with illegal drugs in their luggage: “If you check yourself into rehab and go to Alcoholics Anonymous for six months (and get signed notes at each meeting saying you attended), we will drop the charges.”
In a sentence like this, there is no question a serious violation occurred, but the judge is tempering his justice by trying to train the offender to go in a different direction in his or her life. The judge is saying: Show me six months worth of real change, and maybe you won’t have to go to jail. But jail time is still hanging out there, which is why those criminal animal cruelty charges have NOT been dropped.
The judge was apparently NOT amused by the kennel pictures he saw. What he saw was real abuse. And while he may be sympathetic that folks do, occasionally, get over their head with dogs or cats, there is a place to draw the line. And the line is a simple one: take care of the animals. Run a clean kennel. Make sure the roof doesn’t leak, that parasites and bugs are kept at bay, and that dogs get veterinary attention. On all of these counts, Ms. Willard had been failing, which is why the order for remedial work is in place, and the criminal animal abuse charges are still in place.
End of his blog posting…..
Also, I will add the blog posting from the Philly Dawg. This is a blog about all things dog in Philly! Boy I am pretty sharp!
OK – here is the posting. You can see the link above so you can again, go read or leave comments.
PSPCA, kennel owner reach compromise….
A Philadelphia kennel owner has six months to clean up her property, take better care of her dogs and allow inspections at any time. In return, animal cruelty charges will be dropped if she follows through. That’s the deal struck yesterday between Wendy Willard and the Pennsylvania SPCA with the help of a judge – who had a few stern words for those who reportedly posted death threats against humane officers investigating the case on the Internet.
My colleague Nathan Gorenstein reported the story for today’s editions of the Inquirer.
Animal-cruelty charges filed against a woman known for running a successful pack of sporting dogs have been continued until June and will be dropped if she complies with an agreement to clean and maintain her kennel in Roxborough.
In July, the Pennsylvania SPCA raided the property of Wendy Willard, owner of Murder Hollow Bassets. The agency filed 22 citations against her for failing to adequately care for 23 dogs on her property, 11 more than allowed under city ordinances.
Philadelphia Community Court Judge Joseph J. O’Neill negotiated the agreement between Willard and SPCA officers.
O’Neill said from the bench that Willard must install a drainage system, keep her property “reasonably free from feces,” repair the kennel ceiling, change standing water the dogs drink from at least once a day, and have the dogs checked for parasites.
O’Neill said the SPCA would have to consult with Willard over where to permanently place the dogs removed from the property.
“This is something that will benefit everyone,” O’Neill said.
Willard’s pack, formed in 1986, has been included among a handful in the prestigious Chronicle of the Horse, the bible of the horse-and-hound crowd. The kennel’s bassets have won awards at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show.
A small group of Willard’s friends appeared at the hearing in Community Court, as did a half-dozen neighbors called to testify about conditions at the property.
O’Neill also sharply criticized reported Internet death threats made against animal-control officers for the raid on Willard’s property.
“You should contact animal people,” O’Neill said to Willard, and tell them “that this matter is resolved.”
O’Neill said he was not suggesting Willard had a role in the threats.
“You’re entitled to have your dogs,” O’Neill said to Willard, “and she is entitled to inspect,” the judge said with a nod toward SPCA Officer Tara Loller.
On the day of the raid, Willard was accused of throwing stones at vehicles driven by SPCA and state dog officers.
O’Neill said the SPCA would make monthly, unannounced inspections to ensure Willard was following the negotiated agreement.
Willard declined to comment, but her attorney, Charles Geffen, said the SPCA also had agreed to return to her a dog named Osh Kosh, who lived in her house….
End of blog posting by Amy Worden
So there you have it. Some light reading for lunch. LOL
This is one of the dogs in her pack in much better days. As you can see from the picture above the hound looks near death.
They mostly look like basset mixes to me which is not uncommon in hunting packs. Some experts have told me that this looks like a basset harrier hound mix which is common.
More Murder Hollow updates to follow. Talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill. I have said it over and over. If Wendy had answered the notice from the PSPCA posted on her door none of this would be happening. Just think of the tax payer money that is being spent.
Cat, Chaps and Emma (glad they are not in a foot pack)
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