EGAR IN THE NEWS FOR CRUELTY

Whispered

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Surely the answer here is some sort of regulation. Maybe all rescues should have to register with the local authority and be subject to random inspections from the dog warden.

It would stamp out this kind of behaviour pretty quickly.

I do agree that registration and inspections are needed anywhere there are multiple animals (including commercial places like breeding kennels etc) but in my opinion for that to work, we need more wardens and they need to be more highly trained to do the job. At the moment you can bring in whatever legislation you like but without enough of the right people to enforce it, it's useless unfortunately.

I Heart Internet

sambuka41 wrote: »

That would assume that dog warden's know about dogs/ dog rescue/ dog behaviour or health, which generally they don't.

Is that the case or is it more of the hubris ("we know more than you") that EGAR has been accused of?

sambuka41

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Is that the case or is it more of the hubris ("we know more than you") that EGAR has been accused of?

No a relative of mine was a dog warden for years, he only got the job by the mere fact that he worked in the council and had a full drivers licence. He never owned a dog in his life, had no real interest in dogs, it was a promotion. (not a bad guy just not qualified to be doing inspections)

Whispered

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Is that the case or is it more of the hubris ("we know more than you") that EGAR has been accused of?

As far as I know, that is the case for a lot of places. I am sure there are great wardens out there, but likewise there those who are not so great. Whether it's not being able to get them on the phone during work hours, to them telling people to not feed the stray and it will go away, misidentifying breeds, not knowing what dogs are in their pound the moment etc. That is all hearsay, but from non-dog acquaintances so I trust it's nothing to do with politics.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can tell us, do wardens undergo any training? What does the new legislation mean for wardens and inspectors? (I'm sorry is this too far off topic?)

muddypaws

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Is that the case or is it more of the hubris ("we know more than you") that EGAR has been accused of?

Maybe contact your local dog warden and ask what training they have had. The Limerick warden repeatedly went on in the media about how vicious huskies are, after he seized an Alaskan malamute. Now yes, I can understand members of the public not knowing the difference, but a dog warden really should, its not difficult.

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Surely the answer here is some sort of regulation. Maybe all rescues should have to register with the local authority and be subject to random inspections from the dog warden.

It would stamp out this kind of behaviour pretty quickly.

If a rescue is running a sanctuary type establishment, then they would come under the breeding establishments act, and be subject to inspections. Most rescues use foster homes, I'm not sure how they could be monitored.

Whispered

muddypaws wrote: »

If a rescue is running a sanctuary type establishment, then they would come under the breeding establishments act, and be subject to inspections. Most rescues use foster homes, I'm not sure how they could be monitored.

Could it work if every dog taken in was registered? Inspectors can randomly ask about x or y dog and be updated on it's whereabouts and current health. If the inspector calls to fosterer an all is not as it should be, the repercussions would be for the rescue. Making rescues responsible for their fosterers?

doubter

tk123 wrote: »

The €250 fine probably

Solicitor fees

doubter

muddypaws wrote: »

Maybe contact your local dog warden and ask what training they have had. The Limerick warden repeatedly went on in the media about how vicious huskies are, after he seized an Alaskan malamute. Now yes, I can understand members of the public not knowing the difference, but a dog warden really should, its not difficult.



If a rescue is running a sanctuary type establishment, then they would come under the breeding establishments act, and be subject to inspections. Most rescues use foster homes, I'm not sure how they could be monitored.

I run a sanctuary type rescue, but don't fall under the breeding establishment acts as I have no un-neutered males or females in my care except for 5 11 week old kittens. I also have an open door policy at 'social' hours..(don't show up at 10 pm I'd be grumpy at that).Entrance fee are apples or carrots for the horses. I do have a horse premise number though.

Vojera

Whispered wrote: »

Could it work if every dog taken in was registered? Inspectors can randomly ask about x or y dog and be updated on it's whereabouts and current health. If the inspector calls to fosterer an all is not as it should be, the repercussions would be for the rescue. Making rescues responsible for their fosterers?

I think that's the ideal, but unfortunately I can't see it actually happening any time soon. Look how long it took to get new animal welfare laws in this country.

The expense is another aspect - I think TDs would see it as a bit of a vote-killer until people are a bit more back on their feet. I think a lot of people would see it as money that could go to healthcare/schools.

Of course when you look at other animals like cats or rabbits there isn't even the equivalent of a dog warden that you could make a basis for any new services like that.

Calhoun

Crazy thread i had to do a double check when i seen this thread as EGAR was one of those posters that stick in peoples mind. Mainly because she was so up front and blunt about animal welfare but you did get a feeling in ways she really did care.

Was glad when she stopped posting however as she was part of a group that made this forum a hostile environment at times. Did not expect her to resurface on a thread like this, crazy.

Whispered

Vojera wrote: »

I think that's the ideal, but unfortunately I can't see it actually happening any time soon. Look how long it took to get new animal welfare laws in this country.

I suggested on a Facebook page dedicated to regulating rescues in this country that maybe it can be done on an opt in basis.

So I set up a rescue, I ask to be registered to an "approved list" of a voluntary organisation. Organisation sends out inspector. I pass, I'm put onto the approved list. I fail I am told where I need to improve. The public has access to said approved list. So it would give people the power to choose only rescues who meet a minimum standard.

For it to work you would need people willing to volunteer to inspect and do the paperwork. People not already affiliated with any rescue to try rule out some of te politics. I could see that being a problem. How do you ensure the people doing these voluntary inspections are genuine. I guess that would be up the the organisation to ensure.

To make sure the inspections are unbiased they would have to be accompanied by photographs and paperwork filled in by the inspector and the rescue themself. All dogs in to be accounted for and all dogs out. Paperwork for everything.

It's not an ideal solution and could do with some serious tweaking I'm sure but might be worth thinking about.

doubter

Whispered wrote: »

I suggested on a Facebook page dedicated to regulating rescues in this country that maybe it can be done on an opt in basis.

So I set up a rescue, I ask to be registered to an "approved list" of a voluntary organisation. Organisation sends out inspector. I pass, I'm put onto the approved list. I fail I am told where I need to improve. The public has access to said approved list. So it would give people the power to choose only rescues who meet a minimum standard.

For it to work you would need people willing to volunteer to inspect and do the paperwork. People not already affiliated with any rescue to try rule out some of te politics. I could see that being a problem. How do you ensure the people doing these voluntary inspections are genuine. I guess that would be up the the organisation to ensure.

To make sure the inspections are unbiased they would have to be accompanied by photographs and paperwork filled in by the inspector and the rescue themself. All dogs in to be accounted for and all dogs out. Paperwork for everything.

It's not an ideal solution and could do with some serious tweaking I'm sure but might be worth thinking about.

That's a very good idea.

doubter

It has just been confirmed that 6 dogs were transferred from EGAR to <snip>

See Mod note #15

piperh

I'm glad she has seen there is no way she could continue as she was.

I think part of what has me worried is the fact she said that the dogs were there for 10 days and at no point in that 10 days did she think to clean the place up. Ignoring the carcasses (for a moment) a few black bags, disinfectant and a pair of gloves and that place could have been so much better in hours. Why didn't she see it needed doing? As for the dead animals i suppose she might not have wanted to draw attention to her situation but again a decent burial would have taken care of that.

Every rescue needs complete transparancy, with unannounced on the spot inspections of conditions and paperwork. Every single animal needs photographic evidence on entrance to the rescue, this would allow any inspector to see the progress made and also limit the "he arrived in that condition" statement. This is a long way off but as bad as it is perhaps this being in the media eye might just pave the way forward to better legislation and monitoring.

anniehoo

Ok. I have said multiple times not to mention other rescues except EGAR and GSPCA in this thread and for some reason posters are not listening. I have just snipped another name for the umpteenth time. Infractions will be handed out if posters continue to ignore this request from now on.

Do not reply to this post
Anniehoo

DBB

There is already an inspection system, at least, there is for all animal charities who apply for the ad hoc Dept. of Agriculture grants made available to animal rescue groups each year.
Department vets and representatives inspect the premises, check the books, and interview the staff to satisfy themselves that conditions are satisfactory.
EGAR has been receiving grants from this scheme for some years now (€4000 each year since 2009 at least), which means that there were inspections being carried out each year.
Here are records of who got the grants, and how much, since 2009:
https://www.agriculture.gov.ie/animalhealthwelfare/animalwelfare/fundingtoanimalwelfareorganisations/

Interestingly though, I notice that EGAR did not get the grant in 2013. Why? Did they simply not apply? Or were they turned down for some reason? Perhaps because the Department were presumably aware that there was a case pending against Sarah?

However, and this is a big problem that has been highlighted by the EGAR case: people who want to hide animals can hide animals, especially small animals like dogs.
The dogs that were taken from EGAR last year were being housed at a place that Sarah used to live in some years ago, it's some miles away from where she lives now. You can be damned sure that if volunteers, transporters etc etc did not know of the existence of this place, it's pretty unlikely that the Department officials were aware of it either.

My point is that if people want to, they can manipulate things to make sure they stay below the radar, inspections of not. My guess is that people who really want to evade detection would go to some lengths to hide problems and welfare issues... in this case especially because money is involved.

There have been several attempts made down through the years, amongst rescues, to form a sort of "rescue association", one which would stipulate minimum standards, and that members would have to abide by to retain membership. A nice idea in theory, but it would have been a self-regulatory set-up, and everyone knew that it would fall flat on its face due to the actions of a few. In addition, as I mentioned above, the appearance of some aggressive bullies in the rescue world put everyone else off wanting to work alongside them, or to be associated with them.

So the only way it could work is if it's official, if there are measures put in place at departmental level, and if inspections are unannounced, by an independent expert. The problem remains though, that dogs are way, way too easy to hide, and once again I'm led back to the same conclusion I've been coming to for years when the sh!te hits the fan in dog-dom...
Every single dog must be traceable.
The Department of Agriculture are not perfect, but they are pretty damn good at installing traceability systems for animals, and some rescues have been calling for the same to be done for dogs for years.
As it stands, the odd thing is that the best thing that could happen to dog welfare, at an official level at least, would be if we were to start eating dogs!
Microchipping is going to become obligatory, certainly a step in the right direction.
However, and this has already been identified above, whilst it all looks good on paper, the practicality of carrying it all out is going to be extremely difficult in light of the lack of staffing and public sector recruitment embargoes, lack of available public funding, and serious lack of political will.

Dyr

Hmmm..... I seem to remember EGAR posting here to the effect that they wouldn't rehome in council housing areas etc. Interesting development

boomerang

Whispered wrote: »

Could it work if every dog taken in was registered? Inspectors can randomly ask about x or y dog and be updated on it's whereabouts and current health. If the inspector calls to fosterer an all is not as it should be, the repercussions would be for the rescue. Making rescues responsible for their fosterers?

I think all rescues are obliged by law to report any stray dogs coming into their care either to their local garda station or local authority pound?

Whispered

And are they noted? Like if nobody comes forward to claim, do those rescues have to let the authorities know they have rehomed, or can they then do what they want with them?

So as DBB points out the idea of an association wouldn't work which is a pity because I can't see anything official being done (or at least adequately enforced).

I wonder if the registration of every dog be enforced, are we light-years away from that scenario?

oppenheimer1

What I've found the most amazing about this whole saga is the politics of animal rescue. While i know there's a few holier than thou types in it, i could never have imagined it was so bitchy.

Here was me thinking they were all on the same team.

DBB

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Here was me thinking they were all on the same team.

Again, allow me to reiterate... many rescues work together perfectly well, and are on the same team.
Then there are some who are unbelievably bitchy, they scream the loudest, and as a result all rescues get tarred with the one brush. That's just not fair.

John_Rambo

Well at least there are individuals involved on here admitting that that is the case. Surely that's the start of the cure?

Magenta

John_Rambo wrote: »

Well at least there are individuals involved on here admitting that that is the case. Surely that's the start of the cure?

The ones who are bitchy probably think it's everyone else that's the problem.

Pretzill

John_Rambo wrote: »

Well at least there are individuals involved on here admitting that that is the case. Surely that's the start of the cure?

The start of the cure is leglislation - education - responsible animal ownership - ending puppy farms and a general civic and civilised behaviour towards domestic animals - A utopian ideal I know. But we wouldn't need rescues if animals were treated properly. I didn't know the rescue involved in this case - it didn't even occur to me that some rescues bicker - but I would imagine all who contribute to this forum know the basics of animal welfare both wild and domestic. We need more public dicussions and light shed in this area in this country for starters.

doubter

Pretzill wrote: »

The start of the cure is leglislation - education - responsible animal ownership - ending puppy farms and a general civic and civilised behaviour towards domestic animals - A utopian ideal I know. But we wouldn't need rescues if animals were treated properly. I didn't know the rescue involved in this case - it didn't even occur to me that some rescues bicker - but I would imagine all who contribute to this forum know the basics of animal welfare both wild and domestic. We need more public dicussions and light shed in this area in this country for starters.

I don't think it's an Utopian idea as it's done extremely well in countries like the Netherlands fore instance.
And I mus say, I read an account earlier from one of the owners of the 6 dogs taken from EGAR and every bit of understanding has evaporated after that.
The dog was initially adopted through Egar, it didn't work out, EGAR insisted the dog to be brought back to them. 7 month later he was discovered in a totally emaciated state.this was total and intolerable cruelty.it is on the page that I shared earlier. :mad:

Frigga_92

Thanks DBB for that link.
It makes me very angry to see the amount of money EGAR received from our government and on top of that there was probably lots of donations and the dogs were allowed to live and die in that condition.

As I said on another thread about this, this may be the first time she was caught, she may have received warnings before, authorities may not have followed up on her in the past, complaints may not have been investigated, maybe this was the last straw, maybe she was just lucky in the past, maybe whoever investigated her that lead to this discovery was more determined than previous investigators. It's hard to know.
As an animal lover, as a pet owner, I find it so hard to get my head around this. I know there is a difference between the relationship someone like me has with their pets and the relationship someone who works with animals would have with them but I can't imagine allowing that to happen and ignoring it.
Someone else pointed out that these dogs were discovered at a previous address of hers which is hardly surprising. She obviously wouldn't have seen these dogs everyday (which is wrong on many levels) so I suppose that made it easier for her to ignore it.

She is someone who should never work with animals again. She allowed those dogs to suffer and die and has showed no remorse and has only sought to anger people further in her attempt to get the dogs back.
You don't change overnight from a caring person to someone who allows animals to suffer and die.

snoman

DBB wrote: »

You have totally missed my point, and I'm not judging you.. wherever you got that idea from I don't know.
My point is that people tend to assume that just because someone runs a rescue, and takes in poorly treated dogs, that they're somehow above reproach, and people pay donations, donate beds and food, foster, and do transport for them, without actually making sure that everything is what they think it is.
I am not prepared to tell anyone what I know in this public forum, because I have already been at the receiving end of Sarah Gunther's vitriol, from many years ago too... It's nothing new.She tried to do me a lot of harm and was banned from several websites for so doing. But that's not my point here.
My point is as above. There's no smoke without fire. I'm just asking people not to be naive, and not make assumptions that all rescues are to be trusted unless they're more aware of the facts. That is not being judgemental.


Edited to add: sorry snoman, I've since seen your post where you felt what you said sounded harsh, and that is, I'll admit, how I read it! Sorry! :-)

.... and I suppose that I felt that what you were implying is that there was a lot that you knew, but couldn't say, but that we should take it as read.....

I do know about this charity, as it happens. I got my older girl there. I visited Sarah twice at her home and definitely felt that she had poor social skills, but I liked her. This was at her old premises, where these dogs were found. It was primitive and basic, and she lived on site, about to move to her new premises. The dogs were all healthy (to look at) but housed in horse boxes etc.

My dog, Lola, had a lot of vet work done on her prior to me adopting her and was clearly very fond of Sarah and vice versa. However as we were leaving I can remember saying to a friend of mine that there was a fine line between rescuing and hoarding.

I get the feeling that she rubbed everyone up the wrong way and definitely that people have had their suspicions for a long time that she was not treating the animals properly? Obviously she can never again keep animals, there is no way back, I just wonder did her personality perhaps inhibit people from reporting their suspicions officially earlier?

John_Rambo

26sdrawkcab wrote: »

You don't change overnight from a caring person to someone who allows animals to suffer and die.

People can change massively over a short space of time. I had an injury a few years ago and turned in to a very different person when I went off my pain killers. Doing my best to respect anniehoo's Mod Note on post number 87.

Sittingpretty

I've also had interaction with Sarah.

Most definitely not a people person, but a lot of people in animal rescue aren't.

I did however think that the welfare of her animals was paramount which is why I'm so very shocked by this story.

doubter

snoman wrote: »

.... and I suppose that I felt that what you were implying is that there was a lot that you knew, but couldn't say, but that we should take it as read.....

I do know about this charity, as it happens. I got my older girl there. I visited Sarah twice at her home and definitely felt that she had poor social skills, but I liked her. This was at her old premises, where these dogs were found. It was primitive and basic, and she lived on site, about to move to her new premises. The dogs were all healthy (to look at) but housed in horse boxes etc.

My dog, Lola, had a lot of vet work done on her prior to me adopting her and was clearly very fond of Sarah and vice versa. However as we were leaving I can remember saying to a friend of mine that there was a fine line between rescuing and hoarding.

I get the feeling that she rubbed everyone up the wrong way and definitely that people have had their suspicions for a long time that she was not treating the animals properly? Obviously she can never again keep animals, there is no way back, I just wonder did her personality perhaps inhibit people from reporting their suspicions officially earlier?

No one denies she's done good. But, having read accounts of the dogs that were seized, when and in which state they came to EGAR, this went on for at least 6 month.One of the dogs seized was her own wolf hybrid Chieftain.Another dog was adopted from her and returned a year later for behavioral issues after her insisting having him returned, even though the owner back than was willing to hold on to him until a new home with no other dogs would have been found.I am pretty sure those dogs where kept out off site.